New card acquisition was plateauing. We needed to find demand inside the platform itself.

The talabat ADCB co-branded card had strong product value, but two documented problems limited growth: a low overall acquisition rate and a lack of user awareness of the card's benefits. Data showed that 37% of users who tapped "apply now" returned at least 3 times before completing — intent existed, but benefit comprehension was the barrier. The question wasn't whether users wanted the card. It was whether the right users were hearing about it.

I found the signal in the wrong research session.

During a study on a different project, a recurring pattern emerged: card holders with satisfactory experience consistently showed a tendency to promote the card within their immediate circle — without any incentive. This was not the subject of the research. But it was too consistent to set aside. It became the seed for a hypothesis: if users were already referring informally, what would happen if we made that referral easy, visible, and rewarded?

Before asking for a full programme, I needed proof. So I shipped a button.

Hypothesis: making it easier for users to share the card by adding a simple "Share" button across the engagement journeys will validate whether a referral programme is worth building. We shipped it with no tracking, no incentives — just friction removal. ~10% of all users visiting the card status page tapped it. That number became the argument. I ran workshops bringing commercial, data, engineering, and product stakeholders together, defined scope, and built the service blueprint for the full programme.

the only change
we shipped

no campaign · no reward
just friction removed

Card status screen · Share button · May 2024

Mid-project, commercial eliminated the referee reward. Here's what we did instead.

Launched to 100% of UAE users, January 2025.

A complete referrer and referee experience: entry points across card engagement journeys, a dedicated landing page, a real-time earnings tracker for the referrer, and a 3-step welcome bonus tracker for the referee.

R

Referral Friend

online

Have you heard about the talabat ADCB Credit Card yet? Enjoy 10+ exclusive benefits, including:

• No annual fees, ever
• AED 500 welcome bonus
• 35% back on 10 talabat orders monthly
• Up to 1.25% back on all other spends
• Free delivery on talabat orders
• Airport lounge access and other amazing benefits

Tap on the link below to learn more

https://pzwv.adj.st/?s=cobranded-credit-card&source

10:32 AM ✓✓

Mockup · WhatsApp card share

01

Entry Points

3 contextual entry points surfaced across the card engagement journey: card status screen, post-purchase banner, and account page — meeting users where they are in their usage cycle.

02

RaF Landing Page

Clear value proposition up front: reward amount, eligibility, and how it works in 3 simplified steps — reduced from the original 5-step explainer based on comprehension feedback.

03

Share Flow

One-tap share with multiple channel options. The referral link is pre-loaded with the user's unique referral code — zero effort required to forward.

04

Earnings Tracker

Real-time visibility of referral status and earnings. Prioritises earnings transparency over referee-level detail — based on user research showing referrers care most about their own reward status.

Not every user gets the same screen.

Before launch, I proactively consulted the security team to map the reward exploitation vectors specific to the talabat ecosystem — phone spoofing, multi-account farming, inactive account abuse. Together we defined four eligibility tiers. Each user type gets a tailored version of the RaF landing page, ranging from a gated view with a recovery path to a fully active earnings dashboard.

gated, not
hard-blocked shows why +
recovery path

unlocks after
first order

AED 0, not
blank state transparency over
false optimism

↺ Live prototype · tap the CTA

State 01 Ineligible

Phone unverified · Not a card holder

The profile identified most likely to abuse the reward — unverified phone, no card history. Rather than a hard block, the screen explains the gate with a contextual warning banner and gives a clear recovery path: place a successful order first. The full value proposition stays visible, so they know what they're working toward.

State 02 Pending

Eligible · T&Cs not accepted yet

The CTA is fully tappable. Tapping "Share referral link" triggers two things simultaneously: the page auto-scrolls to the T&Cs checkbox, and a dismissible toast appears at the top — "To share your referral link, you must agree to the terms & conditions." Once the user checks the box it locks (cannot be unchecked), and the CTA activates. No dead ends, no walls — the user reads the full value prop before encountering the consent ask.

State 03 In-progress

Eligible · 0 earnings · Referrals in-flight

Active referrer with pending conversions. We show AED 0.00 explicitly — not a blank or hidden state. Paired with a live in-progress counter, it signals that the system is tracking accurately. The design bets on transparency: users who trust the counter are more likely to share again rather than feel cheated.

State 04 Active earner

Eligible · Active earnings

Referrer with successful conversions. Accumulated earnings are the centrepiece — total credit displayed prominently, broken down by successful and in-progress referrals. Visibility of past success is the strongest driver of repeat sharing behaviour.

Guerrilla tested with 41 users. One finding reshaped how we thought about the whole program.

Acquisition quality, user behaviour, and platform GMV all moved.

Three honest reflections.