Integrating Viral Loops with Mailchimp, HubSpot & More

“Discover the power of integrating Viral Loops with your marketing stack to automate referral campaigns, track customer data, and seamlessly reward brand advocates for sustainable business growth.”

Word-of-mouth has always been the holy grail of marketing. A recommendation from a trusted friend carries more weight than any flashy ad campaign ever could. That principle hasn’t changed in today’s digital world, but the methods for encouraging it have become incredibly sophisticated. The challenge for most businesses isn’t recognizing the power of referrals; it’s building a system to capture, track, and scale them effectively. How do you turn a few happy customers into a legion of brand advocates without drowning in spreadsheets and manual follow-ups?

This is where referral marketing software enters the scene, and Viral Loops stands out as a leader. It’s a platform designed from the ground up to help you build and launch viral campaigns. But its true power isn’t just in creating a campaign—it’s in how it connects to the tools you already use daily.

Integrating Viral Loops with your marketing stack—your CRM, email service, and commerce platform—is the secret to creating a truly automated, data-rich, seamless referral engine. This guide will walk you through everything you need to know about integrating Viral Loops with essential platforms like Mailchimp and HubSpot. We’ll explore the “why” behind these connections and provide a practical roadmap for the “how,” helping you transform your customer base into a powerful growth channel.

What Exactly is Viral Loops? A Primer on Modern Referral Marketing

Before we discuss integrations, let’s define Viral Loops and explain why referral marketing deserves your attention.

At its core, Viral Loops is a template-based platform for building referral programs. Think of it as a toolkit that gives you all the pieces to launch campaigns like the ones you’ve seen from hyper-growth companies like Dropbox, Robinhood, and Morning Brew. Instead of asking you to build a referral system from scratch, it provides proven frameworks for specific business goals.

The platform’s philosophy is built around a few key ideas:

• No-Code Campaigns: You don’t need to be a developer to create a sophisticated referral program. Most campaigns can be built and launched through a visual editor.
• Template-Driven: Why reinvent the wheel? Viral Loops offers a library of pre-built Viral Loops templates based on successful campaigns, such as the Milestone Referral, the Newsletter Referral, and the Startup Pre-launch.
• Automation: It handles the tedious parts of referral marketing, like generating unique links, tracking who referred whom, and notifying you when rewards are earned.

The Undeniable Case for Referral Marketing

Why should you invest time and resources into this? Referral marketing is one of the most efficient customer acquisition channels available. The data speaks for itself:

• Trust is Paramount: A Nielsen study found that 92% of consumers trust recommendations from people they know above all other forms of advertising. When a friend suggests a product, the built-in trust is transferred to the brand.
• Higher Quality Customers: Referred customers are not just easier to acquire; they’re often better customers. According to research from the Wharton School of Business, referred customers have a higher lifetime value (LTV) and are more loyal than customers acquired through other channels.
• Lower Acquisition Costs: Instead of pouring money into ever-more-expensive ad platforms, you’re leveraging your existing customer base. This dramatically lowers your Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), allowing you to grow more profitably.

In short, a well-executed customer referral program doesn’t just bring in new leads; it brings in better leads, who spend more and stick around longer. It’s about turning your happiest customers into an authentic and effective sales force.

A Tour of Viral Loops’ Powerhouse Templates

The beauty of Viral Loops lies in its templates. Each is a blueprint for a different type of viral campaign, tailored to a specific business objective. Understanding these templates is the first step to determining your necessary integrations.

The Milestone Referral

This is the most classic and versatile referral template. The concept is simple: participants earn progressively better rewards when referring more people. It’s not just about getting one reward; it’s a tiered system that encourages continuous sharing.

• How it works: A user signs up and gets a unique referral link.
  • Refer three friends, get a 10% discount.
  • Refer five friends, get a free t-shirt.
  • Refer 10 friends, get a $50 gift card.
• It is best for E-commerce stores, SaaS companies, and anyone looking to foster long-term brand advocacy strategies. It gamifies the referral process and keeps users engaged.
• Famous Example: The Morning Brew newsletter grew to millions of subscribers using this model. Referrals unlocked exclusive content, mugs, and clothing, creating a tribe of dedicated readers.

The Newsletter Referral

Built specifically for growing an email list, this template is a must-have for content creators, media companies, and marketers focused on audience building. It’s a streamlined version of the Milestone campaign, focused purely on subscriber acquisition.

