SKILL.md
Referral and Affiliate Programs
A referral program only works when the product is worth talking about and the ask lands at the right moment. Design the loop first, pick incentives second, tooling last.
Before starting
If .agents/product-marketing.md or .claude/product-marketing.md exists, read it first. Then confirm: program type (referral, affiliate, both), B2B or B2C, LTV and current CAC, existing program state, whether the product is naturally shareable, and reward budget. Work with what you get; note gaps instead of blocking.
Pick the program type
| Customer referral | Affiliate | |
|---|---|---|
| Who promotes | Existing customers | Creators, bloggers, non-customers |
| Reward | One-time or capped | Ongoing commission |
| Trust / volume | High trust, low volume | Variable trust, high volume |
| Best for | Self-serve products with word of mouth | Reaching audiences you do not own, higher-ticket deals |
Run both only when each has an owner. An unowned affiliate program attracts coupon-site parasites.
Design the referral loop
The loop: trigger moment, share action, referred user converts, both get rewarded, repeat.
- Trigger moments. Ask right after the first aha moment, a milestone, a great support interaction, or a renewal/upgrade. Never on day one, never mid-frustration.
- Share mechanism, ranked by conversion: in-product share, personalized link, email invite, social share, plain code (works offline). Build the top one you can ship.
- Incentive structure. Double-sided rewards convert best (both sides win, framing is generous, not salesy). Single-sided suits high-value products. Tiered rewards keep repeat referrers engaged. Size the reward against LTV: total reward cost per acquired customer should land meaningfully under your blended CAC. Reward in product value (credits, months free) before cash when possible; it is cheaper and selects real users.
- Fraud rules. Self-referral detection, reward caps, payout only after the referred user activates or pays, not on signup.
Read references/program-operations.md when you need the launch checklist, affiliate commission design, nurture email skeletons, or the optimization playbook.
Metrics that matter
Program health: active referrers in the last 30 days, referral conversion rate, rewards paid. Business impact: percent of new customers from referrals, CAC via referral vs other channels, LTV of referred vs non-referred customers. Referred customers typically show higher LTV and lower churn; verify with your own cohort data instead of quoting industry numbers.
Good vs Bad
Bad: "Launch a give $50 / get $50 program to all users via a single announcement email." Cash reward invites fraud, the blast hits users who have not activated, and there is no in-product surface, so the program dies in a week.
Good: "Give a month free, get a month free, shown in-product immediately after a user completes their third project, with payout only after the referred user activates. Announcement email goes to customers active in the last 60 days." Right reward currency, right moment, fraud-resistant, targeted.
Verification
Before launch, walk the entire loop yourself with two test accounts: trigger the prompt, share the link, convert the referred account, confirm both rewards land and attribution is recorded. Expect every step to work without manual intervention. Any step that needs a human: fix it before announcing.
Thirty days after launch, pull the funnel: prompt views, shares, referred signups, conversions, rewards paid. Expect a visible number at every stage. A zero at any stage names your bottleneck; fix that stage only (awareness, share friction, landing experience, or incentive strength).
Footguns
- Reward on signup, not activation. Guaranteed fraud and junk signups. Fix: pay out on activation or first payment.
- Asking everyone, immediately. Users who have not hit value cannot refer credibly. Fix: gate prompts behind an activation event.
- Referral link lands on the generic homepage. Referred users lose the context of their friend's endorsement. Fix: dedicated landing page naming the referrer and the new-user reward.
- Set-and-forget incentives. Programs decay. Fix: review funnel monthly, A/B one variable at a time (amount, type, timing, copy), per references/program-operations.md.
Completion checklist
- [ ] Program type chosen with reasoning tied to LTV/CAC
- [ ] Trigger moment, share mechanism, and incentive structure specified
- [ ] Fraud rules defined; payout gated on activation
- [ ] Full loop walked end to end with test accounts
- [ ] Funnel metrics instrumented before announcement
Any box unchecked: not done. Fix or say so.