Customers go through different enrollment states depending on the target audience you set up for your campaign, and your customers' referral activities. There are multiple ways for your customers to join your referral program.
When a customer makes a purchase, signs up using a form, or is manually imported to a segment, they are automatically registered as a contact in your account. The contacts list serves as the basis for enrollment based on the configuration of your account's segments, and your campaign's target audience.
See the image below for a visualization of how enrollment works:
*Note: The Lifetime spend ≥ 0 segment, also known as All Contacts or All Customers, includes all contacts in your account from any registration type.
Contacts that were registered through signup or import, and have not yet made a purchase, are recognized by the system as having a spend value of $0.
Contact registration
Before customers are enrolled in your campaign, they must first register for your campaign through any of the following:
Purchase - Customers are automatically registered as contacts after making a purchase at your store.
Import contacts - As a merchant, you can manually register contacts using the import contacts tool when you create or edit a static segment. You can import contacts via a CSV file, email address, or Mailchimp.
How enrollment works
Set up your target audience
To enroll contacts, you must first create a segment and set it as your campaign's target audience. Contacts are enrolled in your referral or affiliate campaign when they meet the criteria of the segments targeted by your campaign. There are two types of segments:
Static - Segments you manually add contacts to via the import contacts tool.
Dynamic - Segments where contacts must meet the conditions to qualify:
Lifetime spend - Based on the total amount spent by the customer at your store.
Signup form submitted - All the contacts who signed up for a campaign using a signup form are automatically added to this segment.
Learn about segments and configuring your campaign's target audience here.
Advocate enrollment
The contacts who meet the criteria of a targeted segment are automatically enrolled in the campaign. These contacts become advocates for the campaign, and are assigned a unique referral link, which they can share with friends. Enrolled advocates can start referring friends.
Once enrolled, an invite email is sent to the advocate. To send out this email to successfully enrolled customers, the Invite Email must be enabled on your campaign's Email Settings page. Learn more
Unqualified contacts
If the contact doesn't meet a segment criteria, they aren't enrolled in the campaign. They remain registered as contacts and are considered never enrolled until they meet the segment criteria targeted by the campaign.
Contacts and advocates
Contacts are all the customers participating in your referral program, whether they are enrolled or not enrolled in any campaign. Advocates are contacts that were successfully enrolled in any campaign.
Contacts (Account level) - When your customers make a purchase at your store, sign up for your campaign, or are imported to segments, they are automatically registered as contacts in your ReferralCandy account.
Advocates (Campaign level) - When your contacts meet the campaign's segment criteria, they are enrolled as advocates in your campaign. Unqualified contacts are not added to the advocates list, but remain in your contacts list.
Note: Not everyone in a campaign's advocates list is enrolled and able to refer friends. When an advocate fails to meet a segment criteria, they are tagged as Unenrolled and won't be able to refer. See Enrollment states.
Enrollment states
States | Campaigns and segments | Can refer? |
Enrolled | Contacts that meet a segment criteria, where that segment is targeted by your campaign.
They are added to your campaign's advocates list, and are tagged as Enrolled. | ✅ Yes. Enrolled contacts are able to share their referral link and refer friends. |
Unenrolled | Contacts that were previously enrolled in your campaign, but do not meet the campaign's segment criteria anymore.
They are on your campaign's advocates list tagged as Unenrolled. | ❌ No. Unenrolled contacts have a referral link, but they won't be able to refer friends. |
Never enrolled | Contacts that were not previously enrolled in your campaign, and do not meet the segment criteria of the campaign upon purchase or signup.
They are not in any campaign's advocates list. They are added only to your account's contacts list tagged as Unenrolled.
Waitlisted contacts are considered never enrolled. Learn more | ❌ No. Never enrolled contacts don't have a referral link yet, and so they won't be able to refer friends. |
How is an advocate unenrolled?
How is an advocate unenrolled?
An advocate is unenrolled when they used to be enrolled in a campaign, but stopped meeting your campaign's segment criteria. For example, if you increased the lifetime spend of a dynamic segment from $50 to $100:
Your advocates who have less than $100 lifetime spend, and were previously enrolled in your campaign, are now tagged as Unenrolled.
The unenrolled advocates remain on your campaign's advocates list, but they won't be able to refer friends.
Unenrolled advocates need to reach a total spend of $100 at your store to be tagged as Enrolled again. Once re-enrolled, they can continue referring their friends.
Waitlisted contacts
All contacts who try to sign up for a campaign but did not meet the segment criteria will be marked as waitlisted for that campaign. These contacts remain waitlisted until they meet the target audience criteria of your campaign, at which point they’ll be enrolled.