• How it works: An existing subscriber is encouraged to refer others to the newsletter. When their friends sign up using their unique link, they unlock rewards.
• Best for: Newsletters (obviously!), blogs, and communities. The rewards, like access to a private community, exclusive content, or an ebook, are often digital.
• Famous Example: The Hustlee used a newsletter referral program to rapidly scale its subscriber base, offering access to an exclusive ambassador community as a top-tier reward.

The Startup Pre-launch

Generating buzz before launching a new product is critical for its success. This template is designed to build a massive waitlist and create a sense of anticipation and exclusivity.

• How it works: Users sign up for a waitlist for your upcoming product. They can move up the line and get early access by referring others. The more people they refer, the higher their position on the list.
• Best for: New SaaS products, mobile apps, fintech companies, or any business launching something new.
• Famous Example: Robinhood built a waitlist of nearly one million people before their app was even available. Their simple, referral-based waitlist was a masterclass in pre-launch hype.

Other Notable Template

• Refer a Friend: This is a giveaway or contest in which participants earn more entries by referring friends, dramatically increasing the reach of your campaign.

Choosing the right template aligns your referral program with a measurable business goal. Let’s connect it to your other tools to put it on autopilot.

Why Integration is a Total Game-Changer

Running a Viral Loops campaign on its own is excellent. But connecting it to your existing tech stack transforms it from a standalone marketing tactic into a fully integrated growth engine. This is where you unlock serious efficiency and insight.

Integrating Viral Loops moves you away from manual, time-consuming tasks and into a world of streamlined automation and deep customer understanding. Here’s why it’s so critical:

• Complete Automation: Imagine manually exporting a list of new referrals from Viral Loops and importing them into your email list daily. Now imagine that happening instantly, 24/7, without you lifting a finger. That’s what integration does. From adding new participants to your CRM to sending reward emails, the entire workflow can be automated.
• Data Synchronization: A customer’s data shouldn’t live in isolated silos. When you integrate, the information from your referral program (like how many people someone has referred) can be synced directly to their profile in your CRM or email platform. This gives your sales and marketing teams a 360-degree view of your most valuable customers and advocates.
• Powerful Personalization: Once referral data is synced, you can use it to create hyper-personalized marketing campaigns. You could send a special thank-you email to your top 10 referrers, create a segment of “superfans” for early access to new products, or tailor content based on a user’s advocacy level.
• A Seamless User Experience: Integration means a smooth and immediate experience for the participant. When they earn a reward, they don’t have to wait for you to verify it manually. The system can instantly trigger an email with their discount code or unlock a new feature in their account. This immediacy is crucial for maintaining momentum and increasing customer engagement.

Your Integration Toolkit: The Main Methods

Viral Loops offers several ways to connect with other applications, catering to different levels of technical skill.

1. Direct Integrations: These are the easiest to set up. Viral Loops has built-in connections for a handful of popular platforms. It’s usually as simple as logging into the other service and authorizing the connection.
2. Zapier: This is the universal translator for the web. Zapier is a third-party service connecting thousands of different apps without code. It works on a simple “trigger and action” system (e.g., “When a new participant joins my Viral Loops campaign [trigger], add them as a subscriber in Mailchimp [action]”). For most marketers, Zapier will be the go-to tool for no-code referral campaigns.
3. Webhooks: For those who need more customization, webhooks are a powerful option. A webhook is an automated message sent from one app to another when a specific event occurs. It’s like a notification system for your software. You can use webhooks to send real-time data from Viral Loops to almost any other platform that can receive them, enabling highly custom workflows.

Now, let’s discuss the specifics of two of the most common and powerful integrations: Mailchimp and HubSpot.

Deep Dive: Integrating Viral Loops with Mailchimp

For any business with a newsletter or an email marketing strategy, the Integrating Viral Loops with Mailchimp connection is a must. This integration is about growing your audience and nurturing your subscribers through referrals.

The Goal: To seamlessly add new subscribers and referrers to your Mailchimp audience, track their activity with tags, and automate reward fulfillment through email.

