Guide to customer advocacy programs: What they are and how to use them
By Laura Ojeda Melchor●7 min. read●Jun 23, 2025
Happy customers can be your most valuable brand advocates. Have you ever seen people gush about a product or company on social media just because they had a good experience?
These organic moments are opportunities to build something more strategic: a customer advocacy program.
Unlike paid advertising, customer advocacy leverages personal stories to drive business results traditional marketing can’t easily achieve. Turning customer advocacy into an official program lets you harness customers’ enthusiasm and use it to your advantage.
But first, you need to know what an effective customer advocacy program looks like and common mistakes to avoid.
What is a customer advocacy program?
A customer advocacy program is a structured way to identify your happiest, most loyal customers and reward them for promoting your brand.
It’s a bit like a referral program, but rather than focusing only on referrals, a customer advocacy strategy can take several different forms. Think of it as an umbrella term that covers referral programs as well as other marketing incentives.
Some types of consumer advocacy you can use to promote your brand include:
Testimonials and reviews
Case studies
Social shares and user-generated content (UGC)
Referrals
Event participation, like brand-hosted panels and webinars
Brands often back customer advocacy programs with incentives for their participants. But the best programs strike a balance between incentivizing customers and promoting authenticity.
Offering rewards like gift cards can be effective, but it’s important to keep genuine enthusiasm and positive experiences at the core of the program. After all, your goal isn't to buy praise. It's to create opportunities for brand ambassadors to share their experiences in a way that feels natural and rewarding.
With thoughtfully designed incentives, you can build lasting relationships with your customer base without compromising credibility.
Why customer advocacy matters in 2025
When a customer champions your brand, you gain something incredibly valuable: social proof. In 2025, people’s attention spans are more saturated than ever before. Social proof is still one of the best ways to break through the noise and widen your pool of potential customers.
In an original study published in Frontiers in Psychology, researchers ran two experiments to test how Facebook likes and comments influenced Dutch shoppers’ decisions when buying organic food.
The results are fascinating, but here’s the key takeaway for marketers: the number of Facebook likes didn’t significantly impact purchasing behavior.
What did? The clarity and perceived helpfulness of the comments.
The more useful and trustworthy the comments were, the more they influenced users’ emotions and decisions.
For brands, this valuable insight highlights the importance of cultivating strong, authentic customer advocacy in 2025 and beyond.
How to create a client advocacy program
Ready to use consumer advocacy to your advantage? Here’s how to structure a program around your most satisfied customers.
1. Set goals and timelines
Each customer advocacy initiative should begin with clear goals.
First, figure out what you want the program to achieve. A few potential goals to consider:
Get more referrals
Gather testimonials to feature on your website and marketing materials
Increase user-generated content on social media platforms
Create powerful case studies
Gain more customer feedback
Build trust
Pick three to five goals and document them in an easy-to-find place.
Then, map out the actions you’ll take and the touchpoints you’ll use to hit those goals. Plan when you'll reach out to your advocates, what recognition you'll give at which stages, and which incentives you'll offer over the course of the program.
You can use a map, a chart, or a table — whatever works for you.
Staying organized is helpful for multiple reasons:
Maintaining momentum with steady engagement instead of one-off asks
Promoting across multiple advocates to keep all of them equally involved
Tracking your program's performance and adjusting it over time
This is also a perfect time to set up a smooth and affordable incentive strategy.
Figure out how many customer advocates you can afford, both time and budget-wise, to give recognition and rewards to.
Stay within guardrails that fit your budget and your capacity. It’s often best to start with a small, engaged group and grow from there.
2. Find out who your advocates are
Now it’s time to find your happiest and most enthusiastic customers. These will be your customer advocates.
If you send out net promoter score (NPS) surveys, start compiling a list of the respondents who’ve rated your brand a nine or 10 on the scale. These are your promoters. They’re the most vocal supporters of your brand.
You can also find potential advocates through other channels:
Social media mentions
Positive reviews
Customer success stories
Feedback from customer support or sales teams
The tricky thing is, you're not only looking for happy customers, you're also looking for customers who are willing to support your brand publicly. It’s next-level customer engagement, and not every satisfied customer is going to want to take this step. Your job is to identify the ones who do.
3. Reach out to your list of potential advocates
Here’s how you can reach out to the people on your list.
Have someone on your marketing or customer success team contact advocates personally via email or direct message. Keep the tone warm and grateful, and be crystal-clear about why you're reaching out.
The following structure works well:
Thank the customer for their support or feedback.
Acknowledge their value. The more specific, the better.
Invite them to participate in a specific project, like a case study, referral program, or testimonial.
