Referral program basics

In this section:

1. How can customers join your referral program
   1. Enable a simple registration form on your landing page
   2. Engage users via distributions and referral notifications
      • Personalize the message with coupon tags or referral links

  2. How can your customers use the referral codes (online and offline)

  3. How to create a referral program step-by-step

  4. Tracking referral program results

Referral programs can improve your profitability by encouraging customers to promote your brand with single- or double-sided incentives. Voucherify enables you to run advanced, multi-level referral campaigns.

You can build sophisticated reward schemas based on the number of referred customers, specific (custom) actions performed by new customers (referees), and sets of limits and rules added to customer segments.

In the first part of this guide, you'll see how you can invite users to your referral program and then, how to leverage Voucherify features to allow customers to utilize their referral codes. The last part of the tutorial shows how to customize a reward schema and roll out a referral program step-by-step.

Voucherify gives you many ways to reach your referral audience:

• Using a web widget on your landing page.
• Delivering coupons to your opt-ins via various marketing channels (email, SMS, push notifications, 3rd party apps of your choice).
• Custom integration with the API.
• Dedicated referral landing pages. 

Web widget 

The widget allows you to place a small form on your website. It can look like this:

You can add it to your landing page and acquire new subscribers in exchange for referral codes. When a new user fills in the form and clicks Get Voucher, the widget automatically displays a unique code from a referral campaign. From now on, this code is assigned to the particular customer and their profile in the Voucherify dashboard.

Share referral codes with your opt-ins

If you want to engage only a particular part of your audience, you can use multi-channel delivery based on customer segments. Segments allow you to group customers based on spending habits, interactions with the brand, or other custom attributes. Thanks to segments you can precisely define who gets referral codes, for example:

• Only the most loyal customers (e.g., the total amount of orders is more than $500).
• Customers from designated locations (e.g., the postal code is 65-737).
• Clients who have been the most active lately (e.g., the last order less than 14 days ago).

Read more about segments and available scenarios here.

Distribution Manager

Voucherify Distribution Manager enables you to use many built-in channels and send referral codes from the dashboard to your users. Voucherify supports multi-channel delivery. While setting up distribution, you can choose between the following integrations and built-in channels:

Message triggers enable you to schedule automatic send out of referral codes based on:

1. Customer segments changes (customer enters or leaves a segment)
2. Cart-related activity. Once your order data are synchronized with Voucherify, distribution can respond to changes in customers' orders
3. Voucher-related activity (gift credits added, loyalty points added, voucher redeemed, redemption rollback)
4. Reward redemption – the message is sent when a customer redeems a loyalty or referral reward. 
5. Successful code publish – the message is sent once the code from a campaign is assigned to a customer (manually or via API). 
6. Manual message - there is no automatic trigger, the message is sent once you confirm the distribution in the dashboard (one-time action).

While designing a message template, you can add personal data of your customers and deliver customized messages alongside referral codes and referral links.

You can use tags that automatically insert coupon attributes and referral links that will take customers straight to your store.

Coupon Tags

Coupon tags automatically supply messages with coupon and receiver details such as:

• coupon code
• coupon QR code
• coupon value
• customer email
• customer name
• customer cockpit link

Referral links

Links are a very simple way to improve customer experience. They enable you to put a unique referral link in a message template that redirects your customers straight to your shop without a need to copy and paste the referral code.

To build referral links, you need to create a  Successful Referral landing page in your Voucherify dashboard. This landing page will be connected to your Voucherify account automatically. As a result, every time a new user with referral code successfully goes through the sign-up form, event set as referral conversion event is triggered automatically. Go here to see the 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.

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.

The expression will be resolved to a unique referral code by Voucherify. When the emails are sent, every customer will see a unique referral link.

Voucherify enables online and offline redemptions with built-in solutions:

• Javascript widget that is easy to implement and configurable just like the subscribe form described in the first part of this guide.
• A highly customizable way that uses our building blocks, which enable you to place referral codes in any place in your sales funnel.
• Free Voucherify mobile app for offline redemptions.
• A dedicated landing page to sign-up with referral code/ referral link

Both apps (web and mobile) support QR and barcodes to provide a seamless workflow regardless of technology or device you decide to use.

You already know how to share referral codes and how your customers can utilize them. Now it's time to learn how to set up a referral program. 

