Referral marketing is proven to work—but how you position it can be the difference between under 1% of bookings and 3–10% conversion.
A double-sided referral offer is particularly effective, as it incentivises both parties:
The referrer for sharing
The friend for completing their entry
1. Check Your Referral Proposition
Before promoting your scheme, ensure the offer is compelling and clearly communicated. Ask yourself:
Is the incentive valuable enough to motivate sharing?
Does it reward both the referrer and the friend?
👉 Refer to our guide on creating a referral scheme for best-practice recommendations.
2. Make Your Referral Scheme More Visible
Entry Confirmation Email
We know how powerful referrals can be. That’s why, by default, all entry confirmation emails include a shareable link to your event page—even if you haven’t enabled referral incentives.
However, the default link appears with minimal context. Therefore to increase engagement, we strongly recommend adding 1–2 personalised sentences, for example:
Encouragement to share:
“You’re in! Why not invite your friends and family to join you?” or “Share the below discount code with friends and family”
Clear explanation of the reward:
“As a thank you, anyone you refer will get £X off their entry, and you’ll receive £X credit for every successful referral to use on a future event.”
Once your referral scheme is enabled:
Each participant receives a unique referral URL
The same link can be shared and used multiple times
3. FAQs and Help Content
Recommended FAQs to include:
Do you offer a refer-a-friend scheme?
How does the referral process work?
Do I need an account to refer someone?
What happens if my friend doesn’t use my link?
👉 Reference the Refer a Friend FAQs (coming soon) and the Creating an Account After Registration FAQ (live).
4. Promote Referrals via Email Marketing
Participants love talking about the events and challenges they’ve signed up for—and often want friends to join them for training, motivation, or shared travel.
Take advantage of this by reminding them they can be rewarded for spreading the word.
While referral messaging can be added to existing campaigns, we recommend sending a short, dedicated email focused entirely on the referral offer.
A ready-to-use template is available in the Email Marketing feature
Template reference: Campaign #3155
Remember to include the %Referral_Code% merge tag
5. Encourage Social Sharing
Keep the referral process simple and repeat it consistently. For example:
Enter the event and sign up for an account
Share the referral link from the confirmation email
Remind friends to complete their entry using that link (and not start a new session)
Share as many times as you like
Everyone benefits 🎉
6. Monitor Referral Performance
You can track referral activity at any time by navigating to:
Dashboard → All Sign Ups → Referrals
Here, you’ll be able to see:
Who is referring
How many sign-ups are generated
👉 For deeper insights, see the Reporting on Referrals section in the Setup Guide.