Upway partners with Bubblehouse to drive 9% of all new customer acquisitions
A fully integrated referral system to grow brand advocacy
With Bubblehouse, Upway built an integrated, automated process from referral to reward. Customers now enjoy a fast, frictionless experience when sending referrals, redeeming rewards, and tracking status — along with access to more retailers and brands through Bubblehouse’s extensive gift card network. With real-time analytics, the brand can gain a complete understanding of the impact referrals have on revenue and growth.
Bubblehouse’s solutions for referrals, loyalty, and subscriptions help brands engage and retain more customers, increase customer lifetime value, and transform shoppers into brand advocates. Ready to get started? Request a demo now.
Upway
Upway is redefining urban mobility by giving electric bikes a second life. The company buys, refurbishes, and resells high-quality e-bikes, making sustainable transportation more accessible to everyone.
The brand was founded in Paris in 2021 and has since expanded to nine countries, including the United States. With more than 100,000 refurbished e-bikes and an ambitious goal of one million in the next few years, Upway has accomplished steady growth and amassed a fleet of devoted cyclists.
Upway’s enthusiastic community of sustainably minded cyclists made referrals a vital marketing channel for the brand. But their existing solution was clunky and required more time and resources than they had available. As the company grew, it became apparent that they needed a referral program that was more advanced, automating more tasks and freeing up the team for more high-impact work.
The first issue with their referrals solution was that it was largely manual to manage. The team had to track referrals for both the person being referred and the referrer. Further, they need to issue rewards manually, by sending out gift cards to both parties. There were also limitations in the brand’s gift card system itself, with just a handful of retailers and brands represented and few options to incentivize customers.
Upway needed a fully automated, integrated, and scalable referral system that could deliver a seamless experience for both customers and the team. To help them achieve this goal, the brand partnered with Bubblehouse and built an on-brand, flexible referral program to grow advocacy alongside sales and expansion.
Solution for Upway
Innovative referral management and a seamless customer experience
Upway partnered with Bubblehouse to build a robust, flexible, advanced referral program that better integrated with the customer journey. Here’s how they did it.
With Bubblehouse’s solution, Upway built a dedicated landing page for their referrals program, ensuring a seamless and user-friendly experience. Customers can easily send referrals by entering their friends’ emails, directly redeem their referral rewards for gift cards, and even track referral history, including the status of each referral and the rewards received for each one. And no more manual work for the brand’s team — once the email address is entered, the process for rewarding is fully automated.
Fully automated and scalable infrastructure
Massive network of merchant partners to expand gift card options
Previously, Upway’s gift card program was limited to just a few retailers and brands, with each redemption manually tracked, approved, and issued—a time-consuming and error-prone process that made scaling nearly impossible. Bubblehouse’s system replaced this clunky workflow with a fully automated infrastructure, unlocking a network of over 1,500 partners, including major U.S. retailers like Target, Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy, as well as premium brands like Columbia, Airbnb, and Uber. This not only expanded the options for referral incentives but also dramatically simplified fulfillment, ensuring faster, more reliable, and more appealing rewards for customers.
Robust analytics for advanced insights
Accurate reporting with leaderboard tracking
With Bubblehouse, Upway had access to more comprehensive and actionable analytics, displayed in an easy-to-use dashboard tracking key referral metrics, including:
The dashboard also includes a referral leaderboard to track and identify the top referring customers. This features gives Upway a powerful tool for segmenting and tailoring rewards and promotions for their biggest brand advocates.
With these insights, Upway can gain a holistic view of the referral program's performance, identify areas for optimization, and learn which customers are most profitable.
First purchase referral revenue
Total referral revenue
Referrals shared
Referrals converted
Conversion rate
and many more…
“Before Bubblehouse, managing referrals was a manual and time-consuming process. Now, it’s fully automated, beautifully integrated into our customer journey, and rewarding for everyone involved. The team’s support has been fantastic — this partnership has truly elevated how we engage our community.”
The Results
Upway’s partnership with Bubblehouse quickly paid off with the following results:
Elevated referral experience
Upway’s partnership with Bubblehouse has transformed their referral system into a scalable growth engine. It’s fully automated, fully branded, and delivering measurable results. With this system in place, the potential for growth and increased customer engagement is limitless, sparking excitement for the future.
Get more from your existing customers than you ever have
Schedule a call today to learn how Bubblehouse can transform your retention strategy into a scalable and impactful loyalty system.