Configuring Your Referral Program Settings for Shopify (New)
Configuring Your Referral Program Settings for Shopify (New)
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The Referrals Program leverages the connection between your existing customers and your brand to attract new customers through word-of-mouth. It works by letting customers offer their friends a reward to use on their first purchase in your store, and in turn, your customers receive their own reward for completing the referral.
In this article, you’ll learn how to set up the referral program in your Yotpo Loyalty & Referrals account.
How it works
Available for:
Shopify merchants who joined Yopto Loyalty & Referrals Free and Pro plans after April 2024
Shopify merchants who joined Yopto Loyalty & Referrals Premium and Enterprise plans after September 2024
If you joined earlier, see Setting up and Managing Your Referrals Program for Shopify.
The referral process
When your referral program is live, online customers are exposed to your referral widget that offers a reward for referring their friends to your store. They are prompted to refer a friend and receive a reward.
Your customer's friends receive a message with a referral link offering them a reward with their first purchase. They click the referral link and land on a URL of your choice.
The friends are met with a welcome popup that shows the reward they received: a discount code that’s auto-applied at checkout or the number of points they received.
If the friend completes a purchase, the referring customer can see their reward in the Sticky bar or under their rewards history on your site.
Building your referral program
Your referral program consists of two main elements:
Referral program setup that includes rewards, regulations, and limitations.
On-site elements that incentivize existing customers to refer their friends, and prompt new referred customers to complete a purchase with a reward.
Setting up your program
In your Yotpo Loyalty & Referrals main menu, go to Set Up Program > Referrals Program.
The program settings include the following sections:
Customer reward
Configure the referring customer reward and reward limitations. You can choose to reward the referring customer with points or a discount:
If you chose Points, enter the points amount.
If you chose Discount, select the discount type from the drop-down menu, then enter the discount amount. Under Code prefix, you can add a prefix that will help you easily identify and differentiate between reward codes.
Discount settings
Different discount settings are available if you want to promote specific products or collections, as well as specify who can use this discount and when.
To view and edit these settings, click Discount settings.
Settings overview
Apply discount to: Choose to apply the discount to any product, specific products, or specific collections.
Any product: Use this if you want this discount to apply to all of your products
Specific products: Use this to limit the discount to selected products, for example, if you want to promote specific products. To apply the limitation:
In the Apply this discount to drop-down menu, select Specific products.
In the Product IDs field, enter your product IDs separated by a comma. Learn more about finding product IDs in Shopify
In the Variant IDs field, enter your variant IDs. To learn how to find your variant ID, see Shopify's help center.
Specific collections: Use this to limit which collections this discount can apply to if you want to promote specific collections, groups, or categories of products. To apply the limitation:
In the Apply this discount dropdown select Specific collections.
In the Collection IDs field, enter your collection IDs separated by a comma. To learn how to find your collection ID, see Shopify's help center.
Please note:
If you select products or specific collections for either the Customer reward or Friend reward, the minimum spend amount will apply to those particular products or collections respectively. This means that any other products in the cart will not count towards the minimum spend amount.
Discount only applies to these Shopify segment IDs: Use this if you want to make this discount available only to specific segments using Shopify Customer Segments
To find your Shopify segment:
Go to the Customers page in your Shopify admin.
From the Customer segment dropdown, choose the customer segment you want to use.
Your segment ID is the set of numbers found at the end of this page URL.
Discount code expiration
Select a reward expiration if you want the discount to only be valid for a certain amount of time. Use this to increase redemption rate and purchase frequency.
Who can use this discount code?
Use this option if you want to limit the use of this discount only to the customer who originally received it.
Anyone: use this if you don’t want to set a limit
Only the customer who originally received this reward and is logged in to their account: You can require the customer trying to use this discount code to log into their account to verify that it’s the same person who was referred.
Friend reward
Configure the referred friend reward and reward limitations. You can choose to reward them with points, a discount, or no reward:
If you chose Points, enter the points amount
If you chose Discount, select the discount type from the drop-down menu, then enter the discount amount. Under Code prefix, you can add a prefix that will help you easily identify and differentiate between reward codes.
Discount settings
Different discount settings are available if you want to promote specific products or collections, as well as specify who can use this discount and when.
To view and edit these settings, click Discount settings.
Settings overview
Apply discount to: Choose to apply the discount to any product, specific products, or specific collections.
Any product: Use this if you want this discount to apply to all of your products
Specific products: Use this to limit the discount to selected products, for example, if you want to promote specific products. To apply the limitation:
In the Apply this discount to drop-down menu, select Specific products.
In the Product IDs field, enter your product IDs separated by a comma. Learn more about finding product IDs in Shopify
In the Variant IDs field, enter your variant IDs. To learn how to find your variant ID, see Shopify's help center.