Offer something of value in return. This could be simple, like early access to a new feature. Or, this could be something with monetary value, like a gift card.
Customer advocacy program template
Hi [Name], I'm a [Role] at [Company]. I noticed your amazing feedback and wanted to say thank you. Your kind words made our whole team smile, and we've put [your tips/advice/feedback] into practice in [x ways]. It's feedback like yours that helps us put our best products forward.
I'm reaching out because at [Company], we're putting together a group of customers who love what we do, and we’d love to include you. In return, we’ll offer early access to new features, sneak peeks, and a few small rewards along the way.
Just reply to this email if you're in, and we’ll share next steps. Thanks again for your support. It means a lot!
P.S. If you join, we’ll send over a small thank-you gift as a token of appreciation.
Pro tip: This token could be something like a $15 discount code for your store or product.
4. Measure your program’s success and optimize it
Regularly review how well your client advocacy program is working. Take a look at your goals and use them to identify key metrics:
Number of referrals
New reviews
Number of social shares
Repeat purchases
You can also measure the impact a bit farther downstream. Are advocates' case studies helping close deals faster? Are their stories encouraging conversations about your brand?
Qualitative feedback from your participants matters, too. Ask your advocates how they feel about the program, what they enjoy, and what could be improved.
Use your customer advocates’ input to refine the experience, streamline processes, and offer better incentives.
Benefits of a customer advocacy program
When done carefully with plenty of planning, consumer advocacy programs are a real asset.
Stronger brand loyalty: Advocates feel more connected to your brand when they’re invited to contribute, are recognized publicly, or get meaningful rewards. This loyalty often means longer customer lifespans and more organic, word-of-mouth marketing.
Lower acquisition costs: It’s more cost-effective to encourage advocacy from existing customers than to use paid ads to gain new ones. This translates into lower CAC for brands.
Increased customer trust: Real stories from real users carry more weight than polished brand messaging. With an advocacy program, you don't just get testimonials, reviews, and UGC. You also get strengthened credibility and trust from future customers.
Common mistakes to avoid with consumer advocacy marketing
When setting up your consumer advocacy program, steer clear of these common pitfalls:
Murky criteria: If recognition or rewards feel arbitrary, some of your client advocates might feel overlooked — or worse, resentful. Set clear expectations and communicate about who qualifies for what and why.
Treating all advocates the same: While fairness is essential, personalization also matters. Offering the exact same incentive to everyone, regardless of impact level, can feel generic. Keep the criteria for incentives consistent, but make sure you tap into your customer advocates' unique strengths.
Focusing only on rewards: Don’t rely exclusively on incentives. Recognition, early access to products, and belonging to a community offer value as well.
Overlooking legal or compliance issues: If you’re offering rewards, make sure you follow all the relevant tax, privacy, and disclosure regulations. This is especially important when you're using testimonials or customer data in marketing.
Neglecting to follow up: A quick thank-you or check-in, even after recognition or an incentive have been given, is key. You want your advocates to feel appreciated over time, whether they are active advocates or not.
Not tracking impact: Without metrics, it’s hard to know what’s working or how to improve what isn't.
Examples of brands that with effective advocacy programs
Dropbox's consumer advocacy program turns happy customers into Dropbox Champions. Customers can sign up to become a Champion via a dedicated landing page.
The program is simple, fair, and clear.
And then there’s Notion, a once-humble startup that now competes with the biggest players in the productivity software space.
In 2018, before the platform got as popular as it is now, Notion launched its grassroots Ambassador Program with a small group of superfans that were already promoting Notion through workshops, content, and community-building.
Notion scaled the program into a global network of passionate advocates who help organically grow the brand's reach.
These two examples of advocacy programs are different: one of them is rooted in a points-based rewards system and the other one is rooted in community. Yet, both of these programs work.
Your consumer advocacy program will have its own flavor and texture, but following the setup guidelines will help get you started.
These two examples of advocacy programs are different: one of them is rooted in a points-based rewards system and the other one is rooted in community. Yet, both of these programs work.
Your consumer advocacy program will have its own flavor and texture, but following the setup guidelines will help get you started.
Key takeaways
Customer advocacy is a powerful, structured way to grow your brand. Happy customers can be your best marketers when you support them with recognition and incentives.
The most effective programs start small, stay organized, and make relationships key. Set clear goals, identify your most engaged users, and give your customer advocates meaningful ways to participate.
Authenticity and clarity matter more than flashy rewards. Whether you're building a community like Notion or using a points-based system like Dropbox, success comes from fairness, transparency, and making advocates feel deeply valued.
