Research Outline

Successful referral program case studies

Goals

To gain case studies of successful referral programs for financial services and/or retirement planning companies.

Early Findings

  • It's estimated around 30% of banks and credit unions in North America have some sort of referral program.
  • Amplifinity offers a robust case study of a bank that successfully implemented an incentive-based referral program to gain new customers. This bank lowered its CAC, increased ROI and lowered overall marketing spend.
  • SAASQuatch gives several quality referral programs to research and model after. Some examples are from Tangerine Bank (digital bank), Wealthfront (investment platform), Questrade (brokerage), American Express (credit card), Chase Bank (traditional bank) and Robinhood (trading platform). They all imply different methods of attractive customer referrals - CTAs, emails, native ads and more.
  • The Financial Brand has some best practices when setting up an FI referral program.
  • Betterment, who offer retirement planning as part of its investment platform, offer a referral program that gives free months when referring customers.
  • Another example is a local firm, Retirement Planning Partners, who offer a gift for every customer referred. Customers are incentivized to refer more people to collect a full set of wine glasses with decanter.
  • Equity Trust offers a $50 gift card for each referral, up to $500 per year. Clients are given a special link to share on social media (or manually) that tracks these referrals.