For most ecommerce brands, paid advertising used to be the go-to for customer acquisition. But as ad costs continue to climb and returns get harder to justify, relying solely on paid channels is no longer sustainable.

Tailored Athlete, a premium menswear brand, felt this pressure but learnt how to solve it. Despite having a loyal customer base and a highly shareable product, their first attempt at a referral program didn’t drive results. Initially built on Stamped.io, the program struggled with poor usability, low engagement, and almost no measurable impact.

So they pulled the plug and went back to the drawing board. What followed was a complete overhaul. With Social Snowball, Tailored Athlete launched a referral engine designed for performance, integrated directly into the post-purchase flow, incentivized with cash payouts, and automated end-to-end to eliminate friction.

The results were immediate:

• 444% increase in referral revenue after replacing their old program.
• 10x ROI compared to what they spent to run the program.
• Lower customer acquisition costs than any other paid or organic channel.

“We had a look at quite a few options after we shut down our program with Stamped. In terms of pricing, Social Snowball was more competitive when compared to the other big names out there and offered important functionality that was impossible to find elsewhere.”

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Casey Parram, Head of Marketing at Tailored Athlete

About the brand

Tailored Athlete is a UK-based menswear brand built for athletic physiques. Founded in 2016, the company set out to solve a common pain point: most dress clothes don’t fit muscular men properly. 

With precision tailoring, high-quality fabrics, and a focus on performance-driven design, Tailored Athlete has become the go-to clothing brand for athletes who want to look sharp without compromising on fit or comfort.

Challenges: High ad costs, low referral returns, and zero momentum

Tailored Athlete knew they needed to diversify beyond paid ads. Costs were rising fast, and results were getting harder to predict. But their first attempt to build a referral program left them stuck with a system that simply didn’t work.

Here’s where things broke down:

• Paid ads were no longer reliable: The brand had relied heavily on paid ads to drive growth, but competition and costs had reached a tipping point. The return on ad spend was shrinking, and they needed a more sustainable acquisition channel.

“The increased cost of paid ads has forced us to innovate and diversify... anything we’ve been able to do that provides more consistency has really helped alleviate that pressure.”

• Their first referral program flopped: They tried to build a classic “refer-a-friend” program using Stamped.io, a popular loyalty platform. But the setup was complex, unintuitive, and glitchy for both the internal team and their customers.
  
  • The dashboard was difficult to navigate.
  • Referral links felt like an afterthought.
  • Customers rarely engaged with it.

Nothing about the program encouraged sharing, and it showed in the numbers. Activation was low, revenue was negligible, and the team eventually shut it down altogether.

“We were using Stamped, but it never took off. The interface was clunky and glitchy... nothing felt intuitive for our customers.”

• No way to turn happy customers into advocates: Tailored Athlete’s customers were loyal, vocal, and proud of their purchases. But without the right referral infrastructure in place, all that organic momentum went untapped. People wanted to share but they didn’t have a frictionless way to do it.

Solution: How Tailored Athlete turned referrals into a scalable growth channel

After their first referral program failed to gain traction, Tailored Athlete realized they needed a better system. With Social Snowball, the brand redesigned how referrals should work: frictionless, timely, and rewarding for everyone involved.

Here’s exactly how they did it and how you can apply the same approach to your brand.

Step 1: Turn every customer into an affiliate automatically

Instead of relying on clunky referral dashboards or making customers opt in manually, Tailored Athlete used Social Snowball’s post-purchase trigger to onboard customers as affiliates the moment they completed an order.

• Each customer automatically received a unique referral code after checkout.
• No sign-ups, no friction, no extra clicks.
• The code was delivered via email and shown on the confirmation page when customers were most likely to share.

“Turning customers into affiliates post-purchase has been super powerful. We're able to offer referral incentives right when customers are most excited to share.”

Step 2: Incentivize sharing with real cash, not just store credit

Unlike typical loyalty apps that pay out in discounts or points, Social Snowball gave Tailored Athlete the flexibility to offer rewards, allowing their affiliates to choose from 700+ payout options, including bank transfer, PayPal, Visa gift cards, and even Starbucks or Amazon gift cards

This wide range of cash-based rewards made it easy (and motivating) for customers to keep referring.

“Being able to offer seamless cash incentives—which most other apps don’t—significantly improved our affiliate activation and retention.”

Step 3: Build referral touchpoints into the customer journey

Rather than treating referrals as an afterthought, Tailored Athlete made it part of the experience. They used built-in communication touchpoints (post-purchase emails, landing pages, and in-account reminders) to keep the referral offer front and center.

They didn’t wait for shoppers to remember they had a code. They placed the referral opportunity on touchpoints where shoppers were already engaged.

Here’s why it worked:

• Customers saw their referral info while they were still excited.
• The offer felt like a thank-you, not a sales push.
• Activation rates increased across the board.

Step 4: Stay close to the numbers and the customer

Unlike their previous platform, Social Snowball gave the Tailored Athlete team full visibility into performance, along with responsive customer support when needed. They even integrated Social Snowball’s CS team within their Slack, so that any issues or questions were addressed in real-time.

“Having the team in Slack and everyone being super responsive was a game changer for us.”

They also tracked affiliate activation rates, payout redemptions, and overall ROI, giving them data they could act on.

Results: 444% more referral revenue at 10x ROI

Switching to Social Snowball transformed Tailored Athlete’s referral experience into a consistent, high-performing acquisition channel. Within just a few months, the brand saw a measurable lift across revenue, customer activation, and cost efficiency:

• Referral revenue increased by 444% compared to their previous program.
• Over 10x ROI on what they spent to run the referral engine.
• Lower CAC than any other paid or organic channel they use.

With referrals now embedded post-purchase and automated end-to-end, the program continues to scale without added complexity or team overhead.

“If you look at the ROI from what we’re paying to acquire these customers, it far exceeds any other channel that we are using.”

Ready to turn loyal customers into growth channels?

Most ecommerce brands know referrals can drive more sales, but legacy tools and clunky setups often get in the way. From a poor UX and low activation to a lack of automation, a broken referral system leaves revenue on the table.

By building a seamless, automated referral engine that activates customers at the right moment and rewards them in the right way, you can turn word-of-mouth into a predictable, profitable growth lever.

With tools like Social Snowball, ecommerce teams can:

• Embed referral touchpoints post-purchase to catch customers at peak excitement.
• Automate affiliate activation, tracking, and payouts.
• Offer flexible cash rewards to drive ongoing engagement.