Migrating to the New Referrals Program

Goals and Outcomes

In April 2024, we launched a new and improved referrals program. All active Shopify accounts must transition to the new referrals program starting December 20, 2024. The old referrals program will be deprecated on February 28, 2025.

Who needs to migrate:

• Merchants who joined Yopto Loyalty & Referrals Free and Pro plans before April 2024.

• Merchants who joined Yopto Loyalty & Referrals Premium and Enterprise plans before September 2024.

Important

Your program will be automatically deactivated if you don’t migrate to the new program by February 28, 2025. This means your customers won’t be able to refer new friends, and all active incomplete referrals will be canceled.

In this article, we’ll guide you through the migration process and help you activate your new referrals program.

Setup Process

The migration process consists of three steps:

1. Edit your referral widgets

2. Update referral communications

3. Configure the new referral program settings

Let’s review each step below:

1. Edit Your Referral Widgets

To start activating the new referrals program:

• Click the Start setup button in the banner at the top of your Loyalty admin interface.

• Alternatively, go to Navigation Bar > Display On-site > Referrals (New).

This page displays your new referrals program widgets, ready for customization. To ensure a seamless shopper experience, align the new widgets as closely as possible with your current ones, so customers who interacted with the old program see a consistent design.

Don’t worry, you’ll still be able to update the design and configuration of your program after activation. However, for a smooth transition, it’s recommended to match the settings of the two programs during this phase.

Important

The new referrals program widgets will appear on your store only after you’ve activated the new program. Until then, their status will show “pending program activation.”

2. Update Referral Communications

In addition to the widgets, you’ll also need to configure your referral communication flows before activating the program. The new referrals program supports the following ESPs and webhooks:

• Yotpo SMS & Email — If you use Yotpo SMS & Email as your ESP, your existing referral flows will automatically support the new program, and no further action is required. After activating the program, you can review and adjust the flows as needed. Learn more about the available communication flows in our Managing Loyalty & Referrals Customer Communication guide.

• Klaviyo — If you use Klaviyo as your ESP, please follow the steps in our guide on Setting up Klaviyo for Yotpo Loyalty & Referrals. Be sure to use the new V2 flows designed for the updated program. Keep the old flows active as well to maintain a seamless shopper experience, no matter where the referral process started.

• Webhooks — Learn more about the new Referral Link Share and Referral Completed webhooks.

3. Configure Your New Referrals Program

After you’ve updated your referral widgets and communication flows, it’s time to set up your new program settings. To do that, click Continue to program settings.

The system automatically transfers your old program settings to the new one. Your task is to review these settings, make any necessary adjustments, and configure the new options.

This will open all program settings, divided by sections.

• Start by reviewing the Customer reward and Friend reward sections:

  • We recommend keeping the same rewards for referring customers and referred friends as in your current program to ensure a seamless transition.

  • For example, if your current program offers $10 off to the referring customer and $10 off to the referred friend, retain these settings in the new program.

• Review the recommended default options for the new settings we added, and adjust them based on your needs:

  • Friend reward — You now have the option not to offer a reward to the referred friend. By default, this setting is disabled.

  • Program requirements — You can require referring customers to log in before making a referral. Enabling this will add a login prompt in the Refer Friend widget. By default, this setting is enabled.

  • Fraud prevention — There are two new settings to help prevent abuse of the program:

    • Limit the program to new customers — Rewards won’t apply if the referred friend’s email is associated with a previous purchase. However, this new setting lets you add an exception if the first purchase occurred more than 1, 2, or 3 years ago. This is a great way to re-engage inactive customers and encourage them to return to your store. By default, the option is disabled.

    • Prevent self-referrals — With the new “Check for similarities” option, you can detect up to 80% similarities between referring customer and friend emails to prevent fraud. For example if “loyalty@yotpo.com” refers “loyalty+1@yotpo.com,” this referral will be blocked because it is a sub-address of the referring email. By default, this setting is off.

Note

If you remove a dynamic variable (e.g. {{friend_reward}}) in a widget and replace it with a custom value (e.g. $10), any updates made in the program settings will not automatically reflect in the widget. Since the dynamic variable has been removed, you’ll need to manually update the widget to match the changes.

After you’ve adjusted all settings, click Activate program. This will open a popup with a summary of what will happen after you activate the program. Click the Activate program button to finalize the process.

Congratulations! Your new referrals program is now live. If you encounter any issues, please contact Yotpo Support.

After You Activate the Program

Once you activate the new referrals program:

• All new settings and widgets will replace the existing pages in your Loyalty & Referrals admin.

• The new Refer Friends and Referral Welcome Popup widgets will replace the current widgets on your store.

Important

Referred friends will still get their reward, even if they received the referral link before the new program was activated.

• The new referral communication flows you’ve set up will replace the old flows.

• You’ll gain access to enhanced reporting tools, including the new Referral Activity and Link Summary reports, as well as the new Referrals Dashboard. Legacy reports will remain available to compare the performance of your old program with the new one.

Note

Merchants using the Fetch Customer Details V2 API will notice the referral code parameter response is now significantly shorter.