Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
OK, so I watched a SaaS founder spend six months building what they called a "customer advocacy program." Fancy dashboard, point systems, automated emails asking for reviews. The result? Three lukewarm testimonials and a bunch of annoyed customers.
The main issue I see is that most businesses treat customer advocacy like a marketing campaign instead of what it actually is - a byproduct of solving real problems. You know, they focus on getting customers to say nice things rather than giving customers something genuinely worth talking about.
Now, I'm not saying traditional advocacy programs are completely useless. But here's what I've learned from working with e-commerce stores and SaaS companies: the best advocates aren't the ones you ask to advocate. They're the ones who can't help but share because you've actually changed their business.
In this playbook, you'll learn:
Why most advocacy programs feel transactional (and how to fix it)
The cross-industry approach I discovered that actually works
How to build advocacy into your product experience, not bolt it on after
Real tactics that turn users into evangelists without asking them to be
When to invest in formal programs vs. organic advocacy
Let's dive into what customer advocacy actually means in 2025 and how to do it right.
Industry Reality
What the SaaS playbooks tell you about advocacy
Alright, so if you've read any marketing blog in the last two years, you've probably seen the same advice about customer advocacy programs. Here's what the industry typically recommends:
Traditional Advocacy Program Elements:
Formal program structure with tiers, points, and badges
Review request automation - send emails asking for testimonials after purchase
Referral incentives - offer discounts or rewards for bringing in new customers
Case study outreach - systematically ask successful customers to participate
Social media advocacy - encourage customers to post about your brand
Now, I'm not saying this approach is completely wrong. According to recent industry research, 52.2% of companies now have formal customer advocacy programs, up from 39.3% last year. Companies like Dropbox, HubSpot, and Salesforce have built successful programs using these methods.
The logic makes sense: 93% of consumers trust recommendations from friends and family over branded messaging, so getting customers to advocate should be a priority. The problem is in the execution.
Here's where this conventional wisdom falls short in practice: it treats advocacy as something you extract from customers rather than something you earn. Most programs feel like you're asking customers to do marketing work for you instead of creating experiences so valuable that sharing becomes natural.
The result? Customers who feel used rather than genuinely excited to recommend you. That's where I approach things differently.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
So I discovered the real issue with advocacy programs when I was working on review automation for a B2B SaaS client. We'd just finished revamping their website, and they wanted to implement what they called a "customer advocacy system." Standard stuff - automated emails asking for reviews, a formal referral program, the whole playbook.
But here's what happened. While implementing this, I was simultaneously working on an e-commerce project where customers were organically leaving reviews and referring friends without any formal program. The difference was stark. The e-commerce customers were genuinely excited about the products. The SaaS customers felt like they were being asked to do homework.
The e-commerce store had something the SaaS company didn't: a product experience that customers actually wanted to share. People naturally talk about things that surprise them, solve real problems, or make them look smart to their peers. The SaaS product was good, but it wasn't remarkable.
This got me thinking about the whole advocacy approach. Instead of building systems to ask for advocacy, what if we built experiences that made advocacy inevitable? I started looking at this from a completely different angle - not as a marketing program, but as a product and service design challenge.
The client's original plan was to implement Trustpilot integration and start sending automated review requests 7 days after onboarding. Classic approach. But I had a different hypothesis: if we had to ask for reviews, we probably weren't creating experiences worth reviewing.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
So here's the approach I developed that actually works. Instead of building an advocacy program, I focus on building advocacy triggers directly into the customer experience.
Step 1: Identify Your "Holy Shit" Moments
I started by mapping out every moment in the customer journey where someone might naturally want to share. Not because we asked them to, but because they genuinely couldn't help themselves. For the SaaS client, this was when they first saw their automated workflow save them 2 hours of manual work.
For the e-commerce store, it was when customers realized the product solved a problem they didn't even know they had. These are your advocacy triggers - moments when sharing feels natural, not forced.
Step 2: Make Sharing Effortless (But Not Pushy)
Here's where I learned from the e-commerce world. Instead of asking "Can you leave us a review?" I started thinking "How can we make it easier for excited customers to share?" Small difference, but crucial.
I implemented what I call "passive advocacy infrastructure" - shareable results, easy screenshot tools, and simple ways to show off wins. No pop-ups asking for reviews. Just making it effortless when someone naturally wants to brag.
Step 3: Build Advocates, Don't Hunt Them
The real breakthrough came when I stopped focusing on getting advocacy and started focusing on creating advocates. This meant improving onboarding, reducing time-to-value, and making sure every customer interaction reinforced why they made the right choice.
For the SaaS client, we rebuilt their onboarding to front-load value. Instead of walking through features, we focused on getting them one quick win in the first session. That single change created more organic advocates than six months of automated review requests.
Step 4: Amplify What's Already Happening
Rather than creating advocacy from scratch, I started looking for organic advocacy that was already happening and figuring out how to amplify it. Customer success stories in support tickets. Positive mentions in user feedback. Teams sharing wins internally.
The key was making these existing advocates feel recognized without making them feel used. A simple "We saw your team mention this win in the user group - mind if we share it?" worked better than any formal program.
Real Value First
Focus on creating genuine value before asking for anything in return
Sharp Onboarding
Front-load value in the first session to create immediate advocates
Passive Infrastructure
Make sharing easy when customers naturally want to brag about wins
Recognition Over Requests
Amplify existing organic advocacy rather than manufacturing it
The results were pretty clear. The SaaS client went from getting maybe 2-3 testimonials per quarter through their old formal program to having 15+ organic case studies and success stories within six months.
But here's what really mattered: the quality changed completely. Instead of generic "great product" reviews, we started getting specific stories about business impact. Instead of customers who felt obligated to say something nice, we had customers who were genuinely excited to share their wins.
The e-commerce client saw similar results. By focusing on product experience first and making sharing effortless, their organic review generation increased by 300% compared to the automated email approach.
Most importantly, customer satisfaction improved across both projects. Turns out when you stop asking customers to do marketing work and start giving them experiences worth sharing, everyone's happier.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
Here's what I learned from this cross-industry experiment:
Advocacy is earned, not extracted. The best advocates are byproducts of exceptional experiences, not marketing campaigns.
Timing matters more than tactics. One customer sharing right after a genuine "holy shit" moment is worth 20 lukewarm testimonials.
Industry silos hurt innovation. E-commerce had solved problems that SaaS was still struggling with, and vice versa.
Passive infrastructure beats active requests. Make sharing easy when people want to, don't push them when they don't.
Organic advocacy scales better than formal programs. You can't automate genuine excitement, but you can amplify it.
Product experience drives advocacy more than marketing programs. Fix the experience first, then worry about amplification.
Recognition works better than rewards. People want to feel seen and valued, not bribed.
What I'd do differently: Start with the product experience audit before building any advocacy infrastructure. Most advocacy problems are actually product experience problems in disguise.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS companies looking to build real advocacy:
Map your customer's "holy shit" moments in the first 30 days
Build sharing tools directly into your dashboard (easy screenshots, shareable reports)
Track which features create the most organic advocacy and double down
Focus on onboarding experiences that create immediate value
For your Ecommerce store
For e-commerce stores seeking natural advocacy:
Create unboxing experiences worth sharing on social media
Build passive review infrastructure (QR codes, simple review links)
Focus on surprise-and-delight moments post-purchase
Make product benefits obvious and shareable from day one