26. Referral Programs
Almost all sites have a referral program. What are they ? Are they worth the trouble getting into ? Let's find out on this page.
26.1. What is a Referral Program
With a referral program, also called a affiliate program, you can earn some extra cash by bringing new buyers or sellers to the microstock sites.
26.2. How does it work ?
By whom you were referred is tracked by means of cookies.
For instance : a link of mine to Shutterstock, to refer a photographers, looks like :
The code "?ref=73007" at the end refers to me. If someone clicks on this link, a cookie will be stored on his or her computer. When this person signs up at Shutterstock, while this cookie is still active, I get his 'referral'.
This kind of links are all over the internet, and not just for shutterstock alone, just pay attention to them ;-). I don't have any problem with such links, given that the one who clicks on it knows that he gives his referral to the owner of that code. And this is mostly not the case.
I've even seen webmasters hiding their code behind a second HTML-page. I find this very misleading. A referral program is nothing to be a shame of. So why not just show it in the open.
If you clicked on such a link and you really don't want that guy having your referral, you can always delete the cookies being set.
or
You can click on a link of someone who you do want your referral to, in that case that older cookies will be overwritten.
26.3. Who can you refer ?
You can refer both buyers (designers) or sellers (photographers) to a site. The terms of both affiliate programs are differently. But we look into that a little later.
26.4. What does it earn and who pays it ?
The conditions of such a referral program are different for each site (we'll look into that in a few minutes). But mostly it comes down that you get, for a limited or unlimited time, 10% of the payout of the person you referred.
The photographer who was referred doesn't notice anything. He gets his normal royalties. It certainly isn't true that the one who was referred pays the bonus of the one who referred him.
So you won't do yourself any damage if you sign up through such a link. But you surely make someone else happy ;-)
26.5. Who gains the most ?
The site pays 2 to 5% of their income (10% of the royalty percentage) to the one who brought in someone new. But in term of advertising and returns this is a very cheap and effective way to advertise. You reach to customer group which you really want to reach and you only have to pay when the referred members actually bought or sold anything. There is almost no risk involved for the microstock site.
But what does the photographer gains with it ?
This is a little confusing. On the one side he earns a certain amount on the downloads of the one who he referred, but one the other end he brings in a new competitor.
If this has really some influence on the sales I don't know, there are that many photos for sale that I think you'll rarely compete in a direct way with an image of a photographer you referred. And if it was the case ... ... I won't loose any sleep over it :-)
Besides, you could also look at it differently. By bringing in new photographers you make sure there is plenty of choice in image. Because of this increased choice / quality Microstock sites become more popular and therefor attract more buyers. These buyers could also buy your images ... ...
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