Using segments is a great tool to target a specific audience for your referral program based on the conditions you set, or the specific contacts you select. For example, you can target loyal customers whose lifetime spend is more than $500 so you can send them bigger rewards.
Primary segment criteria: Lifetime Spend
There are three possible segment criteria you can use — Lifetime Spend, Signup form submitted, and Signup approved — but Lifetime Spend is the primary and most commonly used option. If you want your campaign to include all customers — including those who signed up but haven’t made a purchase — set the condition to:
Lifetime Spend is greater than or equal to 0
This ensures that even customers with a $0 purchase history are eligible for the campaign. This setup is ideal if you want to allow anyone to join your referral program — for example, if you’re promoting it on your homepage or inviting new visitors to sign up and start referring their friends.
If you prefer your referral program to target existing customers only, you can set the condition to:
Lifetime Spend is greater than or equal to 1
This ensures that only customers who have made at least one purchase are eligible for the campaign. This setup is ideal if you want to reward only those who have already purchased from your store before referring others.
Other available criteria
Aside from Lifetime Spend, you can also choose from the following options:
Signup form submitted — Includes users who have filled out the referral signup form, regardless of whether they were approved.
Signup approved — Includes only users who have successfully completed the signup and been approved.
These two options act as alternative eligibility paths for your campaign.
In other words, customers can qualify for the campaign either through their purchase activity (Lifetime Spend) or through their signup status (Signup form submitted or Signup approved).
For example, you can allow new signups to join the program immediately (via the signup path), while still keeping a Lifetime Spend condition in place for customers who qualify through purchases.
Even if someone has a $0 Lifetime Spend, they can still meet the campaign’s target audience criteria if they joined through the signup path.
This setup is helpful if you want to reach both:
existing customers (who qualify based on Lifetime Spend), and
new advocates who join directly from your referral signup page.
Using Klaviyo? Learn how to use ReferralCandy segments with Klaviyo.
Segments and target audience
Segments and target audience are two different mechanisms that work together to scope the audience of your campaign.
Note: Segments are created and managed at the account level, while the target audience is configured within each specific campaign.
Segments live under your main Contacts > Segments dashboard and define groups of contacts available across all campaigns.
The Target Audience setting inside a campaign simply lets you choose which of those existing segments should be included or excluded for that campaign.
Think of segments as your global contact groups, and target audience as your campaign-specific selection from those groups.
Segments (Account level) — When customers make a purchase, sign up via a form, or are imported manually, they are registered as contacts in your account. ReferralCandy uses your contacts list to assign qualified contacts to segments based on conditions. Segments are either static or dynamic:
Dynamic — Contacts are added to a segment based on conditions you set. For example, a segment based on a lifetime spend greater than $150.
🟢 Note: Dynamic segments pull from your total contact list at the account level. This contact pool only begins to populate after you’ve successfully integrated your store with ReferralCandy.
If your integration isn’t complete yet, the segment will appear empty — even if your store already has existing customers.
For Shopify merchants, integration is complete once you’ve installed the ReferralCandy app and started your free trial. From that point onward, ReferralCandy will begin receiving new customer and purchase data to build your contacts list.Static — Only the selected contacts you import are added to the segment. For example, a list of affiliates you manually add to a segment. The All Customers segment is also a static segment.
Target audience (Campaign level) — The target audience is how you configure your campaign to target or exclude segments. When you target a segment, the qualified contacts in those segments are enrolled as advocates in your campaign. Once enrolled, advocates obtain their campaign-specific referral link and can begin referring friends and earning rewards.
How do segments affect campaign enrollment? Read the Campaign enrollment article for more information on how customers enroll in your referral program and the expected behavior for each enrollment state.
Affiliate campaign segments
When you create an affiliate campaign, you choose between 3 campaign types with their assigned segments:
Instant access - Any contact who registers through the affiliate campaign's signup form is automatically enrolled in your campaign.
Target audience: A dynamic segment that uses the Signup form submitted criteria. Anyone who signs up on the date you set is enrolled as an affiliate.
Example segment: Signed-up Affiliates - Affiliate 1 Campaign
Curated - Review each affiliate signup first before approval. You'll have an affiliate management dashboard where signups are listed for your review.
Target audience: A dynamic segment that uses the Signup approved criteria. Anyone who's approved on the date you set is enrolled as an affiliate.
Example segment: Approved Affiliates - Affiliate 2 Campaign
Invite only - Upload a hand-picked list of affiliates. You can upload a CSV file or Mailchimp list, or add an individual's email address.
Target audience: A static segment where you can import a list of contacts from a CSV file, Mailchimp list, or by adding an individual's contact details. Learn more
Example segment: Invited Affiliates - Affiliate 3 Campaign
Managing segments in your account
To manage the segments in your ReferralCandy account, on the dashboard, go to the Contacts > Segments page in the ReferralCandy web app or Shopify app. Here you see a list of existing segments in your account.
A. View contacts. To view the contacts in a segment, click the segment name.
B. Edit segments. Click the three-dot menu and select Edit (Non-Shopify) or click the note icon
(Shopify) to edit. On the segment editor page, you can change the name and the segment criteria.Note: If you modify the criteria of a segment targeted by a live campaign, advocates are automatically enrolled or unenrolled based on the new conditions set.
C. Create segments. To create a new segment:
Click Create new segment.
Choose either a Dynamic or Static segment.
Enter the Segment name.
Save the changes.
Setting a target audience for your campaign
Once your segments are set up, you can start targeting or excluding those segments in your campaign.
Go to your campaign's Target audience page:
In the Target these segments section, select one or more segments from the options.
Optionally, you can exclude segments by selecting one or more values in the Exclude these segments dropdown.
Save the changes.
Note: Your campaign must be live for the target audience to take effect. Learn more
💬 Need help? Click the chat widget on the right to start a conversation. Learn more