How to Set Up Referral Link Tracking: A Complete Guide

Find out everything you need to know about referral link tracking!

You just bought a cute new hat off an e-commerce brand’s website. How did you hear of them? If you’re part of the majority (36% of people), you found that brand of someone else’s recommendation, aka a referral. 

Maybe someone was incentivized to bring you to the brand via a customer referral program. Thousands of brands have referral programs to generate new leads and conversions on a budget — but how do brands track new referrals and optimize your program? 

You’ll need the operational and data values from the referral link tracking. 

This guide will walk you through referral link generation, tracking, software, and best practices to optimize your referral or affiliate program. 

How Referral Link Tracking Works

Brands can track customer referrals through unique links that tell you which customers referred a new purchase or action. 

You might generate a unique referral tracking link with marketing software (more on that later) and share it with your existing customers. Once they share those links with other people, and those people make new purchases, you’ll know who to reward for the referral and keep the magic of word-of-mouth marketing rolling. 

Often, passionate customers or professional affiliates share referral links or codes on their social media platforms to generate more business for your brand and, thus, more commissions for their own business. 

Why Referral Link Tracking is Important

Referral link tracking helps you keep tabs on the customers who refer new business to your brand. It gives you data on: 

• Dates: Which seasons and date ranges garner you the most new referrals?
• Value: How much money did a particular customer refer to your business?
• Numbers: How many referrals did your program receive in the last week, month, or year?
• Location: Where do your referrals come from?

But what does all this data do for your business? For starters, it helps you become aware of your business and customers’ nature so that you can continue enhancing your marketing tactics. Referral link tracking also helps with fraud prevention. 

If you know where your referral links come from (including IP addresses with Tapfiliate), you can stop fraudulent affiliates in their tracks. Unfortunately, affiliate fraud is a rampant risk to all brand referral and affiliate programs. Referral link tracking helps you protect your data and revenue.  

Step-by-Step Guide to Setting Up Referral Link Tracking

Ready to reap new referrals? Let’s set up referral link tracking with these five steps: 

• Choose the right affiliate tracking software
• Integrate tracking software with your website
• Generate referral links and codes
• Distribute referral links to affiliates
• Monitor and analyze performance

Step 1: Choose the Right Referral Tracking Software

Sure, you could try to ask every new customer who referred them and try to keep track in an Excel spreadsheet. But manual tracking isn’t robust enough for affiliate programs that grow past 10 or so monthly referrals. And if you’re like any of our clients, trust us; you’ll see much more growth than that. 

So, how do you keep track? The answer is in the right tech. Affiliate tracking software helps you record and monitor every referral that comes your way via various tracking methods (most often referral links; more on that shortly). 

Tapfiliate is affiliate and referral tracking software with 100% accurate referral link tracking, real-time reporting, and a general dashboard to give you a bird’s-eye view of performance. We also offer features to engage affiliates, like in-platform messaging, email templates, branded assets, and flexible commissions. 

Of course, there are other types of referral marketing software available. The important part is to pick one that aligns well with your business: 

• Industry: Does the software have proven experience helping brands within your industry grow and manage their referral programs?
• Reviews: Does the referral software have generally positive reviews online, especially from companies similar to yours? 
• Features: Look for software with features like customizable referral reports, large tracking capacities, flexible commissions, integrations, and fraud prevention. 
• Price: Most affiliate software charges monthly subscription fees with tiered pricing for additional features. Find one that fits your budget. Don’t pay a premium unless the benefits align with your business goals and industry.

Next up?

Step 2: Integrate Tracking Software with Your Website 

Referral management software must be integrated with your website to properly capture every new referral and accompanying data. 

Integration comes in two ways: pre-built integrations or custom integrations via coding. 

Pre-built integrations are often plug-and-play, meaning you can integrate with just a few steps and don’t need the expertise of a developer. Check your referral software to see if it integrates with your website’s hosting platform. For example, Tapfiliate integrates with Squarespace, WordPress, and Wix Stores. 

We also offer comprehensive resources like this video tutorial on how to integrate with our supported sites, like this one for WordPress: 

But let’s say you have a custom-built website. With Tapfiliate, you can integrate referral software with support from a developer via JavaScript or the RESTful API. 

Here’s a quick example of how you can integrate with JavaScript: 

Add a click tracking code to your website 

Place the code snippet below at the head of every single web page on your website between the following HTML tags: 

<head> and </head>

<script src="https://script.tapfiliate.com/tapfiliate.js" type="text/javascript" async></script>

<script type="text/javascript">

  (function(t,a,p){t.TapfiliateObject=a;t[a]=t[a]||function(){ (t[a].q=t[a].q||[]).push(arguments)}})(window,'tap');

 

  tap('create', 'YOUR ACCOUNT ID', { integration: "javascript" });

  tap('detect');

</script>

Inform the software of a new referral with a conversion code

Also, insert the conversion code below on your “thank you” page or any other page that appears after customers complete referral purchases or actions.

<script src="https://script.tapfiliate.com/tapfiliate.js" type="text/javascript" async></script>

<script type="text/javascript">

  (function(t,a,p){t.TapfiliateObject=a;t[a]=t[a]||function(){ (t[a].q=t[a].q||[]).push(arguments)}})(window,'tap');

 

  tap('create', 'YOUR ACCOUNT ID', { integration: "javascript" });

  tap('conversion');

</script>

Customize IDs for unique conversion events

Not all brands have the same referral actions. Your program might reward partners for reviewing 

new purchases, email signups, demo downloads, or any other action meaningful to your business. That’s why we recommend adding unique conversion IDs to your initial conversion code. 

You can place the unique code below as the second argument to the initial code after the “conversion method.”

