Author Topic: Simple, self-sustaining and easy to implement referral program  (Read 10903 times)

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Offline valzav

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There is some progress. I've set up a simple proof of concept demo, please check this out..

(There are two independent parts, one is simulating the client the other one the faucet, currently they are both on the same domain, please don't be confused - in real life these would be totally separated talking to each other via api)

  • [faucet] open this link http://bitsharestestdrive.com/admin/coupons/new  and create your coupon (only XTS is supported yet), copy coupon code to clipboard.
  • [client] open http://bitsharestestdrive.com/ , log in with bitshares/password, go to My Accounts, click on Create New Account, select any name and paste your coupon code below, click Create New Account - now your account should be registered and you should receive coupon amount in 10 seconds.

Offline Empirical1.1

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Worth reading http://blog.referralcandy.com/2014/01/23/paypal-referrals/ - here is how 7 to 10% daily growth in 2000 (PayPal acquired 1 million users by March 2000 and 5 million by summer 2000)

A small quote:
Quote
PayPal’s big challenge was to get new customers. They tried advertising. It was too expensive. They tried BD deals with big banks. Bureaucratic hilarity ensued. Over ice cream, the PayPal team reached an important conclusion: BD didn’t work. They needed organic, viral growth. They needed to give people money.
So that’s what they did. New customers got $10 for signing up, and existing ones got $10 for referrals. Growth went exponential, and PayPal wound up paying $20 for each new customer. It felt like things were working and not working at the same time; 7 to 10% daily growth and 100 million users was good.

My understanding is it cost PayPal a fortune. They blew through a ton of funds short term and it took a long time to generate positive returns. Applying the same idea to Crypto, where the give-always directly eat into the share price results in large shareholder losses in the majority of cases to date. They're completely different scenarios.

To date, we've had a huge hurdle to just set up a first account. Just something that makes that easier, a basic faucet, would be the place to start. You'd get way more than 200 users per delegate just by by doing that & some basic advertising rather than giving the $2000 to users directly.

If delegates did want to give away BitUSD I would suggest starting smaller like a few bucks, evaluate the effects and then raise it after a few weeks, if the results are positive but not generating enough interest.
« Last Edit: November 30, 2014, 06:43:57 pm by Empirical1.1 »

Offline donkeypong

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My main problem with referral programs is...well...I...I don't have any friends! :'(

You've got us but it won't help much to refer us!  ;)

Offline hadrian

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My main problem with referral programs is...well...I...I don't have any friends! :'(
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Offline islandking

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I feel like $10 is far to high. How about $0.50 or $1?

If somebody found out a way to abuse it though, they would abuse it. Especially if you plan on giving out 10 bit USD. They would find people on microworkers.com and pay people to do it for them, hire people in India etc. So just be careful. Fraud can get out of control with referral marketing with cash incentives.

This is where we need delegates - if you think that audience brought by some particular referral program is too expensive, just don't vote or vote the delegate out.
If you think there is a lot of abuse, talk to delegate, ask him or her to add more restrictions to campaign or vote the delegate out.
In both cases we need to know campaign KPIs, it can be tricky to get this data, in the UPDATE 2 I'm addressing this issue.

That seems like a good solution to the problem.
I've been working on a new electronic cash system that's fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party. - Satoshi

Offline valzav

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Speaking of delegates and referral programs... I need to find a smart way to implement a referral program through face to face meetups which I am organizing.  I am confident that any abuse of an 'in person' implementation will be extremely low.

I want to make it easy for folks to get their accounts activated, and reward them for doing so, and for referring their friends (who create accounts) to the meetup.  To the extent possible, track the numbers of people brought into the network in this manner. ie. Metrics to show the effectiveness of face to face marketing would be helpful.

I'm not a super technical delegate so I could use some help developing such a program.

What do you suppose would be the clean, accountable way of doing this?
Also assuming an n% paid delegate if that helps the implementation.  :)

Having what I've outlined above implemented will allow generating and printing coupons right from the BitShares client. And yes, everyone who gets coupon would have enough funds to register an account, whoever refers them also gets his/her piece of a pie, also metrics would be provided by a faucet that was used to generate coupons.
« Last Edit: November 26, 2014, 09:41:40 pm by valzav »

Offline lovejoy

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Speaking of delegates and referral programs... I need to find a smart way to implement a referral program through face to face meetups which I am organizing.  I am confident that any abuse of an 'in person' implementation will be extremely low.

I want to make it easy for folks to get their accounts activated, and reward them for doing so, and for referring their friends (who create accounts) to the meetup.  To the extent possible, track the numbers of people brought into the network in this manner. ie. Metrics to show the effectiveness of face to face marketing would be helpful.

I'm not a super technical delegate so I could use some help developing such a program.

What do you suppose would be the clean, accountable way of doing this?
Also assuming an n% paid delegate if that helps the implementation.  :)

Offline valzav

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I feel like $10 is far to high. How about $0.50 or $1?

If somebody found out a way to abuse it though, they would abuse it. Especially if you plan on giving out 10 bit USD. They would find people on microworkers.com and pay people to do it for them, hire people in India etc. So just be careful. Fraud can get out of control with referral marketing with cash incentives.

