mkt-referralslisted

# Referral — Referral & Affiliate Program Design **A referral program is not a reward-design problem but a "why do people want to refer" problem.** Adding rewards without motivation only attracts reward hunters. ## Design Order 1. **Confirm organic referral motivation first** — ask existing customers "who would you refer?" If answers emerge, the program is just removing the friction in that moment (handing over contact info, etc.) 2. **Reward structure** — double-sided (referrer + referee) equal value is typical. But make the referee's reward bigger and upfront (first-purchase discount) and the referrer's deferred (paid after conversion) to prevent fraud 3. **Reward form** — credit / cash / service term. Credit drives repurchase and is favorable vs CAC; cash only in hot categories 4. **Payment timing** — partial payment immediately, remainder after the double-sided guarantee is confirmed. Full payment at 30 days converges to zero perceived value ## Judgment Criteria & Thresholds - The program must hold CAC below 70% of channel CAC to stay. Above that, substituting discount coupons is cheaper - Baseline: a mature referral program sees 2~5% of active customers referring. Below that it's a product problem, not a program problem - Fraud prevention: no self-referral, no duplicate payment methods, verify email/card ownership before payout - Run affiliates separately from referrals — targets (creators/media), payout basis (CPC vs CPS), and legal disclosure duties differ ## Out