Questions about the referrals system

[Interferon]

We're getting ready for a big product launch and I do have partners willing to give the referrals system a try.

1. When I view the referrals page in my account, does a "referral" include people who created an account but have not bought anything yet?
2. How exactly are referrals tracked? If a new user clicks a referral link and visits the site for the first time, leaves, and comes back later without the referral link, does a cookie remember them and count their account as a referral when do finally finally create an account? Or must they sign up right away?
3. Will ad blockers or privacy-enhanced browsers like Brave bypass this system? I am not expecting 100% tracking accuracy, but I want to have an answer when this question comes up.
4. IPB is installed in a subfolder of my main website. Is there a way to enable referral tracking on the main website, maybe by embedding a small iFrame in the footer that loads an IP.Content page and passes the referral ID to that, when it is present in the URL?

Edited February 4, 2021 by Interferon

[bfarber]

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. It is difficult to say. As you guessed, a cookie is set to remember that the user was referred. It is of course possible some browsers or browser plugins might block the cookie.
4. Possibly (maybe even probably), but it's outside the intent of the system so I don't want to make any promises.

[Interferon]

@bfarber Thank you.

Regarding #2 I think you meant to say "Yes, it will track them even if they don't sign up right away". Is that correct?

[bfarber]

That's correct - a cookie is set and they are tracked even if they sign up later.

[Interferon]

I just got my first referral on my account. It was actually brilliant to show the account signups instead of just anonymous sales. I heard the little notification noise, I see the account of the person I helped create, and now I want to help answer their questions so they will buy something. This is definitely an underutilized feature I think we need learn how to use properly.

Edited February 11, 2021 by Interferon

[Interferon]

I notice that a notification is generated when a new user signs up with your referral link, but no notification is sent when the referred customer purchases an item. The commission is silently added to the referrer's account balance. The only way for them to know anything happened is to periodically navigate to the account balance page.

It would be much better if there was an option to send a notification when the referrer earns a commission. Otherwise their account can accrue a balance without them knowing.

[Interferon]

On 2/4/2021 at 9:42 PM, Interferon said:

IPB is installed in a subfolder of my main website. Is there a way to enable referral tracking on the main website, maybe by embedding a small iFrame in the footer that loads an IP.Content page and passes the referral ID to that, when it is present in the URL?

I can now confirm this works. I created an iframe in my website header that displays a special page in IPB Pages. The page just prints out the referral ID (passed in the URL) very faintly so it is barely visible, but I can still check and make sure it is working.

I had someone who has never been to our site go to the main site with a referral link, then they registered an account (without using a referral link to our installation of IPB) and the referral signup worked.