Customer Advocacy in SaaS: Turning Users into Champions

In the crowded, fast-moving world of B2B SaaS, one of the most powerful growth levers doesn’t come from paid marketing or outbound sales—it comes from your customers. More specifically, from the passionate, successful users who are willing to go on record about how your product has transformed their work.

Customer advocacy in SaaS is more than just a nice-to-have. It’s a core part of a high-performing customer marketing strategy—one that fuels retention, increases referrals, strengthens pipeline, and builds brand trust in ways no ad ever could.

The most forward-thinking SaaS companies are prioritizing advocacy not as an afterthought, but as a strategic function of marketing. This post explores how to cultivate brand ambassadors through co-marketing, referral programs, and community-building—and how to operationalize advocacy at scale.

Why Customer Advocacy Is So Effective in B2B SaaS

B2B buyers trust their peers more than they trust brands. In fact, Nielsen found that 92% of people trust recommendations from individuals—whether they know them or not—over branded content. That makes customer advocacy one of the most credible and cost-effective ways to influence decision-makers.

In SaaS, where solutions can be complex and adoption takes time, buyers are especially interested in hearing from others who’ve walked the same path. Case studies, testimonials, and referrals aren’t just marketing assets—they’re social proof. And they reduce perceived risk in high-stakes purchase decisions.

Advocacy also drives efficiency. It amplifies the voices of your best-fit customers, helping you attract more of them. It provides authentic content that marketing and sales can use across the funnel. And it builds a sense of community that strengthens loyalty and deepens product engagement.

As Harvard Business Review notes, companies that prioritize advocacy see stronger brand trust and a more resilient customer base—both crucial in an increasingly skeptical B2B marketplace.

Identifying Your Champions: Who Becomes an Advocate?

Not every customer is ready to become an advocate. The ideal candidates tend to share a few common traits:

• They’ve achieved meaningful success using your product (often measurable through product usage data or outcomes)
  
• They have strong relationships with your team—whether through customer success, onboarding, or executive sponsorship
  
• They’re active in their industry or peer networks and enjoy thought leadership opportunities
  

Look at NPS scores, in-product engagement, and participation in beta programs to surface potential champions. Many customer advocacy programs also use a tiered system to identify and engage advocates at different levels of commitment—from social shares to full-blown case studies.

Co-Marketing: Sharing the Spotlight

One of the most powerful ways to engage advocates is by giving them a platform. Co-marketing opportunities showcase your customer’s success story while reinforcing your product’s value in a credible, peer-driven way.

Formats include:

• Case studies and success stories
  
• Joint webinars or podcasts
  
• Guest blogs or thought leadership articles
  
• Speaking slots at virtual or in-person events
  

These aren’t just great for pipeline—they also help your customers build their personal and company brand. When executed well, co-marketing becomes a win-win: your audience sees real-world validation, and your customer gets recognition and exposure.

Make it easy for advocates to participate by handling the heavy lifting: draft outlines, prep talking points, and manage logistics. And always close the loop by showing how the asset was used and what impact it had.

Referral Programs: Turning Loyalty Into Leads

A well-designed B2B referral marketing program can drive new pipeline while rewarding loyal customers for their trust. In SaaS, referral programs often fall flat because they’re either too hard to find, too generic, or too transactional.

To succeed, your referral initiative should:

• Be easy to understand, with clear rules and transparent rewards
  
• Offer meaningful incentives (not just gift cards, but access to exclusive features, product discounts, or event invites)
  
• Feel like a natural extension of the customer experience—not a one-off ask
  

The value of referrals is well-documented. Harvard Business School found that referred customers have higher retention rates and lower acquisition costs—making this one of the most sustainable growth levers in the SaaS toolbox.

Building a Community: Where Advocates Thrive

Community is the long game of customer advocacy. A thriving user community can be a self-sustaining source of content, support, product feedback, and brand love. It also deepens your relationship with customers and creates new opportunities for organic advocacy.

According to CMX, community-led growth creates stronger customer engagement and significantly reduces churn. It also gives users a sense of ownership in your brand’s evolution.

Community-building in SaaS might include:

• Hosting user groups or “customer councils” to gather input on product roadmap
  
• Running a branded Slack or Discord workspace where users can connect
  
• Launching a customer advisory board for strategic accounts
  
• Featuring customers regularly in newsletters or product updates
  

First Round Review notes that successful communities aren’t built for customers—they’re built with them. Creating shared purpose, participation models, and recognition programs can turn customers into collaborators—and collaborators into evangelists.

Operationalizing Advocacy as a Growth Channel

To scale customer advocacy in SaaS, you need infrastructure: processes, tools, and people who can drive engagement and report on results. That doesn’t mean you need a huge team—many successful programs start with one marketer who owns both customer marketing and advocacy.

Some practical steps to formalize your advocacy motion:

• Create a shared list of top advocates with your CS and sales teams
  
• Build a content library of past advocacy assets and customer quotes
  
• Track advocacy activity in your CRM or customer marketing platform
  
• Set quarterly goals for new testimonials, case studies, or referrals
  
• Develop repeatable playbooks for co-marketing asks and referral outreach
  

As Gartner highlights, B2B buying today is non-linear and heavily influenced by peer input. A strategic advocacy program helps ensure your best-fit customers are the ones influencing those purchase decisions.

Measuring the Impact of Customer Advocacy on GTM Success

One of the most powerful aspects of a well-run advocacy program is that it directly supports your go-to-market (GTM) efforts across the funnel. But to scale advocacy, you also need to prove its impact.

Start by identifying where advocacy fits within your GTM content map. Case studies and testimonials support sales conversations, accelerate deal velocity, and provide crucial social proof in mid-to-late funnel stages. Customer quotes and referrals increase demo requests and help qualify inbound leads faster. Even a single reference call or review on G2 can tip a deal in your favor—especially in competitive scenarios.

To measure success, track key performance indicators such as:

• Number of active advocates participating each quarter
  
• Volume and type of advocacy assets created
  
• Referral-driven pipeline and conversion rates
  
• Influence of advocacy content on closed-won deals
  
• Retention and expansion rates among advocates
  

Attributing revenue to advocacy may require collaboration across marketing ops, CS, and sales—but even directional insights can make a strong case for further investment.

Final Thoughts

Customer advocacy is more than a marketing tactic—it’s a growth strategy rooted in trust, value, and community. In an environment where B2B buyers are bombarded with options, your most authentic differentiator isn’t your feature list. It’s your customers’ voices.

By investing in co-marketing, smart referral programs, and thoughtful community-building, SaaS companies can turn their best users into brand champions—driving retention, new logo acquisition, and long-term loyalty.

Looking to build or scale your advocacy motion? Contact Aventi Group to learn how we help SaaS companies operationalize customer marketing strategies that fuel real growth.