Set up smart links

before jumping in, be sure to read the docid\ vg9anqjbrkmmc7iwqt583 to understand the full benefits of smart links adding a smart link to a program will replace program members' existing referral links with smart links enabling smart links will not break ambassadors existing referral links, but any features added to the smart link such as customer discounts, utm params, won't apply to legacy referral links video walkthrough video transcript this is a transcript from the loom video walkthrough 0 00 hey, this is jeff at roster i'm going to give you a quick walkthrough of how to set up smart links for one of your programs 0 07 so, i'm going to come into my ambassador program and click on the referrals tab, and under the referrals tracking section, you can see i have this option for smart links 0 18 i'm going to click add smart link, and first we're going to set the destination url this will default to the main referral url you have set up at the, in your brand settings, and for me the this is already correct 0 32 there's a url parameter section, which is collapsed by default you can see that i have three of these parameters enabled, and it looks like it's the three most common utm parameters 0 42 these default to organic referral ambassador, and then full name dash ambassador id i'm just going to put this down as, maybe organic just to show we can change that 0 51 if you had any other custom parameters that you were wanting to add into, maybe you actually wanted to use one of those, uh, other utm, um, parameters that we don't have a default for 1 05 you could put that in here, or if there was just some other parameter that you felt like was, um, let's see, or if you could do roster, something like that 1 17 um, you can put that in, and then when the url redirects to your website, that will get put into, uh, as a, as a, as a parameter in the url 1 27 or all attribution window defaults i'll stop the 30 days, you can change this to something else some brands do 60 days, some do 90, but the most common is 30 days 1 37 this is also referred to as, like, the cookie window so this is how long after somebody clicks an ambassador's referral link, will they still get credit for it? 1 45 and then down here, you can see this destination url preview this is what the redirect link will look like when it comes to your site 1 53 so everything looks good for me there i'm going to jump to link appearance this is how your ambassador's smart links, uh, uh, 2 00 will appear in their ambassador portal and they go to copy it and then when they paste it onto their bio or into their link tree or whatever, this is how it will look 2 10 and we strongly recommend you just go with the short link um, the nice thing about the short link, as you can see down here by the preview, is that it hides all those ugly url and utm parameters 2 20 and it just puts it into a nice short url right here um, this right here, this portion is your brand handle 2 28 and this is set when your account is created it's not something that we recommend you change after you start having ambassadors use their smart links and their magic links, which is how they log into the account because that will then break all of those 2 43 so just make sure this is exactly how you want it before you actually start having your ambassador share their, their smart links out there 2 52 um, so we recommend that now, if you want it to just have your main url be what people share that's fine 3 00 um, you can see it see right here, this is just now my url from the destination url section and if i wanted to not have those url parameters, i could come in and delete all those 3 10 and then, um, the only thing that would then show up in your ambassador's destination or referral link would be the roster parameter that gets added, which isn't being displayed here 3 21 so we really recommend that you go with the short link that's what most brands do the default referral id refers to this portion right here 3 30 bye the default when your ambassador is given a new url, we use their referral id it will assign them a, uh, uh, numeric referral id 3 40 and then, um, if this is enabled as customized, customizable referral id, this lets your ambassadors further customize that value so it's not uncommon for somebody to initially get a url that would look like this with a numeric referral id 3 57 and then when they can, when they go into their ambassador portal, they can choose to change that so if this was, um, alice jones's account, she might try to put this, set this to alice 4 08 then her link would be roster co slash bell nutrition slash alice, which is a nice way to have a brand branded referral link, and then the ambassador branded referral link 4 20 so, but this is just the default, what it starts out at, you can change it to some other options if you prefer 4 27 and then if you do happen to have a situation where you, uh, want to not allow them to change their referral id, then you can simply uncheck this 4 37 and then the option inside of the ambassador portal to customize this it goes away there's some cases where that makes sense 4 44 like we've had brands that, um, the cell phone number was a big deal or they had a community handle as part of their community and they wanted their ambassadors to all have their handle show up here that the brand determined 4 56 um, some people have third party systems and they already have have a good uh, referral id for their ambassadors and they want to ensure that they're using that the same across all of their platforms 5 07 so there are cases where you would want to disable this um, i would recommend if you think there's a case for you to just chat with your customer success