Referral program with signing up forms and referral links

Voucherify can automate communication with your customers at every stage of your referral campaign. Using the dashboard only, you can create a referral campaign, dedicated customer touchpoints, and distributions with referral links. In this guide, we're going to show you how to leverage the Voucherify dashboard to build a complete referral experience for your customers.

In this section:

1. Create a referral campaign with a custom event defining a successful referral.
2. Create a landing page to sign up with a referral code.
3. Invite your users to join your referral campaign:
   1. Build referral links and share them with your audience.
   2. Create a dedicated landing page to share your codes via a signup form.
   3. Schedule automatic codes distribution.

Create a referral campaign

We're going to create an event-based referral program where a successful referral is defined by a custom event added firstly in Voucherify Event Schema. Later on, a dedicated landing page will trigger this event every time a new customer with a referral code successfully goes through the registration form.

Step 1: Add a custom event to Event Schema

First, add an event that will be triggered every time a new customer is approved as a referred person. Go to the Project Settings and then, Event Schema.

Choose Add event definition and add the name of your event. Please note that you cannot use blank characters in the event name. Providing the name is the only required step while adding a new event (1). By default, the event will carry information about a customer and a referral code. If you'd like to extend the event data with new attributes, choose Add new attribute (2). As a result, you'll map added attributes to custom fields in the signup form that we will create in the next step. 

In the example below, you can see a custom attribute ( Login) added to the event schema. Each new attribute can be optional or mandatory and represents the following data types: text, number, date, date-time, or flag (true/false).

To confirm the added event click  Save. Then, go to the Campaign Manager to run an event-based referral program.

Step 2: Create a referral program with a custom event

First, go back to the main view and run the Campaign Manager with the plus (+).

Choose the promotion type – Referral Codes.

In the Manager, you need to go through the following sections:

1. Program details:

Set mandatory details: campaign name (1) and the number of referral codes (2). If you're unsure how many codes you're going to need, leave the auto-update mode enabled (3) (new codes will be added automatically).

In the remaining fields, you can add optional details and set a code's redemption limit. By default, redemptions per referral code are set to unlimited. You can read more details here. When ready, go to the Next step.

2. Timeframe (optional):

You can add a campaign timeframe (start and expiration date) and set more advanced time-related limits for referral codes redemptions. Read more here.

3. Incentive workflow:

First, set a Conversion Event (1) and choose a custom event that defines a successful referral (2). It has to be the same event that was defined and added to your Event Schema in the 1st step. 

Second, decide if you want to reward both referee and referrer (double-sided) or just referrers (single-sided).

After you decide who's rewarded, go to the  Next step.

4. Referee reward

You can add limits and rules for customers redeeming referral codes. By default, a validation rule  Redeemable Once per Customer in Campaign is added to your referral codes. As a result, each new customer can make only one redemption in the whole referral program. If you want to change default validation rules or add more limits, click Edit.

Remember to confirm validation rules with Save.

Besides validation rules attached to the referral codes, in double-sided mode, you need to choose a reward for a referee. The reward is attached to the referral code and will be triggered by its redemption. A referee's reward can be:

• a discount coupon,
• gift card credits,
• loyalty points.

When the value of referral codes is set, and validation rules are added, go to the Next step.

5. Referrer rewards

To add rewards and limits for referrers, choose Create Tier. Tiers enable you to create different rewarding criteria for specific rewards.

Go here to learn more about tiers. 

Creating a tier is always a three-step process (Criteria, Reward, Notifications). 

• Rewarding Criteria

In the image, you can see that a referrer is rewarded every time a new customer triggers a custom event. 

The second option enables you to define how many times an event needs to be performed to trigger the reward. With Advanced options, you can define additional criteria for the referrer to meet to receive a reward. 

When rewarding criteria are set, choose Next.

• Rewards

Add reward(s) that will be assigned to the referrer every time tier criteria are met. You can choose from the list of existing rewards (1) or click Create new reward (2) to define a new reward on the spot. 

When a reward is added successfully, you can see it on the rewards list.

When rewards are added, click Next to continue. 

