This article outlines common issues and the troubleshooting steps related to referral detection.
Purchases not detected
Note: Referral detection can take up to 12 hours if you recently set up or tested your campaign.
If your test purchase is taking longer than 12 hours to appear, go through the following checklist:
Check if your store's integration with ReferralCandy is working. Make sure that you correctly follow the integration articles. If you're a non-Shopify merchant using the email integration, check these two points:
For email forwarding, verify that the referred friend's purchase appears on the Purchases & Referrals page
For the tracking code, check that the last detected time is later than the time the friend's purchase was made on the Integrations page
Check that the test referral was carried out correctly. Make sure to review and properly follow the testing the referral process article.
Your referral test may have been blocked or flagged by the system's fraud detection measures. These work in two tiers:
Blocked outright (never counted, never shown): the referred friend's details exactly match the advocate's — the same name, the same email address, or the advocate's own referral code; the referred friend is already an existing customer in your store; or the friend was already referred by someone else.
Flagged as suspicious (detected, but held for review): similar — but not identical — names or email addresses, or several referred purchases from the same IP address or device. A flagged purchase still appears on the Purchases & Referrals page with a Suspicious badge and an extended review period — so if you see it there, it was detected. How to handle fraud explains how to review it.
Test-specific checks: clear cookies before conducting the referral test, and don't use the same device and network for both viewing the referral link and making the test purchase. If you see “SAMPLE” when opening the referral link during testing, repeat the test using a different network (different public IP, such as cellular data, a personal hotspot, or another network that uses a different ISP), then try again.
Check that the referred purchase meets the criteria for reward eligibility. The referred purchase should:
Be an amount equal to or higher than the minimum purchase amount
Meet the required number of purchases that counts towards a referral reward
Reach the minimum number of rewards to reach a reward tier, if your campaign uses a tiered reward structure
Check if the referral reward is valid.
The referral reward may be expired, if you set an expiry date
For merchants who aren't on Shopify or BigCommerce, your single-use coupons may have run out. Manually add more coupons to your campaign's rewards pages.
Your campaign may have stopped. Make sure that your campaign is active, and not paused or stopped. If there are issues preventing your campaign from running, resolve them first. Learn more
Still having trouble with referral detection?
Still having trouble with referral detection?
Our support team can investigate further — just let us know, and include the following information:
Advocate's email address
Advocate's name
Referred friend's email address
Referred friend's name
Referred purchase time
Referred purchase amount
Did you follow the testing the referral process article? [Yes or No]
Was the referred friend a new customer? [Yes or No]
Did you carry out the test on a different computer? [Yes or No]
Did you carry out the test on a different network? [Yes or No]
Blocked rewards
If an advocate or affiliate didn't receive a referral reward, review the following checklist:
Referrals are not being detected. See the Purchases not detected section above to troubleshoot why referred purchases are not detected, thus blocking referral rewards.
Check if the referred friend is already an existing customer at your store. Existing customers can't be referred by advocates and affiliates.
Check that the referred purchase meets the criteria for reward eligibility. The referred purchase should:
Be an amount equal to or higher than the minimum purchase amount
Meet the required number of purchases that counts towards a referral reward
Reach the minimum number of rewards to reach a reward tier, if your campaign uses a tiered reward structure
The referral may have been blocked or flagged by the system's fraud detection measures.
A referral is blocked outright when the referred friend's details exactly match the advocate's (same name, email address, or referral code) or the friend isn't a new customer — blocked referrals never earn a reward. A referral with similar — but not identical — details, or one sharing the advocate's device or network, is flagged as suspicious instead and held in an extended review period for you to review — see How to handle fraud.
The referred friend may have not clicked the referral link. The friend may have made the purchase at your store, but not through the unique referral link shared by the advocate or affiliate. To fix this, mark the purchase as referred on Shopify or other platforms.
Still having trouble with blocked rewards?
Still having trouble with blocked rewards?
If you'd like ReferralCandy to investigate further into your referral detection issue, just let us know and include the following information:
Advocate's email address
Advocate's name
Referred friend's email address
Referred friend's name
Referred purchase time
Referred purchase amount
Was the referred friend a new customer? [Yes or No]
Employee orders detected as referrals
Orders placed by store employees may be detected as referrals by the system. This may happen when an employee views the referral link before placing an order on behalf of the customer. To prevent this:
Ensure that your employees view referral links on a device, network, or browser different from the one used to place an order on behalf of the customer.
Request to ban your office IP address from making referrals. Let us know the IP address of your office or call center and the ReferralCandy team can process the request. Note that once banned, you can't make test purchases using your office network.
Remove the referral that was detected accidentally. You have 2 options:
Delete the purchase from your account. This is possible while the purchase is still within the review period.
If the referred purchase has passed the review period, let us know and our team can remove it from the backend.
Note: ReferralCandy won't be able to recall any rewards that have already been issued to customers.
Referral detection FAQ
Are successful referrals detected automatically?
Are successful referrals detected automatically?
Yes. Once set up, the ReferralCandy app monitors and detects* successful referrals automatically.
However, it may take a couple of hours after a purchase has taken place for the platform to run through all the necessary verification checks, so it isn't instantaneous.
Each advocate receives a unique referral link to share with their friends. A successful referral is tracked when a friend clicks the referral link, the JavaScript tracking code on the purchase completed page is triggered, and the purchase information is sent to the system.
*Note: For eCommerce platforms with specific integration plugins (e.g., Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce), the ReferralCandy app obtains information directly from the platform. The unique referral link together with the information obtained from the platform enables the app to track sales that come from referrals.
Does a referred friend need to click the referral link again to use the friend offer discount?
Does a referred friend need to click the referral link again to use the friend offer discount?
When referred friends or referees click an advocate or affiliate's referral link but don’t make a purchase immediately, they may still be able to apply the friend offer coupon depending on their browser cookies.
ReferralCandy tracks referrals using cookies, which typically expire after 30 days. If the referred friend returns before the cookies expire, they can still use the friend offer without clicking the referral link again, as long as they accepted the cookies, didn’t clear them, and are on the same device and browser.