General program details

To begin with, you’ll need to run the Campaign manager with the plus (+) and add a new referral campaign.

When the creator is ready, you can configure program details. Let's go through each stage of the manager step-by-step:

In the first step, define program details such as:

• Program name and category.
• Code settings (pattern, count, redemption limit).
• Auto-update campaign mode.
• Join the campaign only once (enable/disable). 

Timeframe

In the 2nd step, define optional time limits. Set up a specific timeframe, days of the week, or recurring periods when referral codes are active (you can read about all time limits for vouchers here).

Referral workflow

The 3rd section consists of the following steps:

Choose a conversion event (when a new customer is approved as a referred).

• Referral code redemption
• Custom event

Next, choose the type of referral program.

• Single-sided referral program (only the referrer is rewarded). 
• Double-sided referral program (both the referrer and the referee get a reward).

Referee reward

If you decide on a double-sided referral program, you need to define a reward for new customers (referees). It can be a discount code (percentage, unit, amount, free shipping), gift card credits, or loyalty points.

Below this section, you can see  validation rules. Here, you can create validation rules attached to referral codes. They restrict redemptions made by new customers (referees), e.g., setting the minimum order value to 50$. 

If you need help with creating limits, visit this guide.

Referrer reward – tiers

In the 5th stage of the program creation, you need to define rewarding criteria and tell Voucherify when and how the referrer is rewarded.

To do so, you are going to build tiers. Each tier is a separate level in your referral program. If you want to have different rewards or/and different rewarding criteria then tiers are what you need. For example, tier 1 can reward each referrer who refers at least 1 customer with a $5 gift card and tier 2 can reward each referrer who refers at least 3 customers with a 30% discount.

There is no limit on the number of tiers, you can build multi-level referral programs with many rewards and custom rewarding schemas.

The creation of tiers is a 3-step process:

• Criteria
• Rewards
• Notifications

Depending on which conversion event you've chosen, continue to one of the following sections:

• If you chose a referral code redemption as a conversion event, go here.
• If you chose a custom event as a conversion event, go here.

Conversion event – Referral code redemption 

In the case of the reward schema based on referral codes redemption, choose from:

• Reward every time the referee redeems the referral code.
• Reward for a minimum number of referrals.

Next, define the reward for referrers. You can choose from digital and material rewards:

• Discount coupon (amount, percentage, unit, free shipping).
• Gift card credits.
• Loyalty points
• Physical product

Don't forget to click Add Reward. Otherwise, the reward won't be saved. 

Conversion event – Custom Event

If you count referred customers (referees) based on the performed event, you can choose between:

• Reward referrer every time the referee performs a specific action (custom conversion event).
• Define a number of referees who need to perform a specific action to trigger a reward for the referrer.

Additionally, if you expand advanced options, you can add more limits and rules that referrals need to meet.

Next, define the reward for referrers. You can choose from:

• Discount coupon (amount, percentage, unit, free shipping).
• Gift card credits.
• Loyalty points
• Physical product

Tier notifications

Lastly, you can add notifications that are triggered by the referrer receiving a reward. 

• SMS
• Email
• ActiveCampaign
• Braze
• Webhook
• Intercom
• MailChimp
• Shopify

You can design your message on the spot (email & SMS) or map fields for your integrations.

Program notifications

In the 6th stage, you can add optional notifications to your referral campaign. You can set up automatic notifications for two events:

• To send a referral code to a referrer.
• To inform the referrer about the new referred customer.

You can use the same channels as in the previous step.

Metadata

In the 7th step, you can add additional metadata to your campaign. If you don't know what metadata is, follow this tutorial.

Referral program summary

The last stage of the manager shows you a summary of your referral program. You can see the overview and, in case you need to, go back to each step to modify it. When all program details are ready, confirm with Save and wait until the referral codes are generated.

How to track a referral program?

Now, you can share the codes with customers through the web widget or other distribution channels we described in the first section. Each published code is automatically assigned to a customer's profile in the Voucherify dashboard. Ultimately, when customers use their codes, redemptions are attached to the unique ID, particular customer, and channel.

The Redemptions view lists every redemption attempt of any of the code created within Voucherify. Its goal is to help you track what happens to your codes. Go here to learn more about tracking your referral campaign.