Brand Referral
Brand referral is the standard type and the one the campaign editor assumes by default. It drives a two-sided journey: the referrer moves through sharing, and their referee through claiming, registering and reward. Both roles carry a reward, and the full editor surface is available: A/B testing, fraud controls and campaign settings. Choose brand referral when the recommendation is about your brand rather than one item in it. It suits most programmes and is where the classic “give X, get Y” offer lives.Product Referral
Product referral turns your product pages into the sharing surface. The product tag injects a share link on each page; clicking it copies the sharer’s personal URL, and the shared link leads straight back to that product’s offer page. It surfaces in the campaign editor as a referee-only campaign type, because the journey belongs to the person receiving the share. Two things distinguish product referral structurally:- One campaign per locale. Only one product-referral campaign runs in each locale, so you change how it behaves by launching a new version rather than creating a second campaign.
- Reporting lives in the general dashboards. Product referral performance, including promoter activity, is read through the standard Reporting dashboards rather than a dedicated report.
Incentivised and Non-Incentivised Product Referral
A product-referral campaign runs in one of two flavours:- Incentivised carries a referee reward, funding an incentive for the person who receives the share.
- Non-incentivised runs with no reward at all, letting you track product sharing without funding an incentive.
Non-incentivised is the correct term for this mode. You may see it described
elsewhere as “tracking only”; that wording is retired.
Holdouts
Holdouts belong to product referral, not brand referral. On a product-referral version you set a proportion of visitors who do not receive an incentive. Everyone else sees the offer as usual. Comparing those two groups lets you measure the extra revenue the incentive drives. That proportion is the control group for the version. It is never an A/B test arm. A brand-referral A/B test compares two offers, often a control and a variant. A product-referral holdout compares having an incentive with having none, as a percentage of visitors rather than as a second offer. For how brand-referral A/B tests use a control variant, see Understanding A/B Tests. For how to set and size a holdout, see The holdout.See Also
Understanding Programme Structure
How your programme breaks down into campaigns, versions and offers, and where promotions fit.
Understanding Referrers and Referees
The two roles in every referral and the journey between them.
Understanding Rewards and Vouchers
How rewards are defined and fulfilled, and how vouchers and batches keep them
stocked.
Campaigns
Build, launch, test and monitor your referral campaigns in Mention Me.
Product Referral
Set up and run a product referral campaign: modes, the share link, tracking settings and holdouts.