Referral program update

Simple updates which made +30% viral users and -30% of customer acquisition cost.

Aug, 2023
3 min read

Fitmost is a service for booking sports activities, beauty, and wellness procedures in just couple of clicks. It operates on a subscription model, with one subscription offering access to over 3000+ locations across the whole country.

In early 2023, a hypothesis emerged that the trial period was not beneficial for the business, as the cost of attracting new users was increasing, and the conversion rate to purchasing a subscription was not high enough. Additionally, it was a loophole for fraudsters, as the high subscription cost led to users frequently contacting support after their free trial period ended.

Not a great situation, so my team conducted an A/B test of the trial period, and here’s what we found: the trial period had no impact on conversion rates, with users purchasing subscriptions at the same rate, regardless of whether they had access to a trial period or not.

Shocking! It turned out that we could remove the trial period and eliminate all the negative aspects it had. And what we found out:

Users stopped contacting support, as they started paying for subscriptions directly, now this happens intentionally, but without free credits.
Frauds no longer had the opportunity to receive free credits.
The Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) significantly decreased, freeing up money that needs to be allocated.

Solution

We have several sources of new users: organic traffic, paid acquisition, and corporate clients. The last option is the referral program, which had become dull due to its monotony. The discount for the first month for a friend only benefits the friend, not the referrer, and the invite link can expire, leaving the friend without bonuses. Despite the minuses of such an implementation, analytics shows good results that can be improved.

From Amplitude and support feedback, we understood what to improve:

Replace the invite link with a promo code, so there’s no chance of losing the invitation and being left without a link.
Increase the touchpoints between the user and the referral program.
New conditions: give 15 points to the user for each friend who signs up for Fithmost with a discount, applied after using a personal promo code. We leave the freed-up CAC.

After the release, the conversion rate in the referral program grew by 100%+ Such a great result was achieved thanks to advertising, but the new conditions still show great results.

To consolidate the result and let the referral program float freely, we can mention it in places where users interact most frequently, such as the class page and the success booking screen.

This gives a plus to promo code sharing (30%), and activation rates are also growing. The new referral program has minimally changed externally, but the new conditions and touchpoints on the user’s path have given a significant boost to this source of new users.