Customer advocacy software, often referred to as referral marketing or advocacy marketing software, helps companies identify and engage loyal customers who can advocate for their brand, products, or services. Organizations use these tools to turn positive customer experiences into genuine endorsements that build credibility and attract new business. Customer advocates are rewarded for sharing their anecdotal evidence about their experiences and attract new customers via referrals, word-of-mouth, reviews, testimonials, and other advocacy activities. Customer advocacy software programs help facilitate that sharing process. Additionally, the software identifies potential advocates, invites them to participate, and measures the impact of their customer advocacy on revenue.
Customer advocacy platforms are used across a wide range of industries to serve different customer types. Advocacy programs are typically built for business advocates (B2B), consumer advocates (B2C), or both to support customer marketing. B2B programs often identify champions among existing customer accounts and CRM contacts to contribute customer evidence, support sales opportunities, and strengthen customer relationships. B2C programs encourage consumers to participate in referrals, recommendations, and social sharing to build brand awareness and drive sales. Across both types of programs, these platforms help marketing and sales teams reward customers through incentives such as gift cards, points, product discounts, or exclusive brand experiences. They also provide tools to track program performance and maintain relationships with advocates.
To qualify for inclusion in the Customer Advocacy category, a product must:
- Provide features to identify, recruit, and organize customers as brand advocates or create referral programs to drive sales
- Enable customer advocacy activities such as referrals, reviews, testimonials, or sales references
- Allow marketing or sales teams to share referral links, content, or marketing materials with customer advocates
- Provide reporting to track customer advocacy outcomes, such as referral conversions, attributed sales revenue, social engagement, or advocate leaderboards
Brand advocacy software tends to focus on either customer advocacy or employee advocacy, although there are a number of products that provide platforms for engaging both employees and customers. Customer advocacy platforms often have loyalty management features to further reward loyal customers and additional features that include affiliate marketing for additional referral tracking and influencer marketing platforms.
