Referral Incentive Design

Design the reward structure of a customer refer-a-friend program. No canonical named framework exists for this discipline - referral is one letter inside measurement funnels like AARRR, not a design method. What exists is four decision variables, each with its own evidence base, worked through in order because each shapes the next:

1. Sidedness - reward the referrer, the friend, or both (the Reward-Me / Reward-You / Reward-Both taxonomy, Ryu & Feick, Journal of Marketing 2007).
2. Reward type - cash, account credit, discount, product value, status, or donation.
3. Reward size - anchored to gross margin, LTV, and CAC, with a floor set by non-monotonic response (a too-small reward performs worse than none).
4. Payout trigger and tier structure - when the reward fires, and whether rewards escalate with cumulative referrals.

Interview

Ask before recommending anything. One question per message; offer multiple-choice answers when possible. Skip a question only when the user already gave the answer.