<script src="https://script.tapfiliate.com/tapfiliate.js" type="text/javascript" async></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
  (function(t,a,p){t.TapfiliateObject=a;t[a]=t[a]||function(){ (t[a].q=t[a].q||[]).push(arguments)}})(window,'tap');

  tap('create', 'YOUR ACCOUNT ID', { integration: "javascript" });
  tap('conversion', 'Unique Conversion Id');
</script>

Decide on commission type and integrate new code accordingly

Referral program templates might have different reward types, depending on the software you use. It might make sense for your SaaS business to award recurring commissions to ensure your referees are compensated for the full scope of their lead. You might also award lifetime commissions to show affiliates’ appreciation for multiple purchases from the same referral. We also offer flat-fee and percentage-based commissions, as well as performance-based, automated increases. 

Here are a few coding snippets to add to your conversion code by commission type: 

Percentage-based commissions:

<script src="https://script.tapfiliate.com/tapfiliate.js" type="text/javascript" async></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
  (function(t,a,p){t.TapfiliateObject=a;t[a]=t[a]||function(){ (t[a].q=t[a].q||[]).push(arguments)}})(window,'tap');

  tap('create', 'YOUR ACCOUNT ID', { integration: "javascript" });
  tap('conversion', 'Unique Conversion Id', Conversion Amount);
</script>

Lifetime/recurring commissions:

<script src="https://script.tapfiliate.com/tapfiliate.js" type="text/javascript" async></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
  (function(t,a,p){t.TapfiliateObject=a;t[a]=t[a]||function(){ (t[a].q=t[a].q||[]).push(arguments)}})(window,'tap');

  tap('create', 'YOUR ACCOUNT ID', { integration: "javascript" });
  tap('conversion', 'Unique Conversion Id', Conversion amount, {customer_id: "Customer Id" });
</script>

Learn more about integrating Tapfiliate with your website via JavaScript with this guide. 

Now that you know your referral software is prepared to track referrals, you’ll need to create unique referral links for your customers to share with the world. 

Step 3: Generate referral links and codes

Referral links are unique links showing which customers referred new leads or purchases. Tapfiliate allows you to do this in two ways: 

• Custom affiliate links
• Referral codes

Each of your affiliates can customize referral codes as they see fit. All they need to do is visit the Tapfiliate dashboard, identify their affiliate program, and follow this sequence: 

• “View”
• “Edit referral code”
• “Save”

If you want to set up custom affiliate links, you might need support from a developer. Visit our custom affiliate links webpage for more details. 

Step 4: Distribute Referral Links to Affiliates 

Referral links and codes? Check. Now, you need to place them into the hands of your referral partners. Here are some ways we encourage our customers to spread the word about their referral programs: 

Social media posts

Brands with a poppin’ social media channel can schedule one post per week promoting their referral programs or codes. Similarly, they might tell their referral partners to follow a similar schedule on their own channels. 

Reddit and online forums

Does your brand have a niche thread on a forum like Quora or Reddit? Sometimes, potential customers will post threads requesting a unique referral code to help them get a discount: 

For example, one subscriber to TrustedHouseSitters created a thread inviting people to share their referral codes for potential new customers: 

Customer email marketing or referral widgets and pages

Make it easy for your customers to always engage with your referral program with a dedicated section on your app or website. You might also encourage referrals by sending weekly or biweekly emails reminding customers of the perks they’ll receive when they refer new customers.

Step 5: Monitor and Analyze Performance with Key Metrics

Your referral program is up and running — but is it an effective referral program? You won’t know until you assess your performance. What is the best way to do that? Referral reports — aka, charts of data and visualizations on key referral metrics like: 

• Referral rate: How often your customers refer customers compared to how often they do not. 
• Conversion rate: How often a customer takes action (purchase, signup, etc.) compared to how often they do not. 
• Lifetime conversion value: The total monetary value that a referee or affiliate has brought your business

Tips for Effective Referral Link Tracking

Referral software integrated? Got it. Links all working? You bet. 

But how do you sustain growth in your referral program over time? Follow our proven tips for effective referral link tracking below: 

• Toggle unique conversion IDs: Make sure you record the conversion and referral types most important to your business. 
• Get customer feedback: Ask your customer base about the types of incentives they would value versus guessing and rewarding them on the fly. 
• Engage high-performing affiliates: Give your most valuable affiliates a little something extra to motivate sustainably high performance (more on that shortly). 

How to Motivate Affiliates (Rewards and Bonuses)

Did you know that 84% of brands say affiliate marketing brings a higher ROI than any other marketing channel? We’ll bet those brands knew how to motivate and engage their affiliates with rewards and bonuses. 

Here’s the thing: people (even your best customers) won’t want to help your brand if they don’t feel appreciated. Sure, an initial referral reward is great, but if customers bring you sustained value over time, they might crave a little extra, something to feel motivated. 

That’s where performance bonuses come in. Tapfiliate offers automated bonuses and performance-based commission increases to engage your high-value partners further. For example, you might toggle an automatic 5% increase for any affiliate that brings you over 10 monthly referral shares. 

Customer email marketing or referral widgets and pages

Make it easy for your customers to always engage with your referral program with a dedicated section on your app or website. You might also encourage referrals by sending weekly or biweekly emails reminding customers of the perks they’ll receive when they refer new customers.

Start Referral Link Tracking with Tapfiliate!

Referral link tracking is a must for any brand that wants to operate, manage, and improve a customer referral program. It helps you record and report new referrals, referral value, and top-performing customers to reward and engage them for sustainably strong performance. 

Ready to start optimizing your referral program? Tapfiliate can help. Try our free 14-day trial today!