Define your TARGET
Define your GOALS
Define your MEASUREMENTS
Process your STRATEGY
Map your EXECUTION

Every growth experiment needs a proper definition and set-up, or you risk deviating from proving the hypothesis. You want to avoid floating through growth without structure, causing chaos and unrepeatable tactics.

Define Your Target: I will limit this test to concentrate on new subscribers. My target will be subscribers who have subscribed within the last 60 days.

Define Your Goals: Your goal should always be a desired outcome. In this example, our goal will be centered around the question, "Can I increase referral rates?"

• Overall Goal: Increase the total number of referrals within my target

For this experiment, we must understand what referral rates mean. The data is deep, so don't just aim for superficial measurements. Make sure you genuinely understand the objective you are trying to reach.

• Sub Goal 1: Increase % of subscribers with > 0 referrals
  Description: In this goal, we will try to get as many active subscribers as possible to a minimum of 1 referral

• Sub Goal 2: Increase the total number of referrals per subscriber who has > 0 referrals 
  Description: To achieve this goal, we aim to reach subscribers with at least one referral and increase their total referrals as much as possible.

Define Your Measurements: Success metrics will always be a reflection of the goals. It may seem redundant to place these metrics here, but again, this helps experiments stay on track and aligns efforts toward the goals.

• Overall Goal Success Metric: The total number of referrals per unique subscriber within a 60-day cohort.

• Sub Goal 1 Success Metric: Percentage of active subs with referrals >0

• Sub Goal 2 Success Metric: Avg referral per subscriber (of subscribers with referrals >0)

Process Your Strategy:

Now that your overall cohort target is defined and your goals are clear, you can structure a segment and sending strategy around accomplishing the goals. I like to keep strategies simple and direct like this:

1. Summary

2. Sending Segment

3. Sending Structure

To once again take a simplified approach & have room to expand later, I will limit the strategy to one referral milestone. For the sake of giving an example, this experiment is for a newsletter that gives out a milestone reward benefit if a subscriber reaches three referrals. Using your program to guide your promotions is essential, so adapt the strategy if your milestones are larger or smaller. Reminder: If the experiment proves beneficial with this target & referral milestone, you can expand on it later.

• Strategy Summary: I will focus my efforts on the first referral milestone in the program. Keeping all my goals in mind, I want to push subscribers to reach at least a minimum of 1, but I also want to nudge subscribers to receive the first milestone benefit. To accomplish this, I will focus on subscribers with zero referrals, separately focus on sending to subscribers with exactly one referral, and lastly, focus on subscribers with exactly two referrals.

• Sending Segments:

  1. Segment - Subscribers who referrals = 0 

  2. Segment - Subscriber who referrals = 1

  3. Segment - Subscribers who referrals = 2

I believe in the crawl, walk, run, and then sprint approach, especially when bugging your audience with more invasion of their inbox. Let's start with one well-written email per segment, then slowly grow it out to three emails per segment.

PRO TIP: This part of the strategy can be worked on almost daily. If your email engagements do not yield average results, adjust them until they do. If they do better than average and referral numbers show immediate impacts, change the strategy by adding more follow-up emails (keep in mind the goals and engagement; you shouldn't just add emails without justifying the means). 

Sending Structure:

SEGMENT 1

• Subscribers who referrals = 0 
  Email #1
  (if email engagement is good & people who received the email resulted in one or more referrals)

> Re-query your segment and send (in beehiiv this auto occurs each day)

• Email #2 (5-10 days later)
  (if email engagement is good & people who received the email resulted in one or more referrals)

> Re-query your segment and send (in beehiiv this auto occurs each day)

• Email #3 (5-10 days later)

SEGMENT 2

• Subscriber who referrals = 1
  Email #1
  (if email engagement is good & people who received the email resulted in one or more referrals)

> Re-query your segment and send (in beehiiv this auto occurs each day)

• Email #2 (5-10 days later)
  (if email engagement is good & people who received the email resulted in one or more referrals)

> Re-query your segment and send (in beehiiv this auto occurs each day)

• Email #3 (5-10 days later)

SEGMENT 3

• Subscribers who referrals = 2
  Email #1
  (if email engagement is good & people who received the email resulted in one or more referrals)

> Re-query your segment and send (in beehiiv this auto occurs each day)

• Email #2 (5-10 days later)
  (if email engagement is good & people who received the email resulted in one or more referrals)

> Re-query your segment and send (in beehiiv this auto occurs each day)

• Email #3 (5-10 days later)

Execution plan:

Checklists always help me execute better, so I went ahead and made you one.

