This article discusses features and capabilities available only for Shopify merchants. If you're using another platform, visit this article.
You can manually mark a non-referred purchase as a referral, and set which contact and campaign that purchase was referred through.
Marking a purchase as referred
Note: If your campaign is stopped or paused, rewards may be delayed or marked as non-rewardable. Activate your campaign to ensure rewards work as normal.
To link a non-referred purchase to a contact and a campaign:
From the Shopify admin, go to Purchases & Referrals.
In the search bar, find the purchase using the associated name, email address, or reference ID.
Once the purchase is found, click Select referrer under the Referrer column. Click Select referrer.
A popup appears. Select the referring advocate or affiliate from the list, or find the contact using their email address.
Click the Campaign dropdown and select the campaign that the purchase was referred through.
Note: Only the campaigns that the selected referrer are enrolled in can be selected.
Click Confirm referral.
After an advocate or affiliate is set as a referrer, they will be eligible for the current referral reward that is set for your campaign on your Rewards page.
When will the advocate receive the reward? This depends on the type of reward you chose, the reward conditions you set, and if your campaign is stopped or paused. Learn more
How to Manually Approve Referrals in Shopify
Every referred purchase in ReferralCandy goes through a review period. This gives you time to verify the referral is legitimate before the advocate becomes eligible for a reward.
If you’ve confirmed a purchase is valid, or simply want to reward the advocate earlier, you can manually approve the referral in Shopify at any time.
Why some referrals show “Suspicious”? ReferralCandy automatically flags unusual or high-risk referral patterns. When this happens, the referral is placed into an extended 14-day review period to give you more time to evaluate it (If your existing default review period is more than 14 days, it will retain the default review period).
Sometimes these are false positives, and the referral is actually legitimate. In these cases, you can manually approve the referral to end the extended review period early.
How to approve a referral
Open your Shopify Admin.
Go to Apps → ReferralCandy.
In the left menu, select Purchases & Referrals.
Check the box next to the purchase(s) you want to approve.
You can approve one or several at a time.
Click Approve Purchase in the top-right corner.
A confirmation popup will appear. Click Approve to proceed.
What happens after you approve
The review period ends immediately (regardless of whether it was a normal or Suspicious review period).
If the referred purchase met the "Rewardable" criteria, the advocate becomes eligible to receive their reward right away (based on your campaign settings).
Common reasons merchants manually approve referrals:
To reward the advocate earlier without waiting for the review period to finish.
To override a Suspicious referral if it was mistakenly flagged and you’ve verified it is legitimate.
Important notes
Only approve referrals you’ve verified as legitimate.
Approval cannot be undone once rewards are issued.
After approval, the reward may be sent immediately (depending on your reward type).
Coupons or cash rewards might already be used/redeemed, so reversal may not be possible.
The “Pending – X days left of review period” tag simply shows how much time is left before the system automatically approves or finalizes the referral (This applies to both suspicious and non-suspicious referrals).
💬 Need help? Click the chat widget on the right to start a conversation. Learn more