Key Concepts

Learn the key concepts of Flock and how to integrate it with your application.

This guide explains the core concepts of Flock’s referral system. For implementation details, refer to our SDK documentation.

Understanding Flock Integration

Flock is a referral system that helps you create and manage referral campaigns. A successful integration involves two main components:

Client-Side Integration

Handle user-facing aspects of your referral program

Server-Side Integration

Manage reward fulfillment and authentication

Overview of a Referral Flow

1. Share

   Referrer shares their unique referral code with friends

2. Sign Up

   Invitee uses this code when signing up

3. Reward

   When the invitee completes the required action (e.g., subscribes), eligible parties receive their rewards

Key Integration Components

1. Client-Side Integration

The client-side integration handles the user-facing aspects of your referral program:

User Identification

• Register users with Flock using your internal user IDs
• Provide user details (email, name) to personalize the experience
• Required before displaying any referral interfaces

Referrer Flow

• Display a sharing interface for referrers to invite friends
• Support various sharing methods (email, SMS, social media)

Invitee Flow

• Web: Automatically capture and validate referral codes from the URL
• Mobile: Display a referral code input screen for manual code entry
• Once validated, create a referral record in Flock to capture the referral flow

2. Server-Side Integration

Authentication

• Secure API access using service keys
• Environment-based configuration (test/production)

Reward Triggers

• Trigger rewards when invitees complete required actions
• Support for various reward types (gift cards, credits, etc.)
• See Reward Triggers Guide