Influitive vs Base Comparison and Migration Guide

As you explore the increasingly vast selection of platforms in the customer marketing world, you’ll find many focused on customer references, advocacy, community, and customer engagement. Some, like Influitive and Base, sit at the intersection of these categories.

In this Influitive vs Base comparison, we examine the capabilities of both platforms. For a broader overview of vendors in the market, see our eBook, Customer Programs on a Stack.

This Influitive vs Base comparison focuses on three main areas:

Influitive Features versus Base Features
Influitive Services versus Base Services
Influitive Security and Privacy versus Base Security and Privacy

At Advocacy Maven, we have extensive experience working with the Influitive platform. This perspective helps inform our evaluation of both Influitive and Base in this comparison.

Our goal is to help organizations evaluate these platforms with greater clarity when selecting or migrating a customer advocacy solution.

This comparison is part of our series analyzing customer advocacy platforms and the capabilities organizations evaluate when selecting or migrating advocacy tools.

1. Influitive Features versus Base Features

This section compares the core functionality of the two platforms, including advocacy activities, community features, reference management, integrations, and reporting capabilities.

1.1 Advocacy Activities

In Influitive, you create Challenges to encourage Acts of Advocacy from your members. In Base, you create ASKs and activities. These concepts map almost perfectly.

You can create the following ASKs and activities in Base:

➤ Social amplification (i.e. social sharing)
➤ Reference request
➤ Referrals
➤ Surveys — maps directly to the Question stage in Influitive
➤ Fun and delight
➤ Up-sell and cross-sell
➤ User-generated content (as in Influitive, you can request testimonials, tips, etc.)
➤ Activities consent
➤ Update profile

1.2 Organizing Activities in Base

Are there Channels in Base?

As an Influitive user, you’ll know that Channels are used to organize Challenges based on topic, type of activity, product line, or whatever your heart desires. That said, all Challenges still live in the Challenges tab (unless you’ve had a custom request to name it something else).

Base allows you to break up activities into separate sections (i.e. links in the navigation bar) so you could separate Asks and Educational activities into different sections in their platform.

Within the ASKs page itself, you can choose the order of the activities using a ranking system similar to Influitive.

1.3 ASK Types (aka. Challenge Types)

In Influitive, you can create an infinite number of Challenge types that are used for reporting or for members to filter Challenges. Base has a similar tags system that behaves in a similar way.

1.4 How to Create Campaigns

Campaigns in Influitive are quite rigid and you can only customize the content of each Challenge in the Campaign. You are not able to add or remove Challenges or modify the unlocking flow. Many Program Managers therefore opt to create their own journeys from scratch.

Base allows you to create campaigns (known as Journeys) from scratch, and unlike Influitive, it’s easy for an advocate to see an outline of the journey and their progress, including how many points and badges are outstanding.

This applies to all ASKs, but it’s also easy for advocates to review completed journeys and view ASK content. As you may know, reviewing content from completed Challenges is a bit of a hassle and Stage content is not visible at all.

1.5 Referrals

Things are similar on the referral side of things as well. Both Influitive and Base allow you to run multiple referral campaigns and source leads via ASKs/Challenges within the platform or via social share, email, and so on. Both platforms give advocates a unique link to allow convenient tracking.

Both systems integrate with Salesforce, Marketo, HubSpot and Eloqua. These are very simple lead push integrations, with no automated follow-up.

Influitive supports automatic tracking of leads natively via its Salesforce integration and with some custom work using the Influitive Referrals API, automated tracking can be accomplished on any platform.

1.6 Reference Management

Referenceable customers are those who are willing to share their positive experiences with your product or service with potential buyers, analysts, or media outlets. They can provide powerful social proof and increase your credibility and trustworthiness.

Both Influitive and Base have Reference Request functionality that integrates with Salesforce and allows sales reps to request reference calls with referenceable advocates in your program.

Base has a clear delineation between two types of workflows — managed flow and peer-to-peer flow. A managed flow is where the reference manager (aka Program Manager) decides the best advocate for the Opportunity and starts the internal workflow of getting approvals, while a peer-to-peer flow allows the salesperson to choose the reference themselves.

