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Good Bye Firefox Affiliates; Hello Firefox Friends

8 responses

For 2015, one of Mozilla’s primary goals is to grow Firefox. In order to achieve the growth we are looking for we looked closely at all of our programs and channels to identify opportunities. We focused on how we can better leverage our most powerful differentiator; our global community of contributors, supporters and users. We quickly realized that Firefox Affiliates was limiting our community’s potential. We needed a program that allowed people to participate in spreading the word in a way that aligns with how people share on the Web today.

Firefox Affiliates in its current form was outdated. It was focused on banner creation that supporters could post to their sites/blogs to spread the word about Mozilla and it wasn’t built to be available on mobile. Today, the majority of Web users are consumers of content vs creators of content and a large percentage of people are consuming this content on a mobile device. These are two of the reasons why social media engagement took off so quickly. Sharing content is a simple action that anyone can take without having to go through the process of actually creating content to share and it’s easily accessible on a mobile device.

Some of the biggest brands in technology, retail and nonprofit industries are having huge success with word of mouth marketing programs all focused on making it really simple for fans, contributors and supporters to share content the way people consume it on the Web today.

We decided that our referral program needed to better reflect how people engage with content today. We did extensive research, talked to a number of companies, followed by a very thorough RFP process to learn more about word of mouth marketing programs and eventually select a partner. Volunteer contributors helped by demoing the top potential partners and providing feedback.

Once we dug in, we knew we were on the right track as our own research showed that the more people know about why we do what we do, the happier they are about using Firefox. And the happier users are about using Firefox the more inclined they are to tell other people and the more they know about us, the more they love us.

There is also industry research confirming the power of referral marketing:

  • One third of sales can be attributed to word of mouth, it amplifies paid media
  • Third party conversations and recommendations are responsible for 13-20% of consumer purchases
  • A single word of mouth impressions accounts for 5 times more sales than a single paid media impression
  • 74% of Internet users rely on social media to guide their day to day decisions
  • Impact of an online referral is more immediate than any other type of promotion

Source: 2014 WOMMA Study

The data reinforces our need to introduce a new program that would arm our community with:

  • Content! News & updates around Firefox & Mozilla
  • Tools! To help amplify those messages and conversations around Firefox & Mozilla

This is how Firefox Friends was born! Firefox Friends is our new social sharing program that offers a fresher, better way to show your support for Firefox and all things Mozilla.

With Firefox Friends, you’re at the forefront of our mission, sharing our latest news and announcements with the world. And much like Affiliates, you’re able to track your impact (but with even more stats & data) and get rewarded along the way! Plus Firefox Friends is available on mobile, so its really easy to participate from wherever you are.

It’s really easy to get started with Firefox Friends. Just go to friends.mozilla.org and sign up. You’ll be asked to give your email and create a password. We ask for the password just so you can keep track of your activities and see the impact you’re making along the way. Plus, this way we can recognize you for the great work you’re doing.

We need everyone’s help to ensure we are hitting our goals and growing the number of long-term relationships we hold. That is the key to our success. Firefox Friends will help us foster these long term relationships.

1

Sign up with Firefox Friends today. (friends.mozilla.org)
If you’re interested in contributing to Firefox Friends, please contact us firefoxfriends@mozilla.com.

 

Timeline & details for phasing out Firefox Affiliates:

Screen Shot 2015-12-22 at 11.45.09 AM

 

8 comments on “Good Bye Firefox Affiliates; Hello Firefox Friends”

  1. Jesse Ruderman wrote on

    Please don’t break old affiliate links. It’s okay if they no longer track clicks, but they should still go to a page that lets people download Firefox.

  2. Gervase Markham wrote on

    Firefox Friends sounds great 🙂 But why turn off Firefox Affiliates banners in December? Is it really too difficult to keep the URLs for some banner images working, even if the rest of the site goes away? The alternative is that Firefox fans who put these banners on sites (perhaps a while ago) will have ugly gaps or “broken image” icons in their pages. That doesn’t seem like a good way to make people happy with us and want to keep spreading Firefox…

    Gerv

    1. jr wrote on

      Well, it is not the first or second time that a Firefox button will become a broken image. 🙂

      I wonder how difficult would be to keep those old spreadfirefox buttons working.

  3. Ian Thomas wrote on

    I totally agree with Grev. If we’ve encouraged people to use remotely hosted resources, we should continue to remain that hosting.

    Also, your last link to friends.mozilla.org is broken.

  4. Ian Thomas wrote on

    I can see it’s optimised for mobile, but why does that have to be at the expense of the desktop, or even tablet, experience? When signing up I’m forced to scroll because the content is squeezed into a phone-sized space in the middle of the screen.

  5. BurkeKnight wrote on

    Well, this would be nice, but once signed up for it, using email and making password, I got logged out, and can’t log back in!

    FireFox Friends needs some work, yet.

  6. Elli wrote on

    So I need to move my stuff or will firefox do that?

    I’m not sure I understand

  7. awwoods wrote on

    Firefox Friends seemed so promising until i read the terms & conditions of the ‘Social Chorus’ platform it’s built on:

    “You hereby grant SocialChorus an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, royalty free, worldwide license to use, telecast, copy, perform, display, edit, distribute and otherwise exploit the User Content you post on the Platform”

    And it goes on and on from there..

    I thought i must have gone to Facebook or Google by mistake. Really Mozilla, like really??

    We need more respect for our rights and content in order to use the platform. Give it please 🙂