1.13.11 Referral bonus

The feature allows to configure referral program based on a set of rules which define:

- who gets the referral bonus – either referrer, referee or both,

- on which actions the rule is applicable – either signup, recharge or both

- the bonus amounts – denoted as a nominal amount or a percentage of the recharged amount

In addition, rules can be limited to certain country codes of referees. For example you can have different amounts for referees from UK and different for users from other countries.

Another criteria is the recharge amount, you can set different rules for different amount ranges.

Sending invitation

The referrer can invite a contact (phone number) from his address book by sending an SMS. The SMS will contain a link to download the app.

The link will look as follows:

https://yourdomain.com/VUP/GetDialer?bD0wMDAwMDAwJm49NDgwMDAxMTEyMjI=

The last part is the login of the referrer and the destination phone number encoded with base64. The input string before encoding should be:

l=0000000&n=48000111222

where l is the login of the sender and n is the phone number to which the SMS will be sent.

The link points to the VUP self-care portal which is responsible for further processing of the request.

Receiving the SMS invitation

When the recipient receives the SMS he can click on the download link. The request comes to the VUP which, based on the http header, recognizes the operating system from which the request has been sent and redirects the client to the URL of the relevant appstore. The VUP takes the appstore URL configured in the VUP/AppSettings.config file.

In addition the VUP saves the referrer's login and the destination phone number sent in the link in the referrals table in the database.

Below is the section that has to be added to the VUP's config file.

Android

For android devices the Google appstore URL will look as follows:

market://details?id=com.yourdomains,yourapp/

To this URL the VUP adds the referrer parameter received in the previous request (from the download link).

On receiving the http redirect response with the above URL the android opens the Google Play application on the app page.

When the app is downloaded and installed the app checks the referrer URL. If there is an URL the app parses it and looks for the referrer parameter. When the parameter is found it gets its value and then sends request to the Onlineshop URL:

http://yourdomain.com/OnlineShopTest/store.ashx

Using http POST method the following parameters are sent:

sm=referral&pm={referralUserName:'LOGIN',refereeUdid:'UDID',refereePhoneNumber:'PHONE_NUMBER',refereeCountryCode: 'COUNTRY_PHONE_CODE' }

the pm parameter contains the JSON list containing the following parameters:

referralUserName – account login of the referrer

refereeUdid – a device’s UDID of the referee

refereePhoneNumber- phone number of the referee

refereeCountryCode – country code used in the sign up process by the referee

The Onlineshop saves into the database the association of the referrer and the referee and checks if there are any referral rules applicable.

iOS

For iOS devices the appstore URL will look as follows:

https://itunes.apple.com/app/yourappname/id1023297001?mt=8

On receiving the http redirect response with the above URL the iOS opens the appstore on the Lycachat app page.

In the next step the app sends a request to the Onlineshop URL:

http://yourdomain.com/OnlineShopTest/store.ashx

Using http POST method the following parameters are sent:

sm=referral&pm={referralUserName:'',refereeUdid:'UDID',refereePhoneNumber:'PHONE_NUMBER',refereeCountryCode: 'COUNTRY_PHONE_CODE' }

the pm parameter contains the JSON list containing the following parameters:

referralUserName – account login of the referrer – the iOS cannot read the referral URL, therefore this parameter is empty

refereeUdid – a device’s UDID of the referee

refereePhoneNumber- phone number of the referee

refereeCountryCode – country code used in the sign up process by the referee

The onlineshop looks in the database for the matching request for the phone number and based on it associates the referrer with the referee.

Referral rules

The referral rules can be managed from the VSM/Settings/Referral menu. You can see the list of all created rules in the list.

To add a new rule click on the New button.

Name – name of the rule

Description – visible only by the admin

Reseller – limits to the clients of the selected reseller only

Key – expected parameter determining the referral method. Can be a phone number, key (code) or account login; for LC it is phone number. Used for fraud prevention

UDIDKey – enables the additional check if the UDID has been already used

Referee sign up bonus – enables bonus on signs up

Referee sign up expiration – optional: expiry date of the referral rule, after this date the rule will become inactive

Referee recharge bonus – enables bonus on recharge actions

Referrer sign up bonus – enables bonus for referrer on sign up of referee

Referrer recharge bonus – enables bonus for referrer when the referee recharges account

Bonuses

For each rule you can define different bonuses depending on the action – either sign up or recharge. In addition, for each of the actions you can define separately the applicable bonuses for the referee and the referrer.

In the next step you have to configure the bonus amounts. To do so, click on the chosen rule to enter the configuration panel and next click on the relevant tab.

For example to configure the amounts for referrer, for recharge actions, go to the Referrer recharge bonus tab and click the New button. A new window will appear with the following fields:

Minimal amount – the minimal recharge value for which the defined bonus will apply. For example you can set that the bonus will be given only for recharge transactions higher than 10.

Maximal amount – the max recharge value of the range for which the bonus applies

Type – select if the bonus should be a fixed amount or a percentage of the recharged amount

Value – the amount value or the percentage, in the latter case the value can be an integer from 1 to 100

ConditionType – leave none if the bonus applies for all transactions. Select the Country code if you want to specify the amount for a certain country code only.

ConditionValue – enter the country code (if the ConditionType is set to Country Code)

If you want to add different amounts for different country codes enter the entries in the relevant tabs. You can add multiple entries in the tab, each for different country code. The entry without a country code will be the default rule.

Also, for the recharge action, you can differentiate the bonus amounts by the recharge value. For example you can give higher bonus for the recharge amount range from 20 to 100. The ranges are defined by the Minimal and Maximal amount fields.

Fraud prevention

The referral bonus on sign up can be a subject to frauds by users reinstalling the app in order to get the referee or referrer (or both) bonus. To prevent it, the onlineshop can check if the UDID or the phone number of the referee have been already given the bonus. To enable this option go to the Referrals menu and click on the referral rule. In the edit panel make sure that the Key parameter is set to Phone number. Then, check the UDIDKey checkbox if you want to enable the check on the device’s UDID too.

Reports

The referral requests can be seen in the Logs/Online shop/Transaction history. You can use search filter to see the transactions from a certain period.

Each referral related requests are also written to the log onlineshop log file.

The referral amounts added to the client accounts are shown in the Reports/Sales menu. They are stored in the database as payments with special tags. You can use the search filter in the Payments menu to see the referral transactions from a certain period.

The referrals are shown also in form of charts in the Charts menu.

Notifications

When the referral bonus is added to client account the EMCD can send a chat message to the client. To enable this option go to the VSM Settings/Online payments/Notification menu and click the New button.

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