This chapter explains how to use the Affiliate Manager tool within Close Master (typically accessed via Marketing → Affiliate Manager) to create, manage, and track your own internal Referral Partner Program. This can be a highly effective strategy for generating qualified leads for your real estate agency by incentivizing individuals or businesses to send new clients your way.
Potential Referral Partners ("Affiliates") in Real Estate:
- Past Clients: Your happiest clients are often your best source of referrals. Offer them a thank-you fee or reward for sending friends and family.
- Other Agents/Brokerages: Formalize agent-to-agent referral agreements and track the status and payouts for deals referred across brokerages.
- Sphere of Influence (
SOI): Motivate contacts in your personal and professional network (friends, family, colleagues in other industries) to think of you when someone mentions needing real estate services. - Vendor Partners: Build reciprocal relationships with mortgage brokers, home inspectors, stagers, insurance agents, contractors, etc., who serve the same clientele and can refer business back and forth.
- (Less Common) Online Influencers/Bloggers: If relevant to your niche (e.g., relocation specialist, real estate investing focus).
By offering a commission, flat fee, or other reward (managed through this system), you can turn these relationships into a consistent and trackable source of valuable leads. The Affiliate Manager helps you:
- Create different referral programs (
Campaigns) with specific payout rules. - Add and manage your referral partners (
Affiliates). - Generate unique tracking links (primarily useful for online tracking, less so for offline referrals).
- Track attributed leads and, crucially for real estate, manually credit closed sales to the referring partner.
- Organize and track commission payouts.
- Provide partners with their own portal to see their stats and links.
Sections in this Chapter:
- 18.1 Referral Program Overview & Initial Setup
- 18.2 Creating Referral Campaigns (Defining Payout Rules)
- 18.3 Managing Your Referral Partners (Affiliates)
- 18.4 Tracking & Paying Referral Commissions
- 18.5 Tracking Referred Leads & Closings (Attribution)
- 18.6 The Referral Partner Portal: What Your Partners See
- 18.7 Automating Your Referral Program with Workflows