Use Case: The Automated Newsletter Referral

Let’s imagine you’re running a “Newsletter Referral” campaign. Here’s how the integrated workflow would look:

1. A reader, let’s call her Sarah, loves your newsletter and decides to join your referral program.
2. She signs up through the Viral Loops widget on your site. Instantly, she’s added to a specific audience or group in your Mailchimp account.
3. An automated welcome email is triggered from Mailchimp, which includes her unique referral link (pulled from Viral Loops).
4. Sarah shares the link with her friend, Alex.
5. Alex clicks the link and signs up. Alex has been added to your Mailchimp audience immediately.
6. Simultaneously, Viral Loops registers that Sarah has one successful referral. Viral Loops can tell Mailchimp (via Zapier or a webhook) to add a tag like “reward-unlocked-ebook” to Sarah’s profile if your first milestone is one referral.
7. This new tag triggers another automated email in Mailchimp, delivering the ebook reward directly to Sarah’s inbox.

The entire process is hands-off, immediate, and creates a fantastic user experience.

How to Set Up the Integration (Using Direct Integration & Zapier)

Setting this up is surprisingly straightforward. Here’s a step-by-step guide.

Step 1: Choose Your Template in Viral Loops

Start by logging into Viral Loops and selecting the “Newsletter Referral” template (or another template that fits your goal). Follow the setup wizard to customize the look and feel of your widget and sharing page.

Step 2: Connect Your Mailchimp Account

You’ll see a list of available integrations in the “Integrations” step of the campaign wizard.

• To add new participants, you can use direct Mailchimp integration. Click on Mailchimp, and you’ll be prompted to log in and authorize the connection.
• Select your Audience: Once connected, choose the Mailchimp audience you want to add new participants to your Viral Loops campaign.

Step 3: Configure Automated Reward Fulfillment with Zapier

While the direct integration is excellent for adding subscribers, you’ll likely want to use Zapier for more advanced actions like tagging users when they hit a milestone.

1. Create a New Zap: Log in to your Zapier account and click “Create Zap.”
2. Set the Trigger: Search for Viral Loops and select it as the trigger app. Choose the event “New Milestone Reached.” Connect your Viral Loops account. Zapier will ask you to choose the campaign you’re working on.
3. Set the Action: Now, set Mailchimp as your action app. Choose the action “Add/Update Subscriber.”
4. Map the Fields: This is the crucial part.
   • In the “Subscriber Email” field, enter the participant’s email from the Viral Loops trigger data.
   • This is where you can add a tag. In the “Tags” section, you can type the milestone name from Viral Loops. For example, if the milestone is named “5 Referrals – T-Shirt,” you can add a tag with that same name.
5. Test and Activate: Zapier will let you test the connection. Once it’s working, turn on your Zap.

Now, whenever someone reaches a milestone in Viral Loops, Zapier will automatically add the corresponding tag to their profile in Mailchimp.

Step 4: Create an Automation in Mailchimp

The final piece of the puzzle is in Mailchimp.

1. Go to the “Automations” section in Mailchimp.
2. Create a new “Classic Automation.”
3. For the trigger, select “Tag is added.” Choose the tag you set in Zapier (e.g., “5 Referrals – T-Shirt”).
4. Design the email that will be sent when that trigger fires. This email will contain the reward—perhaps a link to a form where they can enter their shipping address for the t-shirt.

Best Practices for the Mailchimp Integration

• Segment Your Superfans: Create a segment in Mailchimp for users who have referred more than a certain number of people. Send them exclusive content or special offers.
• Use Merge Tags: Personalize your emails by including the participant’s unique referral link in your regular newsletters using Mailchimp’s merge tags. This keeps the program top-of-mind.
• Nurture New Referrals: Create a separate welcome series for subscribers who came from a referral. You can acknowledge that a friend referred them to build on that initial trust.

Deep Dive: Viral Loops HubSpot Integration

If Mailchimp is for audience growth, the Viral Loops HubSpot integration is for deep customer insight and revenue attribution. This connection is compelling for B2B companies, SaaS businesses, or anyone using HubSpot as their central source of truth.

The Goal: To sync referral data directly with HubSpot contacts, track the entire journey of a referred lead, and attribute actual revenue back to your referral program.

Use Case: The B2B SaaS Milestone Program

Imagine you’re a SaaS company. Your customers are other businesses. You want to encourage your existing users to refer their peers.

