Referral programme

The referral programme lets you give your own referral link to friends or colleagues who are not yet using Pulse, so that they receive a benefit when they sign up. This article covers where to find your link, the conditions for the benefit to be granted, and the advertising disclosure you need when you post a referral link on social media or a blog.

#How a referral works

1. 1

   Find your referral link

   In the Pulse app, open Settings > Referrals and find your own referral link.

2. 2

   Pass the link on

   Give the link to a friend or colleague who has not used Pulse before.

3. 3

   They sign up

   Once they sign up from that link and finish creating a workspace, the benefit is applied to their workspace.

The benefit is granted at the point the person you referred completes registration and creates a workspace. Merely clicking the link, or dropping out partway through registration, does not qualify.

#Conditions for the benefit to be granted

The benefit applies where the person referred meets all of the following.

• They are using Pulse for the first time (they do not already have an account)
• They register with an email address issued by their employer. Personal addresses such as free webmail do not qualify
• No Pulse workspace has yet been created at their employer

Where the conditions are not met, no benefit is granted even if someone registers through the link. Registering with your own address, or another address you control, in order to obtain a benefit, and referring someone you know does not meet the conditions, are treated as misuse of the programme and may lead to the benefit being cancelled.

#Posting your referral link on social media or a blog

Under the referral programme, a benefit is granted to the referrer or the person referred when someone registers through the link. Where you post a recommendation of Pulse having received that economic benefit, in a place the public can view — a blog, social media, a video, a comparison site — that post may fall within the stealth-marketing rules under the Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations. In that case, include a disclosure that makes the advertising nature clear to the reader.

#How to word the disclosure

• Use one of “advertisement”, “promotion”, “sponsored” or “PR” (in Japanese: 広告, 宣伝, プロモーション, PR)
• Or make the benefit you receive clear, for example “I receive a referral benefit for this” or “I am recommending this having received a benefit from UNCHAIN, Inc.”
• Place the disclosure where the reader sees it first, such as at the very start of the post or article
• Make the text size, colour and contrast against the background at least equal to the body text, so that it is not skipped over

Placing it small at the end, slipping it into a row of hashtags, or putting it inside a collapsed section all risk being judged difficult to identify even though a disclosure is present. A list of wording that is unlikely to pass, and guidance on where to place the disclosure by medium, is gathered in Affiliate programme. The approach to disclosure is the same for the referral programme.

#When no disclosure is needed

For exchanges that are not seen by the public — sending a referral link to a friend or colleague in a direct message, a chat or an email — this disclosure is not required. The same goes for sharing the link with members of your own team in an internal chat. What the rules cover are representations in places ordinary consumers can view.

#What UNCHAIN, Inc. communicates, and what happens on a breach

Legal responsibility under the stealth-marketing rules rests with the business making the representation — that is, UNCHAIN, Inc. as the advertiser. The individual making the referral is not made the addressee of an administrative order. Because of this structure, UNCHAIN, Inc. has to communicate the disclosure rules to people taking part in the programme and check what is actually being posted.

Where we find a post without a disclosure, UNCHAIN, Inc. may ask you to correct it. Where it is not corrected, or where statements contrary to fact are made about Pulse's features, accuracy, pricing or comparison with other services, we may, as a measure under the programme terms, cancel the benefit and suspend your eligibility to take part.

#How it differs from the affiliate programme

The referral programme is a way for Pulse users to pass a link to someone they know and receive a benefit; there is no assessment to take part. The affiliate programme, which pays commission according to results, is a scheme for people with a channel of their own, who take part after a review by UNCHAIN, Inc.. In both cases, a referral in a place the public can view requires a disclosure that it is advertising.

#If something is not working

For questions about the programme, contact tharada@the-unchain.com.

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