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Ask HN: What does everyone use for a referral system?

49 points| expertcs | 15 years ago | reply

I have a product which asks user to register. I want to integrate an automated referral system into the emails I send out to my existing customers so that if they refer my app to any of their friends and the friends purchase it, both the friend and them get some discount. I checked zferral and hasoffers but both of them are for affiliates. I am looking for a easily integrable referral system like vonage to keep track.

Thanks.

20 comments

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[+] jacquesm|15 years ago|reply
The people that I know that run serious businesses using referral systems rolled their own for tight integration and because of privacy issues.

Trusting third parties with the email addresses of all your customers and prospects is not always wise.

[+] ericabiz|15 years ago|reply
It's not necessary to roll your own affiliate software just for privacy reasons. There are plenty of products out there where you buy an owned license, install it on your server, and integrate with it using an API instead of using a third party system. Post Affiliate Pro and iDevAffiliate are the two most well-known ones.
[+] Mc_Big_G|15 years ago|reply
I agree completely. Rolling your own is just a day or two of work and you can customize it however you want. If you're using rails, I'd be happy to summarize the nuts and bolts for you. Email is in my profile.

I've thought about writing a plugin, but haven't found the time yet. I'm travelling with infrequent connections, so I might not get back to you for a day or two if you send an email.

[+] toni|15 years ago|reply
http://zferral.com/ has an easy build-it-yourself referral system.
[+] expertcs|15 years ago|reply
zferral seems to be a good option for affiliates who will continuously market your product. I am looking for a system which can help me release campaigns to my existing users. For example, if they post about my product with my link provided on twitter/facebook or simply email it to their friends and their friends purchase the product, I should be notified so that I can provide the offer to my existing user.
[+] ericabiz|15 years ago|reply
Interesting that there are so few responses.

Over at http://blogsetup.com , I set up Post Affiliate Pro with some custom PHP code to integrate it so the commission triggers upon fill out of a form, then goes into a "Pending" state until we manually verify it. Post Affiliate Pro is pretty flexible and has a good API for this kind of stuff.

I also looked at iDevAffiliate, but ultimately picked Post Affiliate Pro because it has better SEO on the links and, in general, it had better reviews. The general class of software you are looking for is "affiliate software".

[+] unknown|15 years ago|reply

[deleted]

[+] jeffepp|15 years ago|reply
A few other points about zferral:

1) We have flexible campaigns (change % without changing links) also enable recurring commissions, rev share and large up front with lower recurring.

2) You can create custom currencies (points, t-shirt, gold stars, discounts) you name it.

3) We have an open API for seamless integrate into your HTML/CSS.

4) it's free to start

[+] EGreg|15 years ago|reply
Yeah. I'm building analytics that let you track who invited whom, and you'll be able to actually use this to offer discounts.

It's actually part of my site, which I can't really talk about yet :)

But the analytics will be a spin-off, so if you can wait 2 weeks you will get it. gregory at gregory dotnet

[+] klochner|15 years ago|reply
My company (rentmineonline.com, seedcamp '08, fbfund '09) has been running this kind of service for rental communities.

We recently launched a partner site that isn't industry specific, (RefYo) I'd love to get your input about desired features, etc.

feel free to drop me a line - [email protected]