Referral Marketing
Referral marketing is a strategy that encourages existing customers to recommend a product to others, usually with a two-sided reward, leveraging personal trust to acquire new customers at low cost.
Unlike affiliate programs aimed at professional publishers, referral marketing targets a brand's own happy customers, giving both the referrer and the new customer an incentive — a credit, discount, or cash reward — to spread the word.
Referral programs convert well because recommendations arrive with built-in trust, and they scale acquisition efficiently since the cost is paid only on a successful referral. They are tracked with unique links or codes much like affiliate programs.
See also
- Referral
A referral is a new customer or lead brought to a business by an existing customer or partner, typically tracked so the referrer can be rewarded.
- Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a performance-based marketing model in which a business pays external partners a commission for each customer or sale they refer.
- Partner Marketing
Partner marketing is a broad discipline of growing revenue through external partners — affiliates, referrers, resellers, ambassadors, and integration partners — encompassing affiliate marketing and extending into strategic and channel partnerships.
- Ambassador Program
An ambassador program is a structured, ongoing initiative in which a brand recruits loyal creators or customers to represent it over time, rewarding them with commissions, product, or perks for sustained promotion.
Turn the theory into a live program
Afflio handles tracking, commissions, and payouts so you can run the program these terms describe — start free in an afternoon.
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