manager and just run through this scenario and see if it makes sense 5 18 so, for now we'll just leave all these as the recommended settings and then lastly, i'm going to ignore this for right now 5 25 this is the customer discount and this is whether or not, um, somebody's referral link it should result in a discount to the customer 5 33 this is a shopify only feature for the time being we're just going to leave this to don't apply a customer discount 5 40 and i'll touch on the leak proof code option, the shareable code option, and the campaign links by vebra option in separate articles 5 49 so for now we'll just leave it like that and then i'm going to click save and that will now create a smart link for everybody inside of my ambassador program 6 00 it takes a handful of minutes for those smart links to get generated and pushed out to where we've optimized those out on the network 6 10 so it's possible when you first create a smart link that, and then you'd find one of your program members and you click on their account and you come grab their link 6 20 it's possible that, um, it won't work when you first open it up and you just have to give it a few minutes 6 26 so let's go ahead and just click on this now though okay, perfect so you can see that that instantly redirected to my brand's website 6 36 and here's the roster referral tracking id, which is how roster tracks individual link clicks and here are the utm parameters that i configured with the smart link 6 47 so these parameters will now get picked up by your website or store analytics software so you can also, not only can you check in roster to see link clicks, but you can also check your analytics and then do further investigation, like where did you go? 7 01 thank you um, visitors most likely go when coming in from ambassador links so but, um, and then lastly, i should show you what the ambassador experience is like 7 14 so when your ambassador comes in to view their account, they will see their referral link right here and this is the link that we saw earlier and they can simply click on this to copy to the clipboard 7 28 or they can come here and here's where the option to customize that link is, that's the checkbox that i referred to earlier 7 35 so if he wanted to change this to richard, instead of rich jack, you can see if that's available and that was available 7 44 so now his link will, um, will be this and he can share that so i will touch on some other features with smart links later when we get into what the ambassador experience is like 7 56 just note that they do have the ability to create link variants so if they want to link to a specific link to 8 01 the product on your website or if they want a version of their link that is specific to their tiktok page and then a different one for their instagram page so they can see how well link clicks and referrals are converting 8 14 they can do that through there and then they can come in and view the individual stats for all of those 8 19 so but that should give you a pretty good idea of how referral links, um, that we call smart links are working at the program level 8 29 thank you step by step instructions navigate to the referrals in program settings click on settings for the program where you want to enable smart links click the referrals tab from within program settings click add a smart link 🛑 if you don't see the smart link section in the referrals tab, then your account isn't in the smart links beta program contact mailto\ cs\@getroster com for assistance configure the destination url destination url this is the website customers will land on when they click an ambassador’s smart link most brands set this to their store’s homepage, but you can use a collection, a product page, or any custom landing page dynamic path parameters you can append path parameters to the url for dynamic routing for example, if you wanted to have custom landing pages for each of your ambassadors, you could add /{{fullname}} as a path parameter, which would redirect to a url such as https //yourbrand com/pages/alicejones url parameters add utm and other url parameters to help track the effectiveness of your smart links across different channels brands can add standard utm parameters or custom key value pairs to track specific metrics or to unlock additional parameter driven functionality to referral links dynamic url parameters similar to dynamic path parameters, the dynamic url parameters allow you to add ambassador specific values to their destination urls options include ambassador id a unique, numeric identifier assigned by roster to each ambassador e g 21456 referral id a unique value that allows roster to identify the owner of a referral link or smart link see the options in the link appearance section for setting the default referral id and determining whether ambassadors can further customize their referral ids full name the ambassadors full name, with spaces and special characters removed e g a link belonging to alice jones would have a value of alicejones attribution window set the duration for which a click on a smart link will attribute conversions to the ambassador by default, this is set to 30 days, but you can customize it on a program by program basis to suit your needs destination url preview this preview allows you to see how the final url will appear, ensuring it is correct and includes all necessary parameters 💡 if you are using the roster short link option (see the link appearance section), the destination url and url parameters can be changed at any time without requiring ambassadors to update their social bios, linktrees, etc configure the link appearance link appearance this is how an ambassador’s smart link will appear when