PRO TIP: Make sure you know how to segment your audience correctly. BE SURE YOU ARE PRECISE! I can't stress that enough; it is easy to mistakenly include or exclude targets without realizing it, so slow down and think your condition set (query logic) through.

⚪️ Build Segment #1 - Subscribers who referrals = 0
⚪️ Build Segment #2 - Subscribers who referrals = 1
⚪️ Build Segment #3 - Subscribers who referrals = 2
⚪️ Write Email #1
Subject line
Preview text
Body
Design (include referral block)
⚪️ Write Email #2
Subject line
Preview text
Body
Design (include referral block)
⚪️ Write Email #3
Subject line
Preview text
Body
Design (include referral block)
⚪️ Build Automation #1
⚪️ Build Automation #2
⚪️ Build Automation #3

This isn't a playbook on how to set things up; it is a playbook on tactics and growth experiments. However, I like to help, so reviewing this excellent beehiive resource enables you to build a referral program inside your beehiive account.

If you don't use beehiiv, I suggest you do, but you can also achieve great referral goals with SparkLoop. Here's a resource on how to set up a referral program with SparkLoop.

This experiment playbook assumes you know a lot, so if you need to learn how to build or set up an automation, check out your local ESP resource docs. If you are using beehiiv, here's a fantastic video to help you. 

Copywriting is your best friend for growth but also your enemy. While you believe an experiment failed, it may only be because you didn't write your email well enough. 

I can't guide you through your copywriting because of the obvious: I have yet to learn what you're promoting. However, I can leave you with some good tips:

1. All content should center around the goal of getting more referrals.

2. Don't clutter your email with unnecessary promotions, images, or content.

3. Keep these emails simple, direct, and to the point.

How I Would Structure An Email:

• Subject line [engaging with strong mention of a cta]

• Preview text [use urgency or lead with a considerable benefit]

• Title [re-cap and the subject line in different words]

• Body [explain the preview with a persuasive voice]

• CTA [be consistent with the subject line]

By staying consistent with the subject line to the Title of CTA, you gained the reader's attention and encouraged the open; I like to think of that available as intention now because the reader is very aware of the email's objective. 

Here's an example when targeting subscribers with one referral from the milestone:

[Subject line] 

You're one referral away from getting a marketing audit

[Preview text] 

I want to give you a free marketing audit. Are you ready?

[Title] 

Refer One More & Get A Marketing Audit

[Body] 

Hey { { firstname } }

I'm grateful you've already referred x friends to my newsletter, but don't stop here. You can claim your free marketing audit when you refer one more friend. I'm not begging; I'm challenging you to achieve a goal, and you're only inches away from it; you have to reach out and take it. 

[CTA BUTTON] Get Your FREE Audit & Refer A Friend Today

[add in referral widget]

It is essential to document strategy changes/adjustments along the way. You want to write out this experiment, then make sure if you add/subtract an email, document it and why. If you begin focusing on more or less milestones, document the active and inactive segments, the emails in use and used, and the engagements, and describe the reason for adding or removing efforts.

Before the experiment:

• Subscribed < 60 days (include total number) 

  • Total number of referrals

  • Referral %

  • Referral ratio

• Subscribed < 60 days & referral > 0

  • The average number of referrals per 

After the experiment:

• Subscribed < 60 days (include total number) 

  • Total number of referrals

  • Referral %

  • Referral ratio

• Subscribed < 60 days & referral > 0

  • The average number of referrals per sub

Overall Results:

Track each group (cohort) of 60-day subscribers separately as they progress through every new set of 60 days in the subscriber life cycle.

Example: 

120 - 180 days old (after going through the experiment)
180 - 240 days old (after going through the experiment)
240 - 300 days old (after going through the experiment)

Tracking this can assist with many things, like expanding the original experiment, measuring the impact on the subscriber lifecycle, and more.

Expansion Tracking:

If you decide to expand into new targets, you should track them alongside but separate from the original target. An example of an expansion: Hypothesis - Can I increase referral rates within cohort 60-120 days old subscribers using automation?

This experiment isn’t a live case study yet, but I’d love to implement this on someones newsletter. You could win a free growth experiment implementation when through my referral program. Recommend a friend and earn an entry, recommend five friends and earn five entries.