What are the best customer advocacy software?

Customer advocacy software helps businesses identify, engage, and mobilize their most satisfied customers to become advocates for their brand. These advocates can provide testimonials, reviews, referrals, social shares, case studies, and more.

The "best" software often depends on your specific needs, budget, and business model (B2B vs. B2C, enterprise vs. SMB). However, here are some of the top contenders known for their robust features and effectiveness:

## Top Customer Advocacy Software

1. **Influitive**

* **Overview:** Often considered the pioneer and leader in the customer advocacy space. Influitive's AdvocateHub platform is designed to create engaging experiences for advocates through challenges, gamification, and rewards.

* **Key Features:** Gamified challenges, personalized experiences, robust reward system, social sharing, review generation, referral tracking, content syndication, community building, detailed analytics.

* **Best For:** B2B companies, especially those with complex sales cycles, looking to build a strong, engaged community of advocates for a wide range of activities.

* **Pros:** Very comprehensive, highly engaging for advocates, excellent for driving diverse advocacy actions.

* **Cons:** Can be a significant investment, requires dedicated management to maximize its potential.

2. **Gainsight Advocate Hub (formerly Aptrinsic)**

* **Overview:** Part of the broader Gainsight Customer Success platform, Advocate Hub focuses on leveraging customer success data to identify and engage advocates. It's deeply integrated with the customer journey.

* **Key Features:** Advocate identification based on customer health scores, personalized advocacy asks, content sharing, review generation, reference management, testimonials, integration with CRM and CS platforms.

* **Best For:** B2B companies already using Gainsight for customer success, or those looking for a tightly integrated advocacy solution that leverages customer data.

* **Pros:** Seamless integration with customer success, data-driven advocate identification, strong for reference management.

* **Cons:** May be less focused on pure gamification than Influitive, primarily B2B-oriented.

3. **Ambassador**

* **Overview:** While often highlighted for its referral marketing capabilities, Ambassador is a powerful platform that extends to broader customer advocacy, affiliate, and partner programs.

* **Key Features:** Customizable referral programs, multi-channel sharing, robust tracking and analytics, fraud detection, automated payouts, advocate segmentation, campaign management.

* **Best For:** Businesses (B2B and B2C) primarily focused on driving referrals, but also want to manage other advocacy efforts like testimonials and social sharing.

* **Pros:** Highly flexible and customizable, excellent for managing various types of advocate programs, strong analytics.

* **Cons:** Can be more complex to set up for basic advocacy needs if referrals aren't the primary focus.

4. **Extole**

* **Overview:** Similar to Ambassador, Extole is an enterprise-grade referral marketing platform that also supports broader advocacy initiatives. It's known for its flexibility and ability to handle complex programs.

* **Key Features:** Highly customizable referral programs, fraud prevention, A/B testing, personalized experiences, robust analytics, integration with major marketing and e-commerce platforms.

* **Best For:** Large enterprises (B2C and B2B) with sophisticated referral and advocacy needs, requiring deep customization and integration.

* **Pros:** Enterprise-ready, highly scalable, powerful customization and testing capabilities.

* **Cons:** Can be expensive, might be overkill for smaller businesses.

5. **Yotpo**

* **Overview:** While primarily known for user-generated content (UGC) like reviews and ratings, Yotpo has expanded into loyalty, referrals, and SMS marketing, making it a comprehensive advocacy tool, especially for e-commerce.

* **Key Features:** Reviews & ratings, Q&A, visual UGC, loyalty programs, referral programs, SMS marketing, AI-powered insights.

* **Best For:** E-commerce and DTC brands looking to leverage UGC, reviews, and loyalty programs to drive advocacy and sales.

* **Pros:** All-in-one solution for UGC, loyalty, and referrals; strong for e-commerce, easy to integrate.

* **Cons:** Less focused on the "challenge" and "gamification" aspects of pure advocacy platforms, more geared towards transactional advocacy.

6. **Friendbuy**

* **Overview:** A powerful referral marketing platform that helps brands acquire new customers through word-of-mouth. It's designed for high-growth e-commerce and subscription businesses.

* **Key Features:** Customizable referral widgets, A/B testing, fraud detection, robust analytics, integration with e-commerce platforms (Shopify, Magento, etc.) and CRMs.

* **Best For:** E-commerce and subscription businesses looking for a dedicated, high-performance referral program to drive customer acquisition.

* **Pros:** Excellent for e-commerce, strong A/B testing and optimization features, good analytics.

* **Cons:** More specialized in referrals than broader advocacy activities.

## Key Factors to Consider When Choosing:

* **Your Goals:** Are you primarily looking for referrals, reviews, social shares, testimonials, case studies, or a combination?

* **Business Model (B2B vs. B2C):** Some platforms are better suited for the longer sales cycles and relationship-building of B2B, while others excel in the transactional nature of B2C.

* **Budget:** Pricing varies significantly, from SMB-friendly options to enterprise-level investments.

* **Integrations:** Does it integrate with your existing CRM, marketing automation, e-commerce platform, and customer success tools?

* **Ease of Use:** How easy is it for your team to manage and for your advocates to participate?

* **Scalability:** Can the platform grow with your advocacy program?

* **Gamification & Engagement:** How important are features like challenges, points, badges, and leaderboards for motivating your advocates?

* **Reporting & Analytics:** Can you track the ROI and impact of your advocacy efforts?

Before making a decision, it's highly recommended to get demos from a few top contenders and compare their features, pricing, and how well they align with your specific advocacy strategy.