1. An existing customer, David, a contact in your HubSpot CRM, joins your referral program.
2. A Zap triggers, finding David’s contact record in HubSpot and updating a custom property called “Referral Link” with his unique Viral Loops link. Another custom property, “Referral Count,” is set to 0.
3. David sends his link to a colleague, Maria.
4. Maria signs up for a demo. This creates a new contact for Maria in HubSpot.
5. Another Zap adds data to Maria’s contact record in HubSpot during the creation. A custom property is populated with “David’s Email.”
6. At the same time, David’s “Referral Count” property in HubSpot is updated to 1.
7. The sales team sees that Maria is a referred lead, which might influence how they approach the sale.
8. Maria’s company loves the demo and signs up. A deal associated with Maria’s contact is moved to “Closed-Won” in HubSpot.
9. This “Closed-Won” status change triggers a final Zap. It tells Viral Loops to validate the referral as successful, which automatically unlocks a reward for David (e.g., a $100 Amazon gift card or a credit on his account).

This closed-loop system provides automated referral tracking and gives you a crystal-clear view of the ROI of your program.

How to Set It Up (Using Zapier)

The HubSpot integration relies heavily on Zapier’s flexibility to create these multi-step workflows.

Step 1: Create Custom Properties in HubSpot

Before you build anything in Zapier, you need a place to store the referral data in HubSpot. Go to your HubSpot settings and create a few new contact properties:

• Referral_Link (Single-line text)
• Referral_Count (Number)
• Referred_By (Single-line text)

Step 2: Build the “New Participant” Zap

This Zap syncs a new participant from Viral Loops with an existing HubSpot contact.

1. Trigger: Viral Loops – “New Participant.”
2. Action: HubSpot – “Find Contact.” Search by the participant’s email.
3. Action: HubSpot – “Update Contact.” Use the ID from the “Find Contact” step. Map the referralCode from Viral Loops to your custom Referral_Link property in HubSpot.

Step 3: Build the “New Referral” Zaps

This is a two-part process: creating the new lead and updating the referrer.

Zap A: Create the New Referred Contact

1. Trigger: Viral Loops – “New Referral.”
2. Action: HubSpot – “Create Contact.” Map the new person’s email and name from the Viral Loops trigger. In your Referred_By custom property, map the referrerEmail from the Viral Loops data.

Zap B: Update the Referrer’s Count

1. Trigger: Viral Loops – “New Referral.”
2. Action: HubSpot – “Find Contact.” Search for the referrer using the referrerEmail from the trigger.
3. Action: HubSpot – “Update Contact.” Use the ID from the previous step. In the Referral_Count property, you can use Zapier’s formatting tools to increment the existing number or simply use the referrals count Viral Loops provides in the trigger data.

Step 4: Build the “Conversion & Reward” Zap

This is the most advanced but most valuable piece.

1. Trigger: HubSpot – “Deal Stage Changed.” Set it to trigger only when the stage becomes “Closed-Won.”
2. Filter: Add a filter step. Only continue if the deal’s associated contact has a Referred_By property that is not empty. This ensures the Zap only runs for referred customers.
3. Action: Viral Loops – This is where you might use a Webhook. Copy the URL to create a “Catch Hook” trigger in a new Zap. Add a “POST” Webhook action in your HubSpot Zap nd send the referrer’s email and a confirmation to that URL. The second Zap can use the Viral Loops API or another action to credit the referrer. Alternatively, some Viral Loops plans have direct Zapier actions to add conversions.

Best Practices for the HubSpot Integration

• Build a Referral Dashboard: Use HubSpot’s reporting tools to build a dashboard that tracks key metrics: the number of referred leads, the conversion rate of referred vs. non-referred leads, and the total revenue generated from referrals.
• Create Active Lists: Set up active lists in HubSpot to automatically segment your contacts. For example, a list of everyone who has referred at least one person or all leads generated via referral.
• Tailor Your Sales Process: Use HubSpot workflows to notify the owner of a contact when they are referred. This gives the salesperson valuable context for their outreach.

Expanding Your Reach: Integrating with Other Platforms

The principles you’ve learned for Mailchimp and HubSpot apply to countless other tools, all thanks to the flexibility of platforms like Zapier.

E-commerce Platforms (Shopify, WooCommerce)

This is a huge one for online stores. Integrating Viral Loops with Shopify lets you tie the referral process directly to purchases.

• How it works: You can set up your campaign so that a referral is only counted as “successful” after the referred friend makes a purchase. This ensures you’re rewarded for revenue, not just sign-ups.
• The Workflow: A customer refers a friend. The friend gets a unique discount code. The friend uses the code to purchase at your Shopify store. Shopify’s purchase confirmation triggers a Zap. The Zap tells Viral Loops the referral was successful. The original customer gets their reward (e.g., store credit).

