In order to be able to use the Refer a Friend scenario, you must first provide your recipients with a referral link. This can be done in several ways, depending on what you want your campaign to look like and what goals you want to achieve.
What does a referral link look like?
The link consists of a part, which is a redirect to your website where is a form to sign up for the Referral Programme, this could be a dedicated Landing Page or simply the homepage of your shop with a pop-up. The second part is a unique identifier for each recipient who wants to use the programme and recommend the shop to their friends, it looks like this example: e_ref=017c6b590d79fda311a4. With this identifier, the system records each purchase from a referral and counts rewards for the relevant people.
Example link redirecting to sign up for the referral programme: http://www.examplestore.com/?e_ref=017c6b590d79fda311q4
How do I generate a referral link?
You can generate the link in our message creator, in a newsletter or any scenario. In the creator, add a text field. Click on this field and then a small menu for text editing will appear. It also includes the option "merge tags" - click on it. A list of possible tags to add will expand, in this case we are interested in two options: Referrer Link and Referral Code. Below, we explain what is the difference between them.
Referral link - will generate a link to your shop homepage with a unique identifier (referral code) for each referrer. You can use this together with a pop-up to sign up to the programme. To do this, set up a pop-up that only displays on the link containing the “e_ref” snippet.
Referral code - will only generate the code itself, i.e. the identifier. To use it, you need to add in front of it your link, which redirects to the page that contains the sign-up form (it can be a dedicated LP with an embedded form, but it can also be a selected subpage of the shop with a pop-up as well) along with the "?e_ref=".
For example, in the creator you type:
and here, right at the end of this link, without a space, you add the tag "referral code".
Where do I place the referral link, i.e. how do I pass on the referral link to my clients?
You can include a link in any message in the system.
You can, for example, prepare a dedicated newsletter containing such a link, then each recipient receives a unique link and can recommend the shop to their friends.
You can add a link in a scenario, e.g. After Sale. Then each customer who makes a purchase can use this link to recommend the shop to other people and earn a reward for next purchases.
You can also use the link in a less standard way, which is to generate one unique link for an influencer, who then promotes it on social media and encourages their audience to purchases, and earns a bonus from the referrals.
Why sometimes a message from the programme is not sent despite signing up via the form?
Such a situation can occur when an attempt to sign up via a programme form on a landing page is made on a link without an identifier. For the scenario to work, the sign-up must always take place on a link containing a unique identifier (i.e. a referral code after "e_ref"), and such identifier will only appear in the link if you go to the page directly from the message by clicking on the link or copy the link from the message.
For example, sign up on a link like this will not work:
But on such a link it will:
However, if, despite a valid link containing a unique identifier, you do not receive a message after signing up, please contact us at hello@edrone.me so that we can verify the cause.
Need more help?
If you have any further questions about the Refer a Friend scenario, please do not hesitate to contact us via chat or at hello@edrone.me