Wildfire Systems, Inc. announced the launch of Wildlink, the first monetization system for social messaging and digital communications. Wildlink rewards consumers for making word-of-mouth recommendations, while driving incremental revenue for merchants and platform partners. Over 20,000 e-commerce sites are in the Wildlink network, including Hotels.com, Expedia, Nordstrom, Sephora, REI, Ticketmaster, 1-800-Flowers and Walmart.

Wildfire Systems has launched Wildlink, the first platform for monetizing social messaging and digital communications. Retailers reward brand advocacy, and consumers get cash for referring products to friends and family on social media, text, chat or email

Wildlink, which has several patents pending, uses techniques including natural language processing to detect product referrals and automatically transform them into trackable links, which work wherever people communicate, including email, text messaging, social media, chat and other apps. Wildlink’s apps for iOS, Android, Mac and PC allow anybody who shares a link to a product to make money when the receiver clicks on the link and makes a purchase from a participating store. In addition, SDKs and APIs enable broad distribution via platform partners that embed Wildlink to generate revenue from conversations taking place on their platforms.

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Wildlink uniquely addresses the opportunity to monetize peer-to-peer messaging, which is entirely overlooked by other solutions. Whereas ad networks, affiliate programs and influencer marketing are designed for professional content creators, Wildlink enables anyone to earn cash from their everyday purchase recommendations to friends and family. And unlike existing rebate services, which give cash back for a user’s own shopping, Wildlink rewards users for suggestions they share with others.

“You don’t have to be an ‘influencer’ to have influence. All other forms of digital marketing miss the mark on word-of-mouth,” said Jordan Glazier, Wildfire’s founder and CEO. “By harnessing personal recommendations in social messaging, the largest and fastest-growing segment of digital content, we’re cracking the code on monetizing peer-to-peer communications.”

For its merchant partners, Wildlink helps motivate word-of-mouth suggestions, which are the most potent influencers of purchase decision making. According to the most recent Nielsen Global Trust in Advertising Report, recommendations from friends and family are more trusted than any form of advertising across all geographies and demographics. Further, 83 percent of people report that they would act on recommendations from people they know.

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Wildlink’s official launch partners include travel industry leader Hotels.com.

“At Hotels.com, we know that word-of-mouth is important to our business and we’ve looked for meaningful ways to encourage travelers to spread the word,” said Todd Schindele, senior manager of partner marketing at Hotels.com. “Wildlink turns our customers into advocates by rewarding them for sharing their favorite places to stay and travel experiences.”

Wildfire Systems raised $2M in a seed round led by Mucker Capital in 2017. The company was named to the San Diego Venture Group 2018 Cool Companies list.

“The team has a great track-record, and we’re excited to work with them to address the enormous opportunity of efficiently monetizing digital communications,” said William Hsu, co-founder and managing partner at Mucker Capital. “Wildlink is where native advertising meets peer-to-peer messaging. Brands and merchants would be happy to give people their fair share of the commerce they drive. There simply hasn’t been a way until now. Wildlink democratizes digital marketing.”

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