<b>One-sided vs. two-sided referral incentives: what the field data favors</b>

<b>One-sided vs. two-sided referral incentives: what the field data favors</b>

Enterprise referral programs choose between rewarding only the referrer, only the new customer, or both. The choice has measurable consequences, and the B2B answer diverges from the famous B2C cases.

<b>The B2C template.</b> Consumer referral lore is built on two-sided rewards (the Dropbox and PayPal cases): give both parties something and viral coefficients rise. The logic is that the new user's incentive lowers their friction to act.

<b>Why B2B differs.</b> In enterprise, the referrer and the buyer are often different people inside different companies, and the buyer's decision runs through procurement, not a personal discount. Per B2B referral studies, a discount to the new customer matters less than trust and fit — so the new-customer-side incentive underperforms its B2C reputation.

<b>The compliance complication.</b> Rewarding an individual referrer who is an employee of the buying company can trigger conflict-of-interest and anti-bribery concerns (FCPA-adjacent risk). Many enterprise programs route rewards to charity or to the company, not the individual, blunting the incentive by design.

<b>Trade-off:</b> individual rewards motivate strongest but carry legal and trust risk; company-directed rewards are clean but weak motivators. There is no incentive structure that is simultaneously powerful and frictionless in enterprise.

<b>Implications:</b> copy B2C two-sided referral mechanics into enterprise and you'll likely overspend on the buyer side while creating compliance exposure on the referrer side. The structure that wins in consumer is the wrong default here.