Hi community.
We updated how Brave uses privacy-respecting referral codes for understanding the impact of acquisition campaigns. Specifically, Brave added new codes for referral sources on brave.com.
Check out the update on the wiki under the Why does Brave use referral codes? heading.
Thanks everyone and let me know if you have any questions.
Good to see you on here @cmore! Thanks for sharing. Though wondering if you can help summarize it a bit, essentially a TL:DR to make it easier for people.
If I’m seeing it right, think the TL:DR would be:
There are referral codes that report when a browser is downloaded, which OS it’s installed on, IP address only to infer which region they are in, and from what source it’s downloaded. Then after that it just does occasional pings to see if that browser is still being active. And, when/if Brave does a referral program, those pings help to detect fraud for the referrals.
I know there’s a lot more to unpack, but does that sound about right?
Hey @Saoiray!
There are referral codes that report when a browser is downloaded, which OS it’s installed on, IP address only to infer which region they are in, and from what source it’s downloaded. Then after that it just does occasional pings to see if that browser is still being active. And, when/if Brave does a referral program, those pings help to detect fraud for the referrals.
Not exactly.
This could be a better TL;DR:
The referral codes that are currently used to measure the performance of marketing campaigns is also now used understand the quality of organic traffic to brave.com. These ref codes for organic traffic to brave.com are being used for two purposes. First, to be able to identify low-quality fraudulent desktop downloads, which often come from outside of brave.com. Second, to understand the performance of true organic channels like search engines and other websites. The pre-defined ref codes cohort large groups of downloads from known sources of quality new installs. The resulting cohort from downloads that do not use one of these ten ref codes are likely all bots and fraud using builds of Brave browser. Detecting bots and fraud is important when evaluating the performance of any marketing program and these ref codes allows Brave to better understand that situation.
How does that sound?
Here is how to test this out using three examples on desktop:
Type in brave.com into the address bar, hover over the download button, you should see BRV002. That is the direct traffic ref code.
Go to google.com, search for Brave, clicking our main result, you’ll be on brave.com then. Mouse over the download button and you should see BRV010. That is the ref code for Google.com referral traffic.
Click the brave.com link here in this message and you will go over to the brave.com homepage. Mouse over the download button and you will see BRV040. That is the ref code for any Brave owned websites.
That’s how it works. One of ten pre-defined ref codes for every possible source of traffic to brave.com. Beyond those 10 ref codes, we don’t know anything more. The referring URL, no query parameters, or even the domain of websites beyond search engines are completely unknown.
Awesome. Thanks for that. It’s highly informative.
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