Influitive’s reference flow is more like the peer-to-peer flow, but the sales rep can only recommend a member, with the ultimate decision on who will see the request still being up to the program manager.

Base also allows you to store and organize all the information about your referenceable customers in one place. You can filter them by various attributes, such as industry, use case, region, or level of satisfaction. With proper filtering of the Member List in Influitive, you could achieve this, but Base also lets you tag advocates with relevant keywords, such as case study, testimonial, or media interview.

In both platforms, a sales rep can easily kick off the reference request flow from Salesforce, and the native integrations connect back to the advocacy program.

1.7 Referenceable Content

Base has a key concept of Referenceable content built into its platform. As you saw in the Advocacy Activities section above, you can collect this content in a similar manner to Influitive, but the feature goes much deeper.

While you can certainly collect quotes, customer stories, logos, and the like from Influitive, there is no centralized place to find all these advocate submissions unless you export it to some other content management platform.

Base administrators can search the database of referenceable content from within the platform based on keywords from the content itself, contact details such as title and industry, and more. These searches bring up a list of content and how well it matches your query. Their AI features will also summarize the content, making it easier to skim through.

Referenceable content is one area where the consent activity mentioned above comes into play. Advocates provide detailed consent on how their content can be used. They consent to the frequency of usage (i.e. anytime, once a month, etc.) as well as the audience (i.e. public, private in a sales call, not at all).

This content and applicable consents are also available on the Salesforce Account and Contact records.

1.8 Community Features

Both Influitive and Base have basic community functionality out-of-the-box while also allowing customers to link to their own community.

While the functionality is similar, Base has a couple of features that long-time Influitive Program Managers have been looking for — tagging and member directory.

Influitive does have the ability to switch on tagging in the Discussions section, but it is a bit of an after-thought, and I would call it more of a workaround. Base supports tagging out-of-the-box and allows advocates to click on a tag from the Community page to easily find relevant conversations.

They also have the often-requested searchable member directory. This allows advocates to see others in the community either by looking through a list or searching for them. Advocates could, in theory, connect and network behind-the-scenes. In Influitive, you can also use the in-app messenger to connect with Members, but you can only find someone if they happen to have posted in Discussions.

1.9 Motivation and Gamification

Base and Influitive have similar motivation features. Both platforms offer badges, points, leaderboards, and rewards.

Nothing will surprise you with regards to points, as they are awarded at different stages of an ASK in Base, like Influitive. These points allow advocates to move up the Leaderboard, just as they would in Influitive. Badges are also awarded to advocates after meeting specified criteria.

Base has a Rewards section where rewards are redeemable for points. A unique feature of Base is the option to assign rewards to stages of ASKs as well. This is similar to a Perk in Influitive, but configuration is done within the ASK, instead of configuring rules within the Reward.

1.10 Targeting and Segmentation

A frequent question from users is: Can I target ASKs to specific people?

Targeting is a powerful feature that helps you segment your advocacy program and deliver personalized and tailored experiences to your advocates.

Both platforms can target individuals or groups advocates for each ASK/Challenge. Base also allows you to create rules based on various criteria, such as location, industry, role, engagement level, or any custom field. You can also upload a list of advocates from a CSV file or an external source.

Just like Influitive, Base lets you preview the number of advocates who match your targeting criteria before launching your ASK, so you can adjust your settings accordingly.

1.11 Does Base Have Groups?

Groups are collections of advocates who share common attributes. The concept appears in both Influitive and Base.

In Base, you can also create groups manually or automatically based on rules, such as the number of completed ASKs, earned points, or referrals. You can also import groups from external sources.

Both platforms leverage Group reporting as a way to measure the performance and engagement of different segments of your program and identify areas for improvement.