This is where we need delegates - if you think that audience brought by some particular referral program is too expensive, just don't vote or vote the delegate out.
If you think there is a lot of abuse, talk to delegate, ask him or her to add more restrictions to campaign or vote the delegate out.
In both cases we need to know campaign KPIs, it can be tricky to get this data, in the UPDATE 2 I'm addressing this issue.

Offline islandking

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The major issue with this is that people would download the client on several computers to abuse the $10 reward. They would claim the reward on tons of different computers and then transfer all the funds to their own wallet. People WILL find a way to abuse this.

This is not computer or wallet installation that counts, but account registration + unique coupon redemption, the only way to get a coupon is to pass proof of person process. I expect there would be some cheating, but the percentage should be small relative to overall network effect.

If somebody found out a way to abuse it though, they would abuse it. Especially if you plan on giving out 10 bit USD. They would find people on microworkers.com and pay people to do it for them, hire people in India etc. So just be careful. Fraud can get out of control with referral marketing with cash incentives.
I've been working on a new electronic cash system that's fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party. - Satoshi

Offline islandking

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I feel like $10 is far to high. How about $0.50 or $1?
I've been working on a new electronic cash system that's fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party. - Satoshi

Offline hpenvy

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NXTTY are already doing something like this, paying people 2500 NXTTY (worth 5 dollars atm), to whoever downloads their mobile wallet. https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=10589.msg150623#msg150623 In addition they are paying 5% each month on your holdings.

As you can see their market cap went down as this initiative started, but this might be deceptive,

Quote
It felt like things were working and not working at the same time [my emphasis]; 7 to 10% daily growth and 100 million users was good.

We should pay very close attention to how this works out. It sometimes frightens me that people on this forum are acting as if subsidizing a 5% yearly yield is a big deal, or giving 10% back on bitUSD purchases, etc. when our competition can do 5% monthly without hesitating. What I am afraid of is that we are too conservative, too myopic, too rational, too cowardly, too engaged in provincial details.

To be sure BM has the aptitude to see clearly to implement something outrageously daring and genius, something that others cannot even think before they shrink back in horror, but I am afraid he is too occupied, too distracted, too busy, or even lead astray by false hopes, false delegation of responsibility, hidden assumptions or ideological limiting thoughts.

Deep truth is often accompanied by a laugh, as if to defend against its terror. I think we should aim towards the same level of insanity with respect to marketing; unless we laugh in terror and excitement at an idea we are not digging our heels deep enough into ground zero launch site. The marketing push should fill us with frightful, trembling awe!

I have nothing to add, this sums up my feeling on our approach 100%.
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Tips appreciated for good work

Offline CLains

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NXTTY are already doing something like this, paying people 2500 NXTTY (worth 5 dollars atm), to whoever downloads their mobile wallet. https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=10589.msg150623#msg150623 In addition they are paying 5% each month on your holdings.

As you can see their market cap went down as this initiative started, but this might be deceptive,

Quote
It felt like things were working and not working at the same time [my emphasis]; 7 to 10% daily growth and 100 million users was good.

We should pay very close attention to how this works out. It sometimes frightens me that people on this forum are acting as if subsidizing a 5% yearly yield is a big deal, or giving 10% back on bitUSD purchases, etc. when our competition can do 5% monthly without hesitating. What I am afraid of is that we are too conservative, too myopic, too rational, too cowardly, too engaged in provincial details.

To be sure BM has the aptitude to see clearly to implement something outrageously daring and genius, something that others cannot even think before they shrink back in horror, but I am afraid he is too occupied, too distracted, too busy, or even lead astray by false hopes, false delegation of responsibility, hidden assumptions or ideological limiting thoughts.

Deep truth is often accompanied by a laugh, as if to defend against its terror. I think we should aim towards the same level of insanity with respect to marketing; unless we laugh in terror and excitement at an idea we are not digging our heels deep enough into ground zero launch site. The marketing push should fill us with frightful, trembling awe!

Offline valzav

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Worth reading http://blog.referralcandy.com/2014/01/23/paypal-referrals/ - here is how 7 to 10% daily growth in 2000 (PayPal acquired 1 million users by March 2000 and 5 million by summer 2000)

A small quote:
Quote
PayPal’s big challenge was to get new customers. They tried advertising. It was too expensive. They tried BD deals with big banks. Bureaucratic hilarity ensued. Over ice cream, the PayPal team reached an important conclusion: BD didn’t work. They needed organic, viral growth. They needed to give people money.
So that’s what they did. New customers got $10 for signing up, and existing ones got $10 for referrals. Growth went exponential, and PayPal wound up paying $20 for each new customer. It felt like things were working and not working at the same time; 7 to 10% daily growth and 100 million users was good.

Offline xeroc

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I like the idea ... and I'd love to seem many more useful proposals like this... So, once again, we need someone to "do it".. don,t we?

Offline lovejoy

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I think some sort of mechanism like this would be really beneficial for grassroots marketing efforts.

I'm making plans to run local BTS meetings in a few locations as a pilot project for national and international outreach, and something like this would really help people get started with BTS!

If i'm able to secure a paid marketing delegate position, I would love to help with implementation.

Marketing delegate pitch forthcoming.. ;)