The referral program in the classical sense is built not on the principle of monetary reward, but on involvement. If the motivation tool is the only payment, such a program is called an affiliate. The quora partner program comes with the best deals there. The main types of existing referral programs:
One sided: The user recommends a product or service to his environment and receives bonuses, branded gifts or other options for non-financial motivation.
Bilateral: An option with obvious benefit to the advertiser and affiliate. For example, for attracting new referrals, the affiliate receives points that can be exchanged for the purchase of a premium subscription. Referrals are also not a loser for registering via an affiliate link they get free premium access for a month. This is an example circuit. Options may be different, but the principle of all in gain should be maintained.
Social interaction: An interaction model built on attracting referrals through social networks.
B2B: Referral programs are relevant in an environment that covers only business representatives. An example of a scheme: an online store offers, when purchasing a product, to register using a referral link and receive additional service from a partner company. For example, when selling a vacuum cleaner, you can promote a referral link to store selling filters and other accessories.
What is the difference between referral and affiliate programs except for types of compensation for link promotion? Referral affiliate programs are more suitable for promoting popular products and companies well-known in the market. The psychological benefit, in this case, is equivalent to the material. Affiliate programs are more recommended for companies that are only conquering the market or offering new products or services. In such cases, affiliates will reasonably promote links.
Affiliate Traffic Sources
To promote a referral link, it is important that the product or service be of interest to the target audience of the affiliate visitors to his site, subscribers to the page on social networks, etc. Geography, age, financial condition, and the interests of the audience are important. For example, if the advertiser is a restaurant in Moscow, it’s useless to promote a link to it to residents of Warsaw.
In general, traffic for affiliate programs can be divided into two broad categories:
Target: Visitors who came to the site for a targeted search query. For example, they searched for refrigerators and came to the site selling refrigerators.
Inappropriate: Visitors who accidentally come to the site are not interested in the proposed products and services. Obviously, affiliate programs value targeted traffic, since the ultimate goal of the program is to sell or any other type of stimulation to the audience. Where to look for targeted traffic? Its main sources:
- Search system,
- Advertising teaser, contextual, banner,
- E-mail newsletters,
- Social networks,
All of these sources are legal. While the methods of cheating in the form of click under and other examples of black marketing the rules of many affiliate programs prohibit.
How to promote an affiliate program
Brief recommendations for the effective promotion of referral links:
Post a link with a description on the site. Use the product or service of the advertiser or show an example of such use.
Write a post or article that is interesting for your audience and can cause a desire to click on a referral link,
Download the materials proposed by the advertiser, forms, banners and place on the website: on relevant topics or key pages.
