ReferralCandy offers different ways to reward advocates and affiliates for successful referrals. Choose a main reward for your referral or affiliate campaign from the options available on your platform:

An amount off coupon — give advocates or affiliates a store discount with a coupon code. See the guides for Shopify and other platforms.
Buy X Get Y coupon (Shopify) — set purchase conditions (“Buy X”) before the advocate or affiliate receives a specific discount or item (“Get Y”).
Free shipping coupon (Shopify) — give the advocate or affiliate a code that removes shipping costs on their next order.
Free product (Shopify) — give one free unit of a product variant you choose. The advocate or affiliate redeems it through your store’s cart and checkout.
Cash — send a monetary reward through PayPal, Tremendous, or self-managed payouts, depending on your cash payout method.
Store credits (Shopify) — give credit that the advocate or affiliate can apply to purchases at your Shopify store.
Custom — offer a reward such as merchandise, loyalty points, or a gift card that you fulfill yourself.

Shopify supports all seven main reward types above. An amount off coupon, Cash, and Custom are also available on other platforms.

Give a Free product reward on Shopify

The Free product main reward lets Shopify merchants reward advocates or affiliates with one selected product variant for a successful referral. To set it up:

Open your Shopify campaign. In Set rewards, open Advocate reward or Affiliate reward, then edit the reward tier.
Under Main reward, select Free product.
Click Select product, choose a product and click Add, then choose the variant to give.
If you also want to cover delivery, tick Free shipping on the order with the free item.
Enter a Reward description, then click Save.

Once the Free product reward is earned, the advocate or affiliate uses Redeem in their reward email or portal. It opens your store’s cart with one unit of the selected variant and its discount applied. They continue through checkout to place the order; your store handles fulfillment. See Advocates & affiliates: Viewing earned referral rewards.

For merchandise you deliver separately, use Custom. For a product gift given when someone joins rather than for a successful referral, see [Shopify] Giving product gifts to advocates and affiliates.

Combine two advocate rewards in one tier

You can add a second advocate reward on top of the main reward for a tier. Choose the additional reward from the options shown under Add bonus reward. Main and bonus rewards have separate lists of choices: a type shown under Main reward is not necessarily available as a bonus.

You can combine:

Different reward types, such as coupon + cash or cash + store credit
The same reward type twice, such as cash + cash

Each tier can include up to two advocate rewards: the main reward plus one additional reward.

This is available for both referral campaigns and affiliate campaigns.

You can also use this with FlexiTiers if you want higher tiers to offer a stronger combined reward.

Examples:

15% coupon + $20 cash
$50 cash + $20 cash
$20 store credit + Free T-shirt (Custom Reward)

The setup flow looks slightly different between Shopify and other platforms, but the reward concept is the same.

Tiered rewards

Want to offer better rewards as advocates refer more friends, or give something special when they reach a specific tier? With FlexiTiers, you can set up tiered rewards for both referral and affiliate campaigns.

Learn more about FlexiTiers for Shopify and other platforms.

Not sure which reward to give? Read Choosing referral rewards to learn more.

Advocate rewards FAQ

Can I reward advocates if their friends refer someone else?

Advocates are rewarded only for direct referrals and will not receive a reward for referrals made by their referred friends.

For example, if A refers B, and then B refers C:

A will be rewarded for referring B
B will be rewarded for referring C
A will not be rewarded when B refers C

Can I send a referral reward that doesn't involve a purchase?

Referral rewards require a successful referral: the referred friend must make a purchase that meets your campaign's reward conditions. This successful-referral requirement applies to every referral reward type, including Free product. Shopify merchants can separately offer a product welcome gift for joining a campaign; this membership benefit does not require a successful referral. The member must meet the benefit's audience and timing settings. See [Shopify] Giving product gifts to advocates and affiliates.

ReferralCandy uses referred purchases to determine whether a referral is successful and eligible for a referral reward. These actions do not count as a successful referral on their own:

Signing up or subscribing for your newsletter
Signing up for a trial or demo of your product or service
Sharing your website on social media
Sharing your content or promotions on social media
Leaving a review or feedback about your store
Completing or filling out a survey

ReferralCandy can't also support entities or non-profit organizations that don't have an online shop or store. Affiliate and referral programs implemented with ReferralCandy must be integrated with an e-commerce platform or online store.

Can I use multi-campaign to increase rewards in my current campaign for seasonal or promotional periods?

Not really. Multi-campaign is designed for running separate campaigns for different audiences (for example: customers vs affiliates, or different customer segments), not for running a second campaign to temporarily raise rewards for the same audience.

Each campaign runs independently. That means a second campaign does not "increase rewards" in your existing campaign—it creates a separate program with a separate advocate portal, share page, and referral link. If your goal is to keep the same referral link and advocate experience, a second campaign for the same audience is usually the wrong approach.

This often breaks continuity and creates confusion because:

Existing advocates stay enrolled in Campaign 1 by default, and will keep using their original referral link/share page unless you actively enroll them into Campaign 2 and tell them to switch.
Referrals made using Campaign 1 links will continue earning Campaign 1 rewards, even if Campaign 2 offers higher rewards.
An advocate can use the same email address across campaigns, but their advocate profile, portal, share page, and referral link are separate per campaign—so they may not realize there's a "second" campaign or that they need to share a different link.

What this can look like in practice (and why it gets messy):
Let's say you launch a seasonal Campaign 2 with increased rewards and it performs well. You can end up with advocates split across two campaigns—some still sharing Campaign 1 links, others sharing Campaign 2 links.

If you later try to turn one campaign off (or move everyone back to a single campaign), continuity breaks again:

Some people will keep sharing the old link. If Campaign 1 stays on, those referrals will keep earning the old reward. If Campaign 1 is turned off, those referral links stop working.
Many advocates won't notice (or follow) instructions to switch links—especially at scale—so you can end up with confusion and drop-off even if the promotion itself was successful.
This is even more painful if your most successful advocates are the ones still sharing the "older" campaign link (or vice versa).

Best practice: If you want a temporary reward increase for the same audience (for a seasonal campaign, sale, or limited-time promotion) and you want advocates to keep the same portal and referral link, update the reward settings in your existing campaign for the duration of the promo, then change it back afterward.

Can I run a referral program without rewarding the advocate?

ReferralCandy referral campaigns require an advocate reward. In a referral program, the advocate incentive is what motivates customers to share and drives successful referrals — without it, it's no longer a referral-program setup.

Advocate reward types