shared in social bios, linktree, with friends, etc options for the link appearance include roster short link this is the recommended option, as it provides a compact, branded, and future proof referral link roster's short domain is rstr co the fully generated referral link includes your brand's handle and ambassadors' referral id, e g , rstr co/yourbrand/1234 using the roster short link allows you to change any of the destination url and customer discount options without affecting ambassadors existing links they may have shared publicly destination url use the full destination url for ambassadors, including all parameters the main benefit of this option is that it uses your brands' domain as the referral link (e g, https //yourbrand com ) but comes at the cost of potentially long and unsightly links (e g , https //yourbrand com/?rstr=12345\&platform=roster\&ls=avg2 fae5 7jeag\&lv=avx\&utm source=organic referral\&utm campaign=jane doe 12345\&utm medium=ambassador ) brand subdomain optionally, use a subdomain specific to your brand for a more customized link, e g , https //ap yourbrand com/1234 email mailto\ cs\@getroster com to inquire about using this option default referral id define how the ambassador's initial referral id will appear in their referral links this setting will not override ambassadors' existing customized referral ids, e g , if alice has already customized her default referral id from 1234 to alicejones, changing the default referral id will not change her referral id unique number (recommended) this is the default option in roster, which uses a unique numeric value to identify an ambassador we recommend this as a good starting point, as it doesn't put any user identifiable info in ambassadors' referral links unique letters & numbers similar to unique number, but generates a unique string of numbers and letters custom value + unique numbers combine a custom value with unique numbers for added personalization when this option is selected, you are able to provide a default or dynamic custom value, such as ambassador or {{fullname}} customizable referral id allows ambassadors to customize their referral id with a unique alphanumeric value, such as their name, instagram handle, or other self identifying value examples of when brands have opted to prevent ambassadors from customizing their referral link include a cell phone carrier who wanted ambassadors' referral ids to be their 10 digit mobile number (to make it easy for ambassadors to remember their referral link urls) a social networking app who wanted their ambassadors' referral ids to be their network handle a brand who wanted to migrate their existing referral ids into roster and didn't want their ambassadors changing them so that they could continue to report consistently across multiple platforms link preview a preview showing how the referral link will appear, ensuring the branding and formatting are correct add a customer discount customer discount decide whether to apply a discount for customers using an ambassador's smart link leakproof codes and campaign links by veeper options are currently only available to shopify brands the shareable code option is available to all brands don’t apply a customer discount no discount will be applied to purchase made from an ambassador's smart link leakproof code this is a shopify specific feature leakproof codes is recommended option to applying a customer discount if your brand has experienced unwanted leaking of ambassadors shareable (aka vanity) discount codes when selected, roster will automatically generate single use, randomized discount code at checkout to prevent misuse and ensure discounts are only applied when intended shareable code when selected, roster will automatically ambassadors' program level shareable code to customers' shopping carts prior to smart links, this option was available by enabling the "automatically apply shareable discount code" on the shareable code setting itself note non shopify brands are required to do some manual integration with their website in order to use this feature see docid\ hgzfc7emsdgx9l5l7imyf for detailed instructions campaign links by veeper this is a shopify specific feature not to be confused with roster's campaign feature, campaign links by veeper is a feature offered by veeper, a shopify app that provides multiple options to combatting leaked discount codes this is a great option if you already using veeper or would like advanced code leaking features like preventing browser plugins like honey from injecting discount codes into customers' carts at checkout save the smart link settings once all required sections are completed, you can enable the smart link for your program this will automatically generate unique links for all ambassadors in the program if the save button is disabled (not clickable), it means one or more required fields have not been property completed open each section in the add/edit smart link modal and ensure that you have configured all the required settings notify ambassadors of their new (or updated) link when a program's smart link is added or edited, you will be given the option to notify ambassadors of the changes via a pre built email template this ensures they have the most up to date links and can make any necessary updates to where their links are shared next steps docid 3dyvftf3tw3ulct2wquen for brands using roster's legacy referral links docid\ j mbkk2ngpbae53e0pdva to offer customers a discount docid\ oliee0ssliv8a95njtips if migrating from another platform docid\ fejnmn6qyvtiqggobu yz for tips, tricks, and advanced features need help? if you have any questions or need assistance, please reach out to our customer success team at mailto\ cs\@getroster com