Service · Ambassador-focused marketing

Pay attention to the people already recommending you.

We find the customers who advocate for you unprompted, give them something worth posting, and measure what happens on Reddit, Instagram and Facebook against a control group that gets nothing.

Roster

Advocates posting

Live
This month94
Median posts each2.4
0 50 100 Jan Apr Jul Oct
Reddit44 active
Instagram31 active
Facebook19 active
Advocates who published at least once in the month. The split above counts the same people, by where they posted.
Table view
Advocates posting by month
MonthPosting
Jan38
Feb44
Mar41
Apr52
May58
Jun55
Jul64
Aug71
Sep68
Oct79
Nov86
Dec94
Ambassadors activated 3,480
Median engaged reach 1.9M
Cost per activation $38
What it is

A referral program that someone actually runs.

Most advocacy dies because nobody owns it. A discount code goes out, a few people use it, and nine months later nobody can say whether it worked. We treat advocacy as a channel with a roster, a content calendar and a control group.

The roster is real customers, recruited from the people already posting about you or answering questions on your behalf. They get early access, something to show, and a named person to talk to. They do not get a script.

Cohort growth

Active ambassadors

0 600 1,200 1,800 Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 1,710
Cumulative active ambassadors, first 12 months. Active means at least one post in the last 90 days.
Table view
Active ambassadors by month
MonthAmbassadors
Jan180
Feb265
Mar340
Apr470
May520
Jun690
Jul810
Aug940
Sep1,120
Oct1,260
Nov1,480
Dec1,710
How it works

Four stages, and we report on all four.

01

Find

We look for people already recommending you unprompted — reviews, comments, replies. That list is usually longer than clients expect.

02

Equip

Early access, something worth showing, and a direct line to a person. No scripts: a post that reads like ad copy is worth nothing on these channels.

03

Publish

Advocates post on their own terms. We track first posts, not signups, because a signup is not advocacy.

04

Compound

The posts that earn traction get supported. The rest teach us what the roster actually wants to talk about.

Reddit

The hardest room, and the one that keeps paying.

Reddit punishes anything that reads like marketing, which is exactly why a genuine recommendation there carries more weight than anywhere else we work. Threads keep ranking in search for years, so a good answer compounds long after it is posted.

We work through advocates who already participate in the relevant communities, always with the relationship disclosed. Our job is mostly finding the question that already has traffic and making sure the person answering it knows the subject.

  • Answer the question that already has traffic, do not start a new thread.
  • Disclose the relationship every time — it costs nothing and survives audit.
  • Moderators decide whether you exist here. Treat them as the channel.
Tactic performance

Reddit tactics

AMA threads 92 Community seeding 74 Mod partnerships 58 Niche subs 41
Engaged reach index by tactic, 100 = the channel's own best. Indexed within the channel, so tactics are compared against their own ceiling.
Table view
Reddit tactics by engaged reach index
TacticIndex
AMA threads92
Community seeding74
Mod partnerships58
Niche subs41
Tactic performance

Instagram tactics

Story takeovers 88 Creator duets 71 Reels remix 63 Close-friends drops 36
Engaged reach index by tactic, 100 = the channel's own best. Indexed within the channel, so tactics are compared against their own ceiling.
Table view
Instagram tactics by engaged reach index
TacticIndex
Story takeovers88
Creator duets71
Reels remix63
Close-friends drops36
Instagram

Proof you can see, from people you recognise.

Instagram is where advocacy becomes visible to people who have never heard of you. It needs raw material — a result worth showing, a space worth filming, a before and after that is genuinely interesting.

Most of the reach comes from remixes rather than originals, so we optimise for formats other people can pick up and redo, and we measure profile visits rather than likes.

  • Give advocates something filmable before asking for a post.
  • Remixes and duets travel further than the original almost every time.
  • Stories qualify interest; the grid is what a stranger checks afterwards.
Facebook

The groups already exist. Earn your way in.

Facebook groups are the closest thing left to word of mouth at scale. You cannot buy your way in and you cannot control the room, which is the point — a recommendation there reads as a recommendation, not an ad.

