

Using Adwords to Earn Uber Referral Credit - alexshipillo
http://alexshipillo.com/how-to-get-200-of-uber-credit-for-free/

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kmfrk
The referral list in the screenshot is why I don't do this stuff. I initially
posted my Dropbox referral link in a number of places, but as soon as I saw
the e-mail address of my referrals, I immediately stopped.

I don't know if they could see my e-mail address as well, but it was extremely
uncomfortable from a privacy perspective, so I ended up asking Dropbox if they
would cancel my referrals.

Not that I don't want the storage, but it makes me uncomfortable that people I
don't know might have my e-mail address, especially if I post the links in a
context I believe to be anonymous or pseudonymous.

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alexshipillo
I actually think that in this case, Uber does a good job of protecting
privacy. I don't see the email address or the last name of the people that I
referred, just their first name. I'm assuming that means that they don't see
my name/email either when they sign up via my link.

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wilfra
You really shouldn't see any of that. I do lots of affiliate marketing and
companies rarely give any more information than whether or not people met the
requirements for me to get paid - and how much they are paying, if I'm on a
revenue share deal.

It's really none of my business who they are and would be an invasion of their
privacy for me to know - in my opinion.

I guess an argument could be made for refer-a-friend programs working
differently, but the default should always be sharing this kind of data only
on a need-to-know basis.

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dave5104
Well, according to Uber's referral program copy, in theory, you're referring
your "friends" to the service. Aka people you know, and people who probably
wouldn't mind you knowing they signed up. So I can at least see why Uber (and
other referral services in general) might not think twice about sharing small
pieces of personal information with the referrer. Not saying you don't have a
good point, though, because I agree.

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kmfrk
In this digital age, friends can still be pseudonymous, though.

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alexshipillo
Just wrote this up after running an AdWords campaign against my Uber referral
link earlier this week. I know that this method is well-publicized for maxing
out your Dropbox storage - has anyone else tried this for other services?

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patio11
Brand arbitrage is a mainstay of many affiliate marketers. Given that one can
transform success with it into (large piles of) generally spendable currency,
most don't spend too much time optimizing for (small piles of) gift cards.

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alexshipillo
Great point. I mentioned in my post that "there isn’t a huge amount of upside"
financially, but I definitely got personal value out of just doing the
experiment. I'd suspect that most of the truly lucrative affiliate
opportunities are extremely competitive.