Community Platforms (Slack, Discord)

Foster a culture of advocacy by celebrating referrals where your community lives.

• How it works: Use Zapier to connect Viral Loops to a specific Slack or Discord channel.
• The Workflow: Someone successfully refers a new customer -> A Zap triggers -> An automated message is posted in your #wins or #referrals channel: “🎉 Big shoutout to Jane Doe for referring a new member to our community! Thanks for spreading the word!” This creates social proof and encourages others to get involved.

Best Practices for a Referral Program That Actually Works

Technology and integrations are the backbone of a great program, but they’re not the whole story. To truly succeed, you need to combine smart tech with smart strategy.

• Make Sharing Effortless: Pre-populate sharing messages for email, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. The less work your participants have to do, the more likely they are to share. Include a simple “copy link” button.
• Choose Irresistible Rewards: The best rewards are win-win. Double-sided incentives (where both the referrer and the friend get something) are incredibly effective. Ensure the reward is relevant to your brand—store credit, premium features, or exclusive swag often work better than generic cash rewards because they encourage further engagement with your product.
• Promote Your Program Everywhere: Your referral program isn’t a secret. Promote it! Include a link in your email signature, on post-purchase thank you pages, within your app’s user dashboard, and in your newsletter. Regularly remind your audience that the program exists.
• Communicate, Communicate, Communicate: Use your integrated email system to keep participants in the loop. Send them an email when they sign up, when a friend signs up using their link, and when they unlock a reward. This positive reinforcement keeps them engaged and motivated.
• Track, Analyze, Optimize: Use the data flowing into your CRM and other tools to understand what’s working. Which channels are driving the most referrals? Which rewards have the highest redemption rate? Use this information to A/B test your landing pages, email copy, and reward structure to improve performance constantly.

Final Thoughts

A referral program is one of the most powerful and cost-effective marketing channels. Platforms like Viral Loops provide the tools to build and launch sophisticated campaigns without needing a team of developers. However, the true secret to scaling your program and maximizing its impact lies in integrating Viral Loops with the tools you already use to run your business.

Connecting Viral Loops to Mailchimp automates audience growth and engagement. Integrating it with HubSpot allows you to gain deep insights into your customer journey and prove the ROI of your referral efforts down to the dollar.

Don’t be intimidated by the idea of integration. Start small. Pick one key connection—like adding new participants to your email list—and build from there. By creating these automated workflows, you’re saving time and building a scalable, self-sustaining growth engine powered by your most passionate customers.

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q1: Do I need to be a developer to integrate Viral Loops with other tools? 

A: Absolutely not. You can use no-code tools for popular integrations like Mailchimp, HubSpot, and Shopify. Viral Loops offers some point-and-click direct integrations, and Zapier allows you to connect to thousands of other apps with a visual, user-friendly interface. No coding is required.

Q2: What’s the main difference between a direct integration and using Zapier? 

A: A direct integration is a native connection built by Viral Loops for a specific platform. It’s often the simplest way to perform a core function, like adding a new participant to an email list. Zapier is a third-party automation tool that acts as a middleman. It is far more flexible and supports thousands of apps, allowing you to create complex, multi-step workflows that might not be possible with direct integration.

Q3: Can I track offline referrals with Viral Loops? 

A: Yes. While Viral Loops is primarily designed for online tracking via links, you can implement a system for offline referrals. One standard method is to use the “Coupon Code” feature. You can assign unique coupon codes to participants, which they can share offline. When a new customer uses that code during checkout, you can use an integration (e.g., from Shopify to Viral Loops via Zapier) to credit the original referrer.

Q4: How much do these integrations cost? 

A: The cost is separated by platform. Viral Loops has its own subscription plans based on the number of participants in your campaigns. Zapier offers a free tier with limited functionality and paid plans that provide more tasks and multi-step Zaps. The costs for your other tools, like Mailchimp or HubSpot, are separate. The key is to evaluate the ROI—if the integration automates tasks and generates new customers, it often pays for itself many times over.

Q5: Which Viral Loops template is the best choice for my business? 

A: It depends entirely on your goal:

• For E-commerce: Start with the Milestone Referral to reward customers for multiple referrals with store credits or products.
• For Newsletters/Content Creators: The newsletter referral is purpose-built to grow your subscriber list.
• For a New Product Launch: The Startup Pre-launch template is unbeatable for building a waitlist and generating hype.
• For Giveaways: Use the Viral Sweepstakes to maximize entries and campaign reach.