We identify the groups your customers already belong to, support the advocates inside them, and co-host events that give people a concrete reason to invite someone by name.

  • Earn the recommendation inside groups you do not control.
  • Long-form posts still outperform links in almost every group we run.
  • Events give advocates a reason to invite people by name.
Tactic performance

Facebook tactics

Group hosts 84 Event co-hosts 66 Long-form posts 49 Marketplace referrals 33
Engaged reach index by tactic, 100 = the channel's own best. Indexed within the channel, so tactics are compared against their own ceiling.
Table view
Facebook tactics by engaged reach index
TacticIndex
Group hosts84
Event co-hosts66
Long-form posts49
Marketplace referrals33
Channel comparison

Same metric, same scale, three channels.

Same metric, same scale, one panel per channel — so the three are read against each other rather than each on its own terms.

Reddit

74k reach

0 40 80 Jan Apr Jul Oct

Instagram

48k reach

0 40 80 Jan Apr Jul Oct

Facebook

31k reach

0 40 80 Jan Apr Jul Oct

Monthly engaged reach in thousands. All three panels share a 0–80k y-axis — that shared scale is the whole point of showing them side by side.

Table view
Monthly engaged reach by channel (thousands)
MonthRedditInstagramFacebook
Jan21129
Feb261511
Mar241910
Apr331714
May382416
Jun352815
Jul472619
Aug523322
Sep493720
Oct613525
Nov664227
Dec744831
The funnel

Most of the drop-off happens before anyone posts.

Identifying advocates is easy and almost worthless on its own. The number that matters is the last one — people still publishing after six months.

Identified 12,400 Activated 3,480 Publishing 1,920 Advocating 640
Four stages, one ordinal ramp — the shade carries the stage, the length carries the count. Advocating means still publishing at six months.
Table view
Ambassador funnel by stage
StageAmbassadors% of identified
Identified12,400100.0%
Activated3,48028.1%
Publishing1,92015.5%
Advocating6405.2%
Results

Against a control group that got nothing.

Both cohorts started at the same index. The control group received no advocacy programme and no extra media — it is there so the line above it means something.

  • Ambassador cohort
  • Control
90 130 170 210 250 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6 Q7 Q8 236 121
Engaged reach index, both cohorts indexed to 100 at Q1. Engaged reach counts people who replied, saved or shared — not impressions.
Table view
Engaged reach index by quarter
QuarterAmbassador cohortControl
Q1100100
Q2118104
Q3131103
Q4152109
Q5149112
Q6178110
Q7203116
Q8236121
FAQ

Questions we get.

If yours is not here, ask it on the call — we would rather answer it before you commit than after.

Do you pay the ambassadors?

Not per post. Paying per post is what turns advocacy back into advertising, and the channels that matter here punish it. Advocates get early access, product, occasional travel and a direct line to a person. Where any compensation exists it is disclosed on the post, every time — it costs nothing and it is the difference between a programme that survives an audit and one that does not.

How long before we see anything?

First posts usually land inside three weeks. A readable trend takes a quarter, because the control group needs the same amount of time before the comparison means anything. Anyone promising a curve in month one is showing you noise.

What happens if someone posts something negative?

It happens, and it is usually useful. Advocates are customers, so a complaint from one is a complaint you were already getting without hearing it. We surface it through the perception indicator, respond in public where it is fair, and fix the underlying thing where it is not.

Do we need a big following already?

No. The roster comes from your customers, not from influencers, and the median advocate we work with has a few hundred followers. Reach comes from the number of genuine advocates and the communities they already belong to, not from any one account.

Can you run only one channel?

Yes, and Reddit is usually the one to start with — it is the slowest to build and the hardest to replicate, so it is worth beginning before you need it. The comparison chart above is less useful with one channel, but the funnel and the control group still hold.

What do you need from us?

A named person who can approve things inside a week, access to your review and support inboxes so we can find existing advocates, and something worth showing. The last one is the only hard requirement.

Start here

Find out who is already advocating for you.

A program review is a 45-minute read of your current numbers. You leave with the three charts above, filled in with your data, whether or not we work together.