Duplicate Referrals and Attribution

The scenario

In an active referral program, it is entirely normal for two advocates to independently refer the same friend. Consider this situation:

• Your customer Alice shares her referral link with her neighbor Maria
• The following week, your customer Bob also shares his referral link with the same Maria
• Maria clicks Bob's link and submits her contact info

Both Alice and Bob had a genuine referral relationship with Maria. Recomly should not silently drop either one.

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How Recomly handles it

Recomly uses a first-submitted wins model combined with conversion-time resolution:

1. Both referrals are created. When the first advocate's link is used by the friend, a pending referral is created for that advocate. When the second advocate's link is later used by the same friend, a second pending referral is created. Both appear in your Referrals tab.

2. Same-advocate duplicates are blocked. If the same advocate tries to submit the same friend (matched by email address or phone number) twice on the same campaign, the second submission is rejected with an error: "You have already referred this person." This prevents accidental double-submissions and quota gaming. One exception: if the advocate's earlier referral for that friend was itself expired at conversion time (they were the losing advocate), the block does not apply — an expired referral is not treated as an active duplicate.

3. You mark one as converted. When you close the job, find the referral you want to reward in the Referrals tab and click Mark as converted. You choose which advocate gets credit — typically the one whose link Maria actually used (the one you received notification for most recently).

4. Recomly automatically expires the other. After you convert one referral, Recomly finds all other pending referrals for the same friend email or phone on the same campaign and moves them to expired. The losing advocate's referral is closed cleanly with no dangling pending entries.

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Who decides the winning advocate?

You do. Recomly does not automatically award the first-submitted referral. This is intentional — in a small service business, you often know the context:

• Maria might have mentioned "Bob told me about you" during the call, even though Alice's link was submitted first
• You might have a policy of rewarding the most recent referral
• Both relationships might matter to you and you might choose to pay both outside the platform

The Referrals tab shows you all pending referrals for the campaign. The Referred by column tells you which advocate each one is attributed to.

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What the losing advocate sees

When their referral is automatically expired:

• Their portal shows the referral with a status of expired
• They are not sent a notification that their referral was outcompeted

This is by design. Telling an advocate "someone else referred the same person and got the credit" is a poor experience with limited value. They can see the expired status in their portal if they check.

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Frequently asked questions

Can I reward both advocates?

Not through the Recomly conversion flow — a referral either converts (one advocate) or expires. If you want to split rewards or reward both, track that outside Recomly and credit them manually.

What if the same friend comes back months later through a different advocate?

It depends on what happened to the original referral:

• If the original referral was expired (the friend was never converted), a new submission goes through normally. Recomly does not permanently lock a friend's contact info to one advocate — only active pending referrals trigger the duplicate block.
• If the original referral was converted, the friend was promoted to an advocate in that campaign. Re-submitting their email or phone will be blocked with "This person is already enrolled as an advocate in this campaign." They are already in your program.

What if I accidentally convert the wrong referral?

Conversions cannot be undone from the UI. Contact support with the referral IDs and we can correct the record.

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Identity conflicts

When you mark a referral as converted, Recomly checks whether the friend is already enrolled as an advocate in your org by looking up their email address and phone number.

Two outcomes are possible:

Duplicate — resolved automatically. If the friend's email or phone matches a single existing advocate record, Recomly reuses that record silently. No duplicate advocate is created, and a second invitation is not sent. The conversion proceeds normally.

Split — requires manual resolution. If the friend's email matches one existing advocate and their phone matches a different existing advocate, Recomly blocks the conversion and returns an error:

“The friend’s email matches existing advocate “Alice” and their phone matches a different advocate “Bob”. Please review your advocates list and resolve the conflict before converting this referral.”

This means two separate advocate records were created over time for what is likely the same person, and Recomly cannot safely decide which one the friend belong to.

To resolve a split conflict:

1. Go to the Advocates tab
2. Find both records (one will match the email, one the phone)
3. Delete the older or incomplete record, or update the contact details so only one record holds both the email and phone
4. Return to the Referrals tab and mark the referral as converted