Campaign enrollment FAQ
Can advocates be enrolled in multiple campaigns?
Can advocates be enrolled in multiple campaigns?
Yes, advocates or affiliates can be enrolled in multiple campaigns if they are part of one or more segments that you set for your campaign's target audience.
Can I automatically enroll all customers who sign up through a form?
Can I automatically enroll all customers who sign up through a form?
Yes. Use the Signup form submitted dynamic segment to target customers who register for your campaign via your referral program's join page and widgets that include a signup form, such as the following:
You can restrict the segment to automatically enroll only the customers who signed up since a specific date.
Can I turn off or disable waitlist for my campaign?
Can I turn off or disable waitlist for my campaign?
Yes, you can disable waitlists for specific widgets if you don’t want to show the signup option to customers who don’t meet your target audience criteria.
The waitlist feature allows customers outside your target audience to sign up for your campaign, but it doesn't automatically enroll them in your referral program unless you add the Signup form submitted segment to your target audience.
Learn how to turn waitlists on or off for the referral checkout extension (Shopify) or the post-purchase popup widget.
How do I email past customers or invite website visitors to join my referral program?
How do I email past customers or invite website visitors to join my referral program?
There are a couple of ways to invite past customers and website visitors to join your referral or affiliate program:
Import customers to a segment
Add past customers via email, Mailchimp lists, or CSV file using the import contacts tool. The contacts should be added to a static segment that you can set as a target audience for your campaign.
Once targeted, all imported customers in that segment are automatically enrolled in your campaign. They will immediately receive an email with their referral link that they can share with friends.
Through newsletters using the advocate join page
Each ReferralCandy account comes with an advocate join page link. To invite people who are subscribed to your mailing list, include a link to your join page in your periodic newsletter to invite them to sign up for your campaign.
Include a link on your home page
To let your website visitors know about your referral or affiliate program, include a link to the advocate join page or join block (Shopify) on your home page. You can also use the embedded signup page or the floating referral widget to embed a signup page on your website. See how other merchants did that here.
What happens to advocates who are enrolled in multiple campaigns?
What happens to advocates who are enrolled in multiple campaigns?
Advocates are rewarded for each eligible referred purchase they make, regardless of which and how many campaigns they are enrolled in. Here are some sample scenarios:
Note: These scenarios assume that the referred purchases are rewardable.
Scenario 1: The advocate is enrolled in 2 campaigns and refers 2 people, one for each campaign. Does the advocate get 2 rewards?
Yes, the advocate gets 2 rewards, 1 reward from each campaign. Because campaigns are independent and running in parallel, getting a reward in one campaign has no impact on getting a reward in another campaign.
Scenario 2: The advocate is enrolled in 2 campaigns and refers 1 friend. The friend tries to use referral links from 2 campaigns to make a purchase. Does the advocate get 2 rewards?
No, the advocate doesn’t get 2 rewards. A single purchase can only be referred by 1 person through 1 campaign. The referral detection system automatically detects and assigns which campaign the purchase was referred through.
Scenario 3: The advocate is enrolled in 2 campaigns and refers 1 friend. This friend makes 2 purchases, one for each campaign. Does the advocate get 2 rewards?
No. After making their first purchase, the referred friend is considered a registered contact in your account, and the advocate is ineligible to get rewarded for purchases made by the same friend through another campaign. A broad pre-requisite for all referred friends, is that they must be NEW customers (they must not exist within your ReferralCandy "Contacts" list)
Scenario 4: If an advocate is enrolled in 2 campaigns, could they potentially get 2 referral emails at the same time after enrollment?
Yes. If enabled for both campaigns, the advocate gets 2 separate referral emails containing their campaign-specific referral links.
Where do I find my customer's referral link?
Where do I find my customer's referral link?
Shopify
For Shopify merchants, you need to add a ReferralCandy app block to view the customer's referral details:
In Shopify admin, go to the Customers page.
Find your contact from the list or use search. Click the contact's Shopify ID to view the customer's profile.
Under App blocks, add the Enrolled referral campaign - details.
Once added, the app block shows your customer's Referral link.
If a contact is enrolled in multiple campaigns, click the dropdown to view their referral link for another campaign. Contacts who are not enrolled in any campaign won't have a referral link on the app block.
Other platforms
For merchants using other platforms:
On the ReferralCandy dashboard, go to the Contacts page.
Find your contact from the list or use search. Click the contact's Name to view the customer's profile.
Under the INDIVIDUAL CAMPAIGN DETAILS section, find the contact's Referral Link.
If a contact is enrolled in multiple campaigns, click the dropdown to view their referral link for another campaign. Contacts who are not enrolled in any campaign won't have a referral link in the section.
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