How Wing Assistant's affiliate program generated a 27.9x ROI using ReferralCandy

Success story in a nutshell

• Referral rate: 17.07%
• Referral revenue: Wing Assistant generated $78,413 in referral revenue
• Return on investment (ROI): The affiliate program generated 27.9x ROI

The story of Wing Assistant

Wing Assistant matches businesses with virtual assistants to handle admin tasks, such as managing calendars, responding to emails, and tracking expenses. The founders were initially faced with challenges in hiring quality talent within the U.S. on a bootstrap budget. 

To address this, they hired VAs from countries like the Philippines and India, where labour costs are lower but talent remains high. The solution they developed went beyond simply providing a marketplace for VAs; it became a fully managed service for small businesses and enterprises.

Wing Assistant was seeking new channels to acquire customers, so they turned to affiliate programs with the help of ReferralCandy.

Wing Assistant's affiliate program rewards all affiliates with $300+ per successful referral.

Why did Wing Assistant turn to affiliate marketing?

We were burning a lot of cash on Google Ads and thought there should be a better way. We began promoting our service through an affiliate program, which has proven to be one of the highest ROI marketing channels.

Kazi Hassan
Growth Marketer, Wing Assistant

Affiliate marketing hasn't been Wing Assistant’s main customer acquisition channel, but it has provided them with an amazing ROI. Wing Assistant spent a lot of time and money on Google Ads, so they looked for alternatives that could provide better results.

Wing Assistant began using ReferralCandy to increase word-of-mouth sales. While Wing Assistant started their affiliate program with an established customer base, small businesses with growing customer bases can also benefit from affiliate programs.

Why Wing Assistant choose ReferralCandy?

The bigger challenge for us was that we weren’t sure how to ask customers for referrals since most likely they wouldn’t do it for free. So, ReferralCandy enabled us to set up referral incentives so customers and their friends get rewarded for every successful referral.

Kazi Hassan
Growth Marketer, Wing Assistant

ReferralCandy gave Wing Assistant all the tools it needed to launch and manage an affiliate program.

In addition to the above, the other three reasons Wing Assistant chose ReferralCandy are:

• Simplicity: ReferralCandy gives you everything you need to launch an affiliate/referral program, yet it is simple to use. The landing page builder is intuitive, and you can email customers automatically about your affiliate program.
• Pricing: ReferralCandy is fairly priced, and all new customers get a 14-day free trial.
• A/B testing: With ReferralCandy, you can A/B test different variations of your landing pages and referral emails, which significantly boosts their performance.

Wing Assistant team also mentions that they have been able to push all referrals directly to Pipedrive, which has helped them track the ROI and streamline their processes.

Wing Assistant affiliate program approach: Earn $300+ with every new referral

Wing Assistant’s affiliate program rewards existing customers with $300+ for every successful referral. 

Not every company can offer such high rewards, but Wing Assistant is able to do so since their customer lifetime value is high. For this reason, it makes sense for them.

Wing Assistant used ReferralCandy to send referral emails to all new customers and entice them to join the program. 

All referrals get access to their own referral portal where they can share affiliate links, manage payouts, etc.

To provide answers to common questions customers may have about the affiliate program, Wing Assistant has created an FAQ section:

Once the affiliate program was set up, ReferralCandy was able to automate most of the maintenance work.

We spend maybe a day or two per month overseeing our affiliate program, which is far less than other marketing channels. We don't need to do more than that because of the way our channels are set up and ReferralCandy's automation capabilities.

Kazi Hassan
Growth Marketer, Wing Assistant

ReferralCandy’s automation capabilities help you automatically invite new customers and your existing email list, manage referral frauds, and track and reward successful referrals.

The results: Using ReferralCandy to run an affiliate program

Customer referral program is the biggest ROI you can get from any marketing channel..” Our client lifetime value is around $10,000, so for the subscription amount we pay ReferralCandy, our ROI is over 27x.

Kazi Hassan
Growth Marketer, Wing Assistant

Even if the affiliate/referral program wouldn’t be your primary customer acquisition channel, the ROI you get is amazing. This has also proven true for Wing Assistant, as they have achieved an ROI of 27.9x and generated over $70,000 in referral sales.

Wing Assistant's referral rate has been 17.07% on average, which is around 7x higher than the industry average.

If you also want to start a customer referral program to increase your word-of-mouth sales, try on ReferralCandy today with a 14-day free trial.