Django Reflinks

A Django module that implements referral link logic.

Concepts

This library implements two models:

• The ReferralLink. This object represents a user's referral link, or invitation link. It has a string identifier which allows the user to share their link as /ref/<refid>/.
• The ReferralHit. This is an instance of a user (logged in or anonymous) actually following a referral link.

The Anonymous Cookie

When a ReferralLink is followed, a ReferralHit object is created. If the link was followed by a logged in user, that user will be available on the ReferralHit object as a foreign key. If the link was followed by an anonymous user, a cookie will be set on the user for future reference.

The cookie contains a random UUID which is set on the ReferralHit. At any time, you may get that cookie and, should the user log in, update all ReferralHit objects with that matching UUID. The library includes a middleware which will automatically do this for every logged in users, see django_reflinks.middleware.AnonymousReferralMiddleware.

Confirming referrals

You may wish to implement a SuccessfulReferral model which is created when a user who previously followed a ReferralLink (and thus created a ReferralHit) actually completes whichever steps the referral system requires referred users to complete (for example: Register to the website, make their first purchase, post their first comment, ...).

The ReferralHit model also has a confirmed DateTimeField which you may use for this purpose.

Supporting referral links on any URL.

Implementers may find it useful to allow a referral on any URL. This is implemented in the django_reflinks.middleware.ReferralLinkMiddleware middleware, which looks at all GET requests and, should a valid referral link be present in the GET parameters, redirects to that referral link's URL with the next parameter set to the original URL, without the referral link present.

Example:

• /accounts/signup/?ref=abc123def redirects to...
• /ref/abs123def?next=/accounts/signup/ which redirects to...
• /accounts/signup/, after creating a ReferralHit.

Setup and configuration

1. Install django-reflinks
2. Add django_reflinks to your INSTALLED_APPS
3. Include django_reflinks.urls in your urls. Example: url(r"^ref/", include("django_reflinks.urls"))
4. Add django_reflinks.middleware.AnonymousReferralMiddleware to your MIDDLEWARE. This is required to update referrals for anonymous users when they log in.
5. (optional) Add django_reflinks.middleware.ReferralLinkMiddleware to your MIDDLEWARE. This is required if you want ?ref=... to redirect properly.

These steps are enough to start gathering referral information. You create a referral link, and watch the ReferralHit table fill up as users follow it.

In addition to having that data, you may want to "confirm" referrals. The ConfirmedReferral model is there as a convenience model to allow you to filter down the referral hits in question. Upon creating a ConfirmedReferral you may also want to do something else, such as crediting a user some points. The atomicity and idempotency of such events is left as an exercise for the reader.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT license. The full license text is available in the LICENSE file.