

Referly (YC S12) Launches API: Now Any Site Can Have A Referral Program - casemorton
http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/23/referly-gets-more-social-launches-api-now-any-site-can-have-a-referral-program/

======
kposehn
Interesting. That API could be very useful, but they're going to have to watch
out for BlackHatters - I bet they are already looking for ways to exploit
their system.

~~~
dmor
You are definitely right, and while we've thought through several threat
models blackhat marketers are endlessly creative. Might make for a good blog
post depending on what we learn

~~~
kposehn
The major one I can think of right now is using lifted financial information
and Mechanical Turk to make new accounts and use it to juice SEO or FB fan
pages.

There are some that have made amazing use of Mechanical Turk without actually
getting caught - that is one vector I think the affiliate industry has greatly
overlooked.

~~~
4clicknet
Can you give us some examples of who has done this and how they avoided
getting caught on Mechanical Turk? I've had legitimate HITs removed for
apparently violating policy recently, so in my experience AWS is fairly
vigilant in looking out for HITs that attempt to juice SEO or promote.

I guess it could work if you abstracted it enough so that it's not apparent to
the worker, but it wouldn't be trivial to execute. Using VAs on Odesk might
work better.

------
jkuria
I am also not sure how "customer acquisition as a service" is different from
the dozens of affiliate networks out there. NeverBlue, Azoogle, Ads4Dough,
Epic etc. "Businesses get to define how much they are willing to pay for a
sign up"? This is old hat to experienced affiliate marketers.

~~~
alanfang
And there are already platforms for companies to create programs on their own,
like hasoffers.

------
strooltz
when is referly planning on allowing referrers to claim rewards? re:
<http://cl.ly/image/1E1H381q0p1N>

~~~
dmor
Very soon, stay tuned!

------
mrschwabe
Instead of the button, is there a way I can just give each customer a unique
referral link?

I'd much prefer to simply give them a link they can pass along instead of
requiring them to click on a button off my website.

~~~
dmor
Absolutely, using the API you can generate a link and give it to them however
you wish

<http://refer.ly/api/docs/links>

------
minouye
What percentage does Referly take per payout?

~~~
dmor
Referly does not currently take a percentage of any payouts

------
whymsicalburito
Is there a way to send users rewards that are not straight cash? We would like
to reward users with coupon codes, or links to pages where they can select a
free t-shirt and such. Is this ability on the roadmap?

~~~
dmor
Yes, we currently do not offer this in the API but have a few customers trying
this with other forms of rewards. Email support@refer.ly and we can help you

------
lionheart
This is awesome.

I was just about to write a basic referral system for my site but this looks
like it fits the bill.

I'm going to give it a try.

~~~
antidaily
There's also Zferral. FYI.

------
jhuckestein
How far along is the ruby API? I'd throw this up on my business for a little
just to test it out, see what happens

~~~
dmor
We are looking for open source contributors who would be interested in
building the Ruby lib - I'll post a $500 bounty here. Please email me
danielle@refer.ly

We posted a bounty for the Python library this morning and it is already done,
so I'm hopeful this can go quickly as well.

~~~
jhuckestein
Would love to do it, but things are heating up at my business and it's hard to
keep up as it is :( I'll definitely check back when the ruby lib is out

------
mise
I don't understand the full concept. How does this compare with platforms that
allow you to set up affiliates?

------
shootthemoon
I'd be overly cautious with this company. I've had over the minimum required
to cash out for a month, and they will not let me cash out my account. The
claim is that there are still in beta, so they won't pay you yet. Will they
ever exit beta? Will I ever be able to cash out?

~~~
dmor
We are happy to pay you directly via Paypal, please email your information to
support@refer.ly and we can process this for you immediately. We don't have a
self-service process yet.