1.12 Integration with Salesforce

The purpose of the Salesforce integration in both platforms is to allow visibility into your advocacy program by stakeholders who don’t have access to Base or Influitive. If you’ve used the Influitive Salesforce integration, you’ll know that users can access the following from within Salesforce:

➤ Advocacy activities along with all of the content and metadata (challenge type, advocacy type, points earned, etc.)
➤ Member details such as joined date, level, number of points, and so on
➤ A list of references received via Influitive
➤ Reference Request submission wizard

These details are added as components to the Contact, Account, or Opportunity page layouts. Most of this data can be used in Salesforce reporting and dashboards at the Contact and Account level.

In Base, the Salesforce app (also available in the Marketplace) adds a new tab to Contact records. Within the Base tab, almost all relevant info about the advocate is organized in an easy-to-consume manner. You can find all the following:

➤ Achievements: Points and badges
➤ Advocacy activities
➤ Custom Fields from Base profile
➤ Consent
➤ Referenceable content and status

When adding advocates to Base, you choose if your Salesforce should sync based on email or ID. As a reminder, email syncing is default in Influitive; if you add a Contact ID to the member (via import or manually), email syncing will then be based on that Contact ID.

Finally, both platforms allow Salesforce users to nominate Contacts for your advocacy program.

1.13 Embedding Content in Third-Party Websites

In this section, we’ll consider embedding to be one of the following abilities:

➤ Embed the whole program into a third-party website via iFrame
➤ Embed some part of the program into a third-party website via JavaScript/HTML
➤ Add a pop-up widget representing some part of the program into a third-party website via JavaScript/HTML

1.14 Embedding the Entire Program via iFrame

An iFrame is a way to display a website inside another website. This can be useful for integrating different web services, but it also comes with some risks.

For example, an iFrame can expose your website to malicious code, phishing attacks, or cross-site scripting. To prevent these problems, you should only use iFrames from trusted sources and follow the best practices for iFrame security. Neither Influitive not Base should cause your website to be exposed to such risks, but understanding this is important.

Pre-acquisition Influitive allowed embedding of the entire program via iFrame on a very limited basis and it could only be done via a special request. The current status of this is unknown, but it’s a good idea to reach out to Support.

Base openly supports embedding the advocacy program into any third-party via iFrame.

1.15 Embedding Individual Components via Script

Influitive supports adding the Challenge carousel, recruitment widgets, and bounties (i.e. bonus points for responding to discussion topics) directly within Salesforce and Khoros communities. Influitive’s AdvocateAnywhere feature also allows you to embed individual challenges directly via script.

Base allows you to embed individual ASKs to third party websites such as your external community platform.

1.16 Adding Pop-Up Widgets via Script

Influitive’s AdvocateAnywhere allows customers to add a widget to their website or web-based application.

This widget hosts Challenges (such as surveys, Advocate Workflow, and a few more) that can be completed by members of the public or those who are already members of the advocacy program.

From whomever they are, the Challenge responses will be added to your AdvocateHub for reporting. If the individual is not a member, they will be added to the Invite List and will accrue points that can be used if they happen to be invited or join.

Base has a very similar feature that allows you to add a pop-up widget to accommodate ASKs and announcements in your website or web-based application.

1.17 Reporting

Base offers a full set of reports that cover the basic needs for monitoring an advocacy program. It does lack the depth of Influitive reporting and some reports are only available via CSV export rather within the UI itself.

A fairly large omission from Base’s feature set is a lack of email engagement reporting, something that Influitive does fairly well with stats on delivery, errors, open, and click rates.

1.18 Integrations

Throughout this article, we’ve talked a bit about integrations, but this section aims to give an overview of what is available on both platforms.

Influitive’s integrations are generally well-documented and fall into the categories below:

➤ CRM: Salesforce
➤ Reviews: TrustRadius, G2Crowd
➤ Marketing Automation: Marketo, Hubspot, Eloqua
➤ Reward Fulfillment: Tango Card, Sendoso, Reachdesk, Printfection
➤ Community: Salesforce Community, Khoros
➤ Reference Management: RO Innovation

Base offers integrations with several platforms. Below is a list, but you can view their marketing page on the subject for (a few) more details. As with a lot of their features, Base does not publish extensive information about these integrations and instead encourages prospects to request a demo to explore them in more detail.

