Fraud prevention for referral campaigns
This guide walks through fraud prevention for referral campaigns for referrals, rewards, and scoring.
Strategy guide: Want the bigger campaign playbook behind this setup? Read Referral Programs.
No one would ever tell you that a contest platform can’t be gamed. If you are giving away something with significant value then people will try and game any system to take advantage of it. At KickoffLabs our customers HAVE given away several thousands of dollars worth of credits, products, cash, and other prizes in enormously successful contests. They have done so with confidence that they have the guidance and tools to avoid awarding scammers. Here’s how we can help and how you can help yourself feel more confident.
Automatic Detection at KickoffLabs
Section titled “Automatic Detection at KickoffLabs”Using our Advanced Fraud Prevention, Business and Enterprise level plans get access to smart tools to help stop scammers.
1. Verified lead campaigns
Section titled “1. Verified lead campaigns”You can enable Campaign Lead Verification. This is the safest solution for contests with significant value because it will require individuals to manually confirm their entry in the contest via email (commonly known as double opt-in). No reward emails or totals will be sent to people that have not verified. If a verified account refers 100 unverified fake signups those signups will NOT count in their totals.
2. Advanced IP blocking Using Lead Filtering, all leads should have a unique IP address.
Section titled “2. Advanced IP blocking Using Lead Filtering, all leads should have a unique IP address.”Any duplicate IP addresses are automatically marked as suspicious. Leads and referrals from those addresses will not count in any totals that are used for automatic emails or reward distribution. If you expect multiple signups from a trusted shared network, you can white list IP addresses (for example from an office, university, public workspace, etc).
3. Invalid email addresses are flagged
Section titled “3. Invalid email addresses are flagged”If an email address bounces we clearly mark it in your Lead Reports. This does require turning on the Automatic Reply Email.
4. Fake addresses are flagged
Section titled “4. Fake addresses are flagged”Additionally, we automatically detect disposable emails (like from Mailinator and 1,000’s of other bad email domains) which are also clearly marked in your Lead Reports.
5. Entries from known sweepstakes sites can be ignored
Section titled “5. Entries from known sweepstakes sites can be ignored”There are sites where people just post to get referrals to giveaways. You can choose to exclude entries from these sites from your campaign.
6. Captcha can be enabled to prevent robot entries
Section titled “6. Captcha can be enabled to prevent robot entries”You can setup a captcha on your campaign. This means leads may be required to answer a visual question before entering.
7. We’d tell you, but we’d have to kill you
Section titled “7. We’d tell you, but we’d have to kill you”We do more behind the scenes to prevent fraud based on our experience but we don’t want to publicly post all those secrets online for people to start working around. :) Need help? Let us know at support@kickofflabs.com!
What to check after
Section titled “What to check after”- Confirm the setting, export, integration, or message changed where you expected in KickoffLabs.
- If this affects leads, forms, referrals, emails, or integrations, submit a fresh test lead and verify the result end-to-end.
- Save the campaign URL, test lead email, screenshots, and any error messages before contacting support.
Need help? Email support@kickofflabs.com. Include your campaign URL, the test lead email, what you expected to happen, and a screenshot or short screen recording.