Illustration for Growth & go-to-market marketing skills
Growth & go-to-market skill · v0.1.0

Referral & affiliate program skill

Design and run a referral or affiliate program: incentive, mechanics, promotion and fraud checks.

Free · MIT licence · Copy needs a free sign-in

Category
Growth & go-to-market
Works with
Claude, Codex, Cursor, any agent
Format
SKILL.md · 1,526 words
Version
v0.1.0
Price
Free · MIT

The Referral & affiliate program skill file

cmo-referral-program/SKILL.md1,526 words · MIT
---
name: cmo-referral-program
description: Design and run a referral or affiliate program: incentive, mechanics, promotion and fraud checks.
---

Turns happy customers and aligned partners into a steady acquisition channel. Customer referrals run on loyalty and a small reward; affiliate programs pay outside promoters a commission to reach audiences you cannot. Both only work if the reward fits the economics, the ask comes at the right moment, sharing takes one click, and abuse is designed out. The result is a program design, a profitability check, the rules, and a launch and measurement plan.

When to use

  • Starting a refer-a-friend program, an affiliate or partner commission program, or both.
  • "Nobody uses our referral program", "affiliates signed up but never promote".
  • Choosing reward size, commission rate, attribution window or payout terms.
  • Not for: joint campaigns with a partner company (cmo-co-marketing), paid creator sponsorships (cmo-influencer), or keeping existing customers (cmo-churn-prevention).
Sign in to see, copy and download the whole skillIt's free. Copying also upvotes and saves it, so you'll find it again under Saved.
Preview: the workflow, output, example, quality bar and guardrails unlock when you sign in.

Adapts open work by alirezarezvani/claude-skills (MIT).

Everyday usage

How people use Referral & affiliate program day to day

Ask in plain words. The agent picks this skill, asks for anything it needs and hands back the result. Words in a highlight are yours to change.

Most common · also on the Growth & go-to-market page

Start a referral programme

The incentive, mechanics, promotion and fraud checks for referrals or affiliates.

Ask your agentDesign a referral programme for my subscription box.
  • Choice of mechanism (built-in sharing, customer referral, affiliate, or a mix) with reasons
  • Program design: trigger moments, share flow, reward, referred-user landing
  • Economics worksheet, terms decision table, fraud rules
  • Launch plan, promotion messages and a metrics dashboard

More things to ask

  • Set up a referral program
  • Should we start an affiliate program
  • How much should we pay per referral
  • Our referral program isn't working
  • Customers love us, how do we get them to tell friends
  • Affiliate commission structure
How it works

From input to output

  1. 1You give it
    • Business model, price, gross margin and customer lifetime value (or average order value)
    • Current cost to acquire a customer from other channels
    • Who would promote: happy customers, creators, agencies, complementary products
    • Existing program numbers if optimising; referral or affiliate tool in use
  2. 2It works through the method
    • Asks what's missing, one question at a time
    • Follows the workflow step by step
    • Checks the result against its quality bar and guardrails
  3. 3You get
    • Choice of mechanism (built-in sharing, customer referral, affiliate, or a mix) with reasons
    • Program design: trigger moments, share flow, reward, referred-user landing
    • Economics worksheet, terms decision table, fraud rules
    • Launch plan, promotion messages and a metrics dashboard
Why a skill

The skill against the alternatives

Do it yourselfHire helpReferral & affiliate program skill
CostYour own timeAgency or freelancer feesFree, MIT licence
Time to a first resultHours, every timeDays to weeks, plus revisionsMinutes, in your agent
ConsistencyDepends on remembering every stepAs long as the retainer lastsSame steps and checks every run
The methodIn your headTheir process, often hiddenWritten down: read it, change it
Who does the workYou, from scratchSomeone learning your businessYour agent, following the skill
FAQ

Questions about the Referral & affiliate program skill

What it does, what it needs and how to use it with your agent.

Still not sure?Try it free on your own website and see the first posts before you decide.
Start free
What is the Referral & affiliate program skill?

Design and run a referral or affiliate program: incentive, mechanics, promotion and fraud checks.

It's one of cmo.so's open Growth & go-to-market skills: a SKILL.md file that tells an AI agent when to use it, what to ask you first, the steps to follow, the checks to pass and what to hand back, so the job is done the same careful way every time.

When should I use it?

Reach for it when you'd otherwise say something like “Set up a referral program”, “Should we start an affiliate program”, “How much should we pay per referral”. Your agent reads the skill's description and picks it for requests like these, so you don't need to name it.

If a request is close but not quite right, the skill says so and points to the related skill that fits better, instead of forcing a poor answer.

What do I need to give it?

It works best with business model, price, gross margin and customer lifetime value (or average order value); current cost to acquire a customer from other channels; who would promote: happy customers, creators, agencies, complementary products; and existing program numbers if optimising; referral or affiliate tool in use.

You don't have to prepare everything up front. The skill asks for missing pieces one at a time and says plainly when it's working from an assumption instead of your data.

What do I get back?

You get choice of mechanism (built-in sharing, customer referral, affiliate, or a mix) with reasons; program design: trigger moments, share flow, reward, referred-user landing; economics worksheet, terms decision table, fraud rules; and launch plan, promotion messages and a metrics dashboard.

Every result comes from a written method with a quality bar, so numbers name their source, claims are checked and the output is ready to use or share rather than a rough draft.

Is it free?

Yes. The skill is open source under the MIT licence, so you can use it, change it and share it, including for client work.

Seeing, copying and downloading the whole file on cmo.so needs a free sign-in. Copying also upvotes and saves it, so you can find it again under Saved on the skills page.

Which AI agents can use it?

Claude Code installs it from the cmo.so marketplace. Any agent that reads SKILL.md folders, such as Codex or Cursor, can use it once the folder is in its skills directory.

You can also paste the copied skill into ChatGPT, Claude or any assistant at the start of a conversation and ask it to follow the skill.

How do I install it?

In Claude Code, run /plugin marketplace add AI-Marketing-OS-LTD/cmo-so-skills, then /plugin install cmo-so-growth@cmo-so. That installs this skill together with the rest of the Growth & go-to-market group.

For other agents, sign in, press Copy or Download above and put the file in your agent's skills folder as SKILL.md inside a folder named after the skill.

Do I need a cmo.so account to use it?

No. The skill works on its own with whatever your agent can already see and do: your files, the pages you share and the data you paste in.

A free cmo.so account only matters if you also want Maggie to plan, write and publish your marketing every day.

Which skills work well with it?

It pairs well with Retention & churn prevention. The agent can hand over from one to the next in the same conversation, for example research first, then the plan, then the writing.

Each of them has its own page with what it needs and what it returns, linked below.

Can I change it to fit my business?

Yes. It's a plain Markdown file, so you can edit the steps, add your own checks and examples, and keep your version in your own repo. The MIT licence allows it.

If your change would help others too, suggest it on the skills page or open a pull request on GitHub, and it may be folded into the library for everyone.

Where does the method come from?

It's written by cmo.so and adapts open work by others, credited on this page: alirezarezvani/claude-skills (MIT).

Only permissively licensed work is adapted; copyleft repos are used for ideas only and repos without a licence aren't used at all.

Is my data sent to cmo.so when the agent uses it?

No. The skill only guides your own agent; your files, documents and data stay wherever your agent and its tools keep them.

cmo.so only sees what you connect to cmo.so. Your votes and saves on this page are stored against your cmo.so sign-in.

Ready when you are!

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  • Cancel any time

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