Case studies
Five real referral programs, and what their numbers say
The biggest programs run on Referrals.com, all from our own network. Real offers, real results, and the lesson you can use in your own business.
Handyman.com · Pay on real value · 2019 to 2026
$1 for every verified homeowner
Handyman.com paid members a dollar for every homeowner they referred who verified their account. Almost everyone in the program arrived through a referral.
1,494 people joined the program
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Referrals.com · Milestones · 2019 to today
Five friends, months free
Referrals.com's own launch campaign, "Get on board with our 5 for 5", gave members free months of the product for bringing in new sign-ups. It still runs today.
4,712 people joined the main campaign
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Contrib.com · Ask at the right moment · 2019 to 2025
A homepage pop-up that built a community
Contrib invited visitors to join its contributor community through a pop-up on its homepage, rewarding every sign-up with 100 CTB tokens. It became the largest program on Referrals.com.
7,454 people joined across 11 campaigns
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RealtyDAO.com · Launch event · 2020 to 2023
A token airdrop launch party
RealtyDAO launched its token with an airdrop pop-up, "You are invited!", then kept growing with a referral mining program that paid tokens for bringing in members.
660 people joined across 4 campaigns
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Linked.com · Test and focus · 2018 to 2019
Thirty-three experiments
Linked.com used Referrals.com as a test lab, running 33 campaigns in a year: token rewards for sharing, pop-ups, and voting contests like "Who is the best NBA player of all time?"
33 campaigns in about a year
Read the case studyIntegration points
Where each program plugged in
The ten places a referral platform connects to a business, in the order a referral happens, and which of them each program used. Open a case study for the details of each one.
| Integration point | Handyman.com | Referrals.com | Contrib.com | RealtyDAO.com | Linked.com |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.Referral widget | Used: A "Refer new members today" widget with a single button. | Used: A "Get instant free access" widget offering the 5 for 5 deal. | Used: A homepage pop-up: "Wanna be part of our growing team?" | Used: A launch-party pop-up: "RealtyDAO's token airdrop launch party. You are invited!" | Used: Pop-up and embedded widgets, tested across 33 campaigns. |
| 2.Personal referral link | Used: Each member got a personal referral link. | Used: Every new member gets a personal link automatically, shown on Refer & Earn. | Used: Every member got a referral link after joining. | Used: Each member got a link for the referral mining program. | Used: Each participant got a link to share. |
| 3.Share buttons | Used: Members shared their link directly; the program counted 79 shares. | Used: Members passed links on 9,129 times across the campaigns. | Used: Members shared tasks and campaigns, adding up to 9,426 clicks on shared links. | Used: Shared links averaged about nine clicks each. | Used: 1,283 shares from 482 participants, the most per person of the five. |
| 4.Invite emails | – | – | – | – | – |
| 5.Referral landing page | Used: Referred homeowners arrived on Handyman.com's sign-up page. | Used: Friends landed on the Referrals.com sign-up page, credited to the member. | – | Used: Invited friends landed on the launch campaign page. | – |
| 6.Sign-up tracking | Used: Each homeowner's sign-up was tied to the member who referred them. | Used: Each sign-up through a member's link counted towards their five. | Used: The pop-up's goal was a single sign-up, rewarded on the spot. | Used: Each new member's sign-up was credited to whoever invited them. | Used: Participants joined each campaign with their email. |
| 7.Conversion tracking | Used: The referral only counted once the homeowner verified their account. | – | – | – | – |
| 8.Reward unlock and notice | Used: $1 credited to the member for every verified homeowner. | Used: A coupon for free months once the goal was reached. | Used: 100 CTB tokens for joining, sent to the member's crypto wallet. | Used: RDAO tokens sent to the member's wallet for joining and for each referral. | Used: CTB tokens for sharing in the token campaigns; none for the voting contests. |
| 9.Progress tracker | – | – | – | – | – |
| 10.Leaderboard | – | – | – | – | – |
Figures are Referrals.com campaign records as of October 2026, excluding internal test accounts. All five brands are part of the VNOC network. Preview a widget snippet