How Toki Mats Turned Customers Into Loyal Brand Advocates With the Help of ReferralCandy

Success story in a nutshell

• Referral rate: 12-month average 12.04% and at peak 16.81%‍
• Referral revenue: Toki Mats generated $517,960 in referral revenue‍
• Return on investment (ROI): The affiliate program generated 41x ROI

The story of Toki Mats

Toki Mats is an e-commerce brand that specializes in selling high-quality, stylish, and non-toxic play mats and other items for babies and toddlers. 

As a new mom, Toki Mats founderEli had a long list of things to buy, and a play mat was at the top of the list. Living in Israel, she found a custom play mat in Tel Aviv that every mom raved about, and she brought it along with her when her family relocated to California. 

Two years later, with her second baby on the way, Eli was unable to find anything similar to that play mat in the US. She decided to use her family leave to launch Toki Mats, dedicating her time to developing a stylish and non-toxic play mat that she, as a mom, would want for her baby.

Since its inception, Toki Mats has built a loyal customer base. To add more value for their customers, they started an affiliate program with ReferralCandy.

Toki Mats initially sold only play mats, but more recently, they have expanded their product offerings to include play cushions, blankets, pillows, bean bags, covers, and more.

Toki Mats’ program gives 10% of the friend’s purchase amount as a cash reward to affiliates, while referred friends get 15% off their first purchase.

Why did Toki Mats turn to affiliate marketing?

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“When Eli first started Toki Mats, she targeted first-time and eco-conscious moms looking for high-quality products for their babies. Eli started Toki’s Instagram account before the official launch and grew its following organically from there, which helped us get started.”
- Rebecca, Business Manager at Toki Mats

From the beginning of its growing social media following, Toki Mats gained many loyal brand ambassadors who raved about the brand and shared their love of its play mats. Toki Mats wanted a way for these enthusiastic supporters to earn while they shared their experiences. 

It was a seamless decision to turn to affiliate marketing, as it allowed us to activate the amazing community of moms who already believed in and shared Toki Mats products.

“Affiliate programs have allowed us to activate our amazing community of moms who love Toki Mats to become ambassadors for the brand. No matter the size of their social following, we want to celebrate every connection that our Toki Moms make for us, and ReferralCandy has allowed us to do just that.”
- Devan, Fractional CMO at Toki Mats

Toki Mats’ team mentions that ReferralCandy enables them to celebrate every customer connection by turning organic sharing into a rewarding experience.

The affiliate program approach: ReferralCandy and its automation capabilities do the heavy lifting

“We selected ReferralCandy over the competition because of the positive reviews and recommendations from similar brands that we trust.”
- Eli, the founder of Toki Mats

From the beginning, the Toki Mats team placed a lot of emphasis on automation, which is one of ReferralCandy's primary functions. The Toki Mats team uses the Klaviyo integration with ReferralCandy to notify customers automatically through emails about their affiliate program.

“The Klaviyo and ReferralCandy integration has been set up once and runs smoothly without any issues. One of our email flows includes ReferralCandy promotion, which works well for us.”
- Rebecca, Business Manager at Toki Mats

ReferralCandy integrates with all the major ecommerce platforms, like Shopify, as well as various marketing tools, such as Klaviyo, which Toki Mats uses. ReferralCandy’s other automation features, such as its data-driven insights, ready-to-use templates, and affiliate landing pages, have also been helpful for their team.

Outside of email marketing, Toki Mats uses two other ways to promote its affiliate program.

They promote the affiliate program and provide sign-up links on Instagram, where they have a large following. 

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Additionally, Toki Mats has a Facebook community group, which is a space for like-minded moms to share ideas about Toki Mats. They promote their affiliate program within this group and encourage moms to join it.

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Whenever the Toki Mats team faces any problems, ReferralCandy’s support team provides immediate assistance.

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The results: Using ReferralCandy to run an affiliate program

As a result of using ReferralCandy to build its affiliate program as well as having great products, Toki Mats has generated $517,960 in referral revenue, and the affiliate program has had a 41X return on investment (ROI). 

Toki Mats has achieved an average referral rate of 12.04% over a 12-month period, which is 5x times higher than the industry average of 2.35%. 

The high ROI is the result of combining the right messaging with an effective affiliate program, like ReferralCandy. The affiliate program led to a significant increase in revenue and a more loyal customer base.

If you want to use ReferralCandy to launch your own affiliate or referral program, you can take advantage of the available 14-day free trial.