Specific collections: Use this to limit which collections this discount can apply to if you want to promote specific collections, groups, or categories of products. To apply the limitation:
In the Apply this discount dropdown select Specific collections.
In the Collection IDs field, enter your collection IDs separated by a comma. To learn how to find your collection ID, see Shopify's help center.
Please note:
If you select products or specific collections for either the Customer reward or Friend reward, the minimum spend amount will apply to those particular products or collections respectively.
Discount only applies to these Shopify segment IDs: Use this if you want to make this discount available only to specific segments using Shopify Customer Segments
To find your Shopify segment:
Go to the Customers page in your Shopify admin.
From the Customer segment dropdown, choose the customer segment you want to use.
Your segment ID is the set of numbers found at the end of this page URL.
Discount code expiration
Select a reward expiration if you want the discount to only be valid for a certain amount of time. Use this to increase redemption rate and purchase frequency.
You can also choose whether to:
Auto-apply discount at checkout
Checking the checkbox will auto-apply the discount code to the referred friend checkout page. This will override any other auto-applied discounts the friend might already have in their cart. If you’re running another promotion in your store, we suggest unchecking this box to prevent an override.
Auto-apply will not work if the friend uses PayPal or AfterPay to make the purchase.
Hide discount code in Referral Welcome popup
Checking this checkbox will remove the discount code from the Referral Welcome popup. The code will be auto-applied at checkout only and they will see it when they arrive at the checkout page.
Program requirements
Define the requirements for a successful referral.
Minimum spend
You can choose a minimum amount your customer’s friend must spend on their first purchase for the referring customer to receive a reward.
If you want to require the same minimum spend amount for the friend to successfully apply the discount code on their order, mark the Apply the same requirement to the friend’s reward checkbox. The text in the Referral Welcome popup will change dynamically to explain the requirements.
Please note:
If you select products or specific collections for either the Customer reward or Friend reward, the minimum spend amount will apply to those particular products or collections respectively.
Require customer login to make a referral
Available for:
Yotpo Loyalty & Referrals Pro, Premium, and Enterprise plans.
This will add a section in the Referral Share widget asking customers to log in if they want to refer their friends. This helps monitor referral activity and reduce fraud.
More settings
Referral landing page URL
The URL where the referred friend lands when they click the referral link. We recommend using your store’s homepage.
Account signup URL
The URL of the account creation page for your store. This is relevant to merchants who enabled the Require customer login to make a referral setting.
Add button to Referral Welcome popup leading to your Rewards Page
Checking this box will add a button to the Referral Welcome popup leading referred friends to your Rewards page. This is only relevant if the Friend reward is a discount.
Rewards history text
Available for:
Yotpo Loyalty & Referrals Pro, Premium, and Enterprise plans.
Customers can see a history of the rewards they've earned by going to the redeem points section of your rewards page.
Both your customer and their friend will see the reward they earned for completing a successful referral in their Rewards History.
Action text: The default text is set to Refer a friend. To change it, click in the Action text field and type in the text you want to appear in your customer’s rewards history.
Customer reward text: Use the {{reward}} off placeholder to present the discount amount your customer sees in their rewards history.
Friend reward text: Use the {{reward}} off placeholder to present the discount amount the referred friend sees in their rewards history.
please note:
The reward text is only relevant if you reward your customer or their friend with a discount.
When giving points as a reward, your customers will just see the number of points they earned in the same line as the Action text.
Fraud prevention
In this section, you can manage fraud prevention rules. These include:
Blocking self-referral
Limiting the number of rewards
Limiting rewards to first-time purchases
For any additional information on fraud prevention, please reach out to our support team.
Reward received email
Tip:
Merchant who also have Yotpo SMS & Email can set up additional referral emails. To learn more about referral email flow in Yotpo, see Managing Loyalty & Referrals Customer Communication.
Merchants on the Yotpo Loyalty & Referrals Pro, Premium, and Enterprise plans can set up referral emails using our Klaviyo integration. To learn more about integratin Klaviyo and Yotpo, see Integrating Yotpo Loyalty & Referrals with Klaviyo.
If you’re offering the referring customer or the referred friend a discount reward, make sure your Reward Received email is active. The email containing the discount code will be sent to the relevant party once they receive the reward.
To activate the email:
In your Loyalty & Referrals main menu, go to Communications > Loyalty Emails.
Find the Reward Received email.
Click Enable Notification. If the email is already enabled, you will see the option to disable it.
Next steps
Once your referral program is fully configured, you can add the referral widgets to your store.
To learn more about adding referral widgets to your store, see Adding Referral Widgets to Your Store.
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