Ambassador

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Overview

The goal of an Ambassador program is to recognize your brand’s most influential advocates and treat them differently by giving them an appropriate reward and personal dashboard to view their referral stats and share their offer with friends, family, and followers. The Ambassador program requires no additional technical lift other than what is likely already in place for your Refer A Friend program. Recognizing ambassadors and incentivizing them to share is done in a number of ways:

• Ambassadors are promoted to with the Ambassador Welcome email that emphasizes the exclusivity of the program.
• Ambassadors’ share links and codes are personalized, which makes them feel special and important.
• Ambassadors are incentivized to share with their networks en-masse without having to jump through hoops (i.e. the share experience). For example, an ambassador receives the welcome email with their personalized share link and immediately posts it in their Instagram bio. This is quicker and easier than having to generate a link from a share experience on your company’s website.
• Ambassadors are rewarded differently (and more) than advocates in a typical Refer A Friend program. For example, ambassadors are rewarded with 20% off coupons, whereas advocates in the evergreen Refer A Friend program are rewarded with 15% off coupons. Once an ambassador generates $250 worth of revenue in friend purchases, they receive a bonus reward.

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Choosing a Flow Builder Starter

When you create a new Ambassador program from Extole’s template library, you choose one of three pre-configured Flow Builder campaign starters. Each starter bakes in the approval path, audiences, events, triggers, and rules that match that path, so you spend less time wiring journeys by hand. Pick the starter that matches how you plan to add ambassadors, not a name that sounds closest to your program title. Ambassador with No Application
Use this starter when you already know who should participate and you add them yourself. There is no customer-facing application in the portal. You invite ambassadors individually or in batches, send the Ambassador Welcome email with a personalized share link or code, and they share from their dashboard. This path fits curated lists such as partners, VIP customers, super advocates you identified in a Refer A Friend program, or an existing roster you maintain outside Extole. Ambassador with Auto Approval
Use this starter when you promote the program broadly and want membership decided by rules you configure. Applicants complete the Application Experience in the Ambassador Portal; Extole evaluates your criteria (for example purchase history, loyalty tier, or custom fields on the application) and automatically approves or denies them. This path fits programs you expect to scale without a human review on every submission, as long as your rules can express who qualifies. Ambassador with Manual Approval
Use this starter when you promote the program broadly but a marketer must approve or reject each applicant. Applicants submit through the Application Experience; pending applicants appear on the program page for your team to review before they receive welcome messaging and sharing access. This path fits programs where judgment, brand fit, or compliance review matters more than automated criteria.

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Marketing

Email Promotion
Promoting your Ambassador program depends on the starter you chose. With Ambassador with No Application, promotion is invite-driven: send the Ambassador Welcome email to ambassadors and partners you select, or use Extole Audiences to pull super advocates from a Refer A Friend program into an invite list. Promotion to Apply
With Ambassador with Auto Approval or Ambassador with Manual Approval, you can promote the program more widely and send applicants to the Application Experience in the Ambassador Portal. Your promotional strategy may look similar to a Refer A Friend program, except participants apply to become an ambassador rather than sharing immediately. Auto approval evaluates applicants against your rules; manual approval leaves each decision to your team on the program page.

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Ambassador Journey

The ambassador journey revolves around the Ambassador Portal. The portal is the hub where ambassadors can engage with your program, starting with the Application Experience if you choose to use one. An ambassador, once you’ve invited them directly or verified and approved their application, can log into the portal to view their dashboard and to share links and codes with their networks. Ambassadors to whom you’ve directly promoted receive the Ambassador Welcome email containing their personal share link or code as well as a link to their dashboard. They can choose to simply copy and paste the share link or code, or they can log into their dashboard to share on web or natively via mobile across a variety of social channels, SMS, or email. Each friend or follower who uses the ambassador’s personal link or code will earn the ambassador a reward, which appears in the stats section of their dashboard.

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Friend and Follower Journey

Friends may receive share messages directly from your ambassadors via social channels, SMS, or email, encouraging them to sign up, create an account, or make a purchase. Followers, on the other hand, may find and use your ambassadors’ personal share links or codes posted on social media. Once a friend or follower taps on an ambassador’s link, they’ll be taken to the Friend Landing Experience. This page features the ambassador’s name and profile image, delivers any reward earned, and encourages the visitor to shop or sign up, and so on.

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Rules and Rewarding

Each time a friend or follower uses an ambassador’s link or code to complete a purchase, the ambassador will earn a reward. These rewards are typically more generous than those offered in a typical Refer A Friend program to both encourage your ambassadors to continuing share with their networks and emphasize the more prestigious nature of being an ambassador. Ambassadors can see how many rewards they’ve earned, as well as their total reward value, in their dashboard.

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Performance and Data

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Examples

The Ambassador program isn’t one-size-fits-all and doesn’t need to involve high-caliber personas on Instagram or TikTok to succeed. Your “ambassadors” may in fact be:

• Super Advocates
• Influencers


• VIP Customers
• Affiliates
• Partners


• Sales Agents

Athleta
Athleta promoted their Ambassador program to fitness instructors. The program streamlined communication with instructors to allowed them to more directly share with their network. Using Extole’s performance tracking and custom rewarding made the program efficient and easy to optimize. As a result, the Ambassador program became a primary revenue driver for Athleta. Quim Quim designed their Influencer program to promote to both sexual wellness doctors and top advocates identified through Extole’s platform. The program allowed Quim to track doctors who referred their patients and streamlined communication with doctors. Not having to jump through the hoops of an onsite share experience allowed doctor’s to more efficiently share Quim with their networks.