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Creating a campaign

Patrick avatar
Written by Patrick
Updated today

Create and activate campaigns to start running your referral or affiliate program. Choose between a refer-a-friend or affiliate campaign, depending on your referral marketing needs:

  • A refer-a-friend campaign, also known as customer referral campaign, targets customers who have direct experience with a your product or service. Both the referrer and the referred friend receive rewards. This type of program relies on personal relationships to increase customer base, loyalty, and sales.

  • An affiliate campaign is a way for merchants to reward partners, also known as affiliates, for promoting your products or services. When a customer makes a purchase through an affiliate link, the affiliate earns a cash reward or commission. This type of program relies on the established audience of the affiliates to increase brand awareness and sales.

Create a campaign

To create a campaign:

  1. Navigate to your Campaigns page:

    • From the ReferralCandy dashboard, go Campaigns.

    • From Shopify admin, go to the Referral Candy app > Campaigns.

  2. Click Create new campaign (Shopify) or Create campaign (Non-Shopify).

  3. Select either Refer-a-Friend or Affiliate.

  4. Click Create campaign. If you chose Refer-a-Friend, your campaign is ready to set up and activate. If you chose to create an Affiliate campaign:

    1. Select among the affiliate campaign types:

      • Instant access - Affiliates can immediately sign up and enroll

      • Curated - Applicants are queued for review before approval

      • Invite only - Upload a hand-picked list of affiliates

    2. Click Choose campaign. A warning popup appears. Click Proceed.

    3. Click View new campaign to fully set up your affiliate campaign.

Note: The new campaign created has the default and recommended settings enabled.

Set up your campaign

Once created, configure additional campaign settings such as rewards, widgets, and themes. Read the Getting started guide to learn more.

Activate the campaign

To set your campaign status to Live when you're done setting up:

ReferralCandy dashboard

ReferralCandy app on Shopify

  1. From the ReferralCandy dashboard, go to Campaigns > Select your campaign.

  2. Click the Campaign actions dropdown in the upper right corner.

  3. Select Review & activate.

  4. A popup appears. Click Activate campaign to proceed.

  1. From your Shopify admin, go to the Referral Candy app > Campaigns > Select your campaign.

  2. Click the Activate campaign dropdown in the upper right corner.

  3. Select Start.

  4. Click Save.

You must complete all required settings and configurations before activating a campaign. A warning message may appear to indicate any missing or incomplete setup steps.

When a campaign is live:

  • New advocates or affiliates that meet your segment criteria are enrolled

  • Existing advocates can continue referring new friends

  • If enabled, referral emails are sent to advocates and affiliates

  • If enabled, pages and widgets are accessible

💬 Need help? Click the chat widget on the right to start a conversation. Learn more

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