Referly rewards consumers for making recommendations, helps businesses along the way

Referly launched its public beta today, which helps online businesses create referral programs to expand their markets.

With Referly, companies can create incentives for customers to do things like like recruiting new customers, opting for upgrades, and offering recommendations. Businesses can dole out rewards to promote user acquisition and loyalty, and individuals can receive rewards for helping to drive sales. Both sides benefit from this equation.

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Through this platform, brands can define their own reward structure and dictate how much they are willing to reward their champions. The Referly system is based on pre-paid deposits, meaning a company decides in advance how much it wants to pay for each action and Referly debits that amount from the account on a pay-per-action basis. Rewards can be anything from cash to gift cards to discount codes. Companies can also track how these tactics affect their sales. The API is easy to use and can be implemented in minutes. It is free while in beta.

On the referrer end, individuals share links to their favorite products and services. When people make purchases through those links, the referrer earns rewards. Referly already has a massive list of brands and stores on board spanning the entire range of the consumer spectrum. Merchants include luxury designers, auto parts retailers, bookstores, sporting good outlets, candy shops, airlines, pet supply chains, and more. The network also extends beyond e-commerce to software-as-a-service providers, which can also gain from rewarding users.

Referly is the project of Danielle Morrill, the former Head of Marketing for cloud communication company Twilio, and is backed by both YCombinator and 500 Startups. Morrill founded the company with her chief technical officer and husband Kevin, along with “Chief Design Officer” Al Abut in April of 2012. The company currently employes six people in Mountain View, California.