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Guides · Brands · 9 min read

Your first referral campaign, step by step

From registering the brand to the first result counted, with the decisions that matter at each step and the ones that do not.

Published 20 Sep 2026 · by Shopmycode

Decide what a result is before anything elseOne link per partner or placementLock a budget you would be delighted to spendRead the live view for a week before changing anything

Before you start: what is a result?

Every decision in a referral campaign follows from one sentence: what counts as a result. A sign-up, an order, a booked site visit, a completed application, an install that becomes an account. Pick the step that is worth money to you and that you can report honestly. If you cannot tell the platform when it happened, you cannot pay for it.

The choice sets what you will reward, what you will watch, and how marketers will behave. Rewarding opens invites forwarding for its own sake; rewarding the step that costs a fraudster effort invites real customers. When in doubt, reward one step later than you first thought.

Step 1 — Register and describe the brand

Register on the brand portal with a one-time code on email or WhatsApp. The sign-up asks for the brand's name, website, category and what you want from the campaign; each answer is used (the category, for instance, decides which marketers see an automatic offer first). Your brand is approved before marketers can see it, usually within a working day; you can prepare everything meanwhile.

Step 2 — Add the page, and decide how the result is reported

The landing page is the page marketers send people to: your own page, a marketplace listing, an app store page. If the result happens on your own page, add the one-line snippet to the thank-you page and it is counted against the link that brought the visitor. If the result happens in your system (a CRM, an app, an approval queue), your system reports it with one call. If you sell on a marketplace, the marketplace reports orders through its own affiliate programme, on its schedule.

Nothing needs to be installed for pages you do not control: opens, channel, city and who is on the page now are counted at the link.

Step 3 — Set the reward: automatic or fixed

Automatic is the default and, for a first campaign, the better choice. You give a target (say 100 sign-ups), a date, the most you will pay per result and the typical order value; the platform starts the reward at the floor for that ticket size, shows the offer to the best-fit marketers first, and raises it and widens the audience only when results are behind pace. You see every change and the reason.

Fixed is one number for every marketer, every result. Choose it when you already know the rate that works in your category or when you must state a single figure for compliance reasons.

Either way, the platform adds 15% to the reward as its fee, from the budget you lock. A ₹100 reward costs you ₹115 per counted result, and nothing per open.

Step 4 — Lock a budget

Add money to the wallet (PayU, or a bank transfer confirmed by our finance team) and allocate some to the campaign. It is locked there: it pays rewards and fees for this campaign only, and whatever is unspent returns to the wallet when you close the campaign. Size it by the number of results you would be delighted to get in the first fortnight, times the reward plus 15%.

You are warned at 25% remaining and again when about five results are left; at zero the campaign pauses itself and marketers are told. Automatic top-up from the wallet is optional and off by default.

Step 5 — Bring the people

Two ways, and most campaigns use both. Marketers who fit take the offer themselves from the marketplace. And you invite specific people — a channel partner, a customer who refers a lot, a creator you already work with — each of whom accepts by signing in with a code, so the link is bound to them. Give each partner and each placement its own link; links cost nothing and are the whole point.

Step 6 — Watch, then decide

For the first week, read the live view and change nothing. Opens by channel and city tell you where the offer travels; time on the page tells you what people hesitate over; results per link tell you who delivers. Only then adjust: the page if opens do not become results, the reward if nobody takes the offer, the partner list if one partner brings everything.

Marketers see the same numbers for their links. That single fact is what removes the reconciliation call at month end.

What you will be invoiced

One invoice a month for the platform fees taken that month plus GST, and one for the subscription when you pay it. Rewards pass through to marketers and are not invoiced. Both are downloadable from Billing.

Try it

Free to look around and track; fund a campaign when you are ready.

Register your brand

Questions

The help pages answer the common ones; anything else, write to legal@ttlmedia.in.

Help