Affiliate Marketing
Referral Marketing
How to Set Up Referral Link Tracking: A Complete Guide
Affiliate Marketing
Referral Marketing
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.
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.
Referral link tracking helps you keep tabs on the customers who refer new business to your brand. It gives you data on:
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.
Ready to reap new referrals? Let’s set up referral link tracking with these five steps:
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:
Next up?
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:
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>
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>
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>
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.
Referral links are unique links showing which customers referred new leads or purchases. Tapfiliate allows you to do this in two ways:
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:
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.
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:
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.
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:
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.
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 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:
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.
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.
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!
Chrissy Kapralos
Chrissy Kapralos runs a Toronto-based writing agency called No Worries Writing Co. She’s passionate about helping businesses communicate and share their stories. When she isn’t writing about the latest tech and marketing content, you’ll find her traveling, cooking, or watching horror movies.