➤ CRM: Marketo, Eloqua, Intercom, Salesforce
➤ Reviews: G2 Crowd, TrustRadius, Gartner, Capterra, TrustPilot
➤ Marketing Automation: Marketo, Hubspot, Eloqua, Pardot. These integrations are used to generate leads through the system when referral or upsell campaigns are run. The leads generated from these campaigns are sent directly to the marketing automation system, where the company can start their internal flows and processes.
➤ Reward Fulfillment: Sendoso, Reachdesk, XTRM, Printfection, Tango Card
➤ Engagement: Base allows you to use data from your customer engagement platforms such as in-app chat, Zendesk, and Intercom in your advocacy program

1.19 Integration with Slack

We’ll talk a bit more about Slack as both Influitive and Base support notifications in Slack for activity in the advocacy program, but they have entirely different purposes.

In Base, when a new piece of evidence (one of their terms for referenceable content like a testimonial) is submitted by an advocate, a message will be sent to the specified Slack channel.

In Influitive, the Slack notifications are triggered by posts in the Discussions section. You can read more about this in the Influitive Help Center.

2. Influitive Services versus Base Services

Base’s services, customer success, and support structure will seem very familiar to Influitive customers. Here is a summary of their offerings:

Dedicated CSM: Customers have direct access to a dedicated customer success manager from onboarding through their entire lifecycle, at no extra cost.

Onboarding: During setup and onboarding, the Base team meets customers two to three times each week until two weeks after launch.

Post-Launch Service: Customers meet their CSM on a weekly basis for a period after launch, then shift to bi-weekly and eventually monthly (depending on customer need).

Program and Business Reviews: The Head of Customer Success meets with customers monthly/quarterly as required. EBRs with all stakeholders, including the Base CEO, are run once or twice per year.

Support Channels: Base offers support via phone, a dedicated Slack channel, and email.

Support Portal: Base has an online help center but it is severely lacking in breadth and depth. It barely scratches the surface, and key aspects such as integrations and reports have almost no documentation.

Support Availability: Support operates during working days/hours in both North America and EMEA. In the case of an urgent/critical issue they can be reached 24/7 (though this is apparently, rare).

In June 2024, Jigsaw Entertainment engaged Advocacy Maven to deliver CSM services to all Influitive customers. Advocacy Maven offers a full suite of managed services to complement Jigsaw’s CSM support and help Influitive clients with their strategy, execution, content creation, and reporting.

3. Influitive Security/Privacy versus Base Security/Privacy

Both Base and Influitive have security and privacy policies in place to protect the data of their users. Base is much more publicly transparent about their certifications and security standards. While you can read everything in an easily digestible format on Base’s website, Influitive only offers its four-year-old privacy policy which is not as useful in breadth or depth.

Here is a brief comparison of the policies that will likely be relevant to you:

➤ Both Influitive and Base are SOC 2 compliant
➤ Both use a multi-tenant infrastructure, meaning customer data is held separately from one another
➤ Both platforms comply with GDPR and CCPA regulations
➤ Both platforms are primarily hosted on AWS
➤ Both allow customers to leverage their own identity providers for authentication (i.e. SSO)
➤ Base has two-factor authentication, but Influitive requires that two-factor authentication be set up via customer SSO

Other Customer Advocacy Platform Analyses

If you are evaluating customer advocacy platforms, you may also find these related analyses helpful:

➤ Orca Platform Review
➤ SlapFive Platform Review
➤ ReferenceEdge Platform Review

Final Assessment: Influitive versus Base

This Influitive vs Base comparison highlights two mature customer advocacy platforms with overlapping capabilities but different strengths. While Influitive offers deeper reporting and a long-established advocacy ecosystem, Base provides flexible campaign journeys, strong referenceable content management, and modern community features. Organizations evaluating a migration or new advocacy platform should carefully consider their priorities around reporting, integrations, and program structure when deciding between the two solutions.