• Notifications (optional)

You can design a message that notifies the referrer about the reward every time it's triggered. If you don't need to set notifications per referral tier (different message template for each tier), you can skip this section with Done and add notifications for your referral campaign in the 6th section of the Manager. 

When you confirm your tier with Done, you'll see a list of already added referral tiers. Add all needed tiers and then go to the Next step. 

6. Notifications (optional)

You can set automatic notifications to send referral codes (1) and/or notify about assigned reward (2). 

A message with a referral code will be triggered every time you publish a referral code to a referrer.

When notifications are ready, you can go to the Next step.

7. Metadata (optional)

You can assign custom attributes defined in Metadata Schema to your referral campaign. 

8. Summary

Lastly, you can see a summary of your referral campaign. If everything is fine, confirm with Save.

When referral codes are ready, you can create a dedicated landing page for new customers to sign up with a referral code.

Create a landing page to sign up with a referral code

Go to the Landing Pages section in your dashboard (1) and click the plus (2) to add a new landing page.

Select a landing page goal (Successful Referral) and then, click Create.

Step 1: Landing page settings

In the Creator, start from the landing page settings:

• Name of your landing page.
• Description (optional).
• Source Id (by default, it's customer email address).

• Double opt-in (enabled by default).

• The crucial part is to set a Custom event schedule. Below the double Opt-In section, you need to add a custom event that will be triggered after submitting the form. It needs to be the same event that is set as a conversion event in the referral campaign.

The remaining settings enable you to design your landing page (add logo, colors, and font).

When the Settings are ready, go to the Elements tab and edit the Form.

Step 2: Sign-up form

When you enter the  Fields settings, you can modify the default signup form. Decide which fields are mandatory and visible for users. 

Step 3: Final design 

• Banner.
• Bottom call to action.
• Footer.
• Logo bar.
• Promotion rules.
• Rewards container.
• Share links.

1. Successful status informs a customer that the form was submitted.
2. Failed status is displayed to a customer if the form submission fails.
3. Double Opt-In informs customers about required confirmation due to the enabled double opt-in. 

Step 4: Landing page release

Choose Release (1), customize URL (3) and Set it live (2). Confirm release with Set (4), and from now on, your sign-up landing page is available online. 

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Invite users to join your referral campaign

You can use the Voucherify dashboard to invite users to your referral campaign: 

1. Build referral links.
2. Create a dedicated landing page.
3. Schedule distributions to share referral codes. 

Build referral links and share them with your audience.

To build referral links, you need to create a Successful Referral landing page in your Voucherify dashboard. Go back to the previous section to read step-by-step instructions.

To build a referral link, use the following syntax: URL /your_alias?code=referralCode.

• Exemplary landing page URL: voucherify.io/landing-pages/ella-referral-signup
• Exemplary referral link: voucherify.io/landing-pages/ella-referral-signup?code=DdgdsNrZ

When a customer opens a referral link, a field for referral code is filled automatically.

You can use referral links in Voucherify distributions and referral program notifications. 

Schedule automatic distribution

If you'd like to deliver referral links to specific customer segments or use an automatic trigger, use Distribution Manager, and add referral links to the message template. When a message is triggered, Voucherify will automatically generate a new referral link and assign code to the referrer. 

Here's an example of a segment-based distribution that delivers referral codes to every new customer in the chosen segment.

A referral link can be added to the email template and direct customer to the sign-up form.

Read more about Voucherify distributions.

Referral program notifications

You can use referral links while creating referral notifications. Go to the detailed view of your referral campaign and click the Edit tool.

Go to the 6th section (Notifications) to create messages with referral links triggered every time a new referral code is published to a user. This type of distribution comes in handy if you use API publish method to assign codes to your users. As a result, every time a publish method is called, a notification with a referral link is sent to a user that the code was published to. 

You can also publish referral codes manually using the dashboard or via a dedicated landing page.

Go here to read more about publishing codes to your users.

2. Publish referral codes via landing page

In the Landing Pages section, you can create another customer touchpoint with a customized form that publishes referral codes to your users. 

Go here to see a detailed setup.