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 includes customers with a $0 purchase history. Contacts in an excluded segment are still excluded from that 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 (open to the public).
If you prefer your referral program to target existing customers only (customer exclusive referral program), 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.
Important: Lifetime Spend is cumulative (total spend over time). It does not target customers based on a single order amount (example: “only customers who placed one order over $100”). If you need to target customers based on a Shopify condition like “single order over $100” ReferralCandy doesn’t have a built-in “single order value” segment rule for enrollment.
Note: Lifetime Spend counts only the purchases ReferralCandy has recorded. ReferralCandy starts recording once it begins receiving purchases from your store — automatically when you install the app (Shopify), or once your integration is set up and purchases start syncing (other platforms). Purchases made before then aren’t included, so a customer’s Lifetime Spend here can be lower than what they’ve actually spent — and they may not qualify for a segment that requires spend above $0 (for example, “greater than 0”) even though they’ve bought from you. To enroll customers whose earlier purchases aren’t reflected here, import the ones you want (for example, your recent, active customers) into a static segment and include that segment in your target audience — it qualifies them without relying on recorded spend. Campaign exclusions still apply.
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. An excluded segment still takes priority over these inclusion paths.
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.
Target audience (Campaign level) — The target audience is how you configure your campaign to target or exclude segments. Contacts in an included segment qualify for enrollment unless they also belong to a segment excluded from that campaign. Exclusion takes priority over inclusion. For example, a contact in both the included All Customers segment and an excluded static segment is excluded from that 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
Affiliate campaigns no longer use Curated, Instant access or Invite only types. Manage application review and direct invitations in Affiliates > Enrollment; use Advanced targeting settings to see the campaign’s audiences.
Applications: Approve them myself controls whether public applicants wait for review. The campaign’s required application audience remains selected and cannot be removed or excluded.
Invitations: Partners you invite directly skip the application approval queue.
Additional audiences: A contact matching a selected target audience can qualify without this campaign’s application approval — even if their application is still pending — unless they also match an excluded segment.
Want to review applicants before they join? Check both the approval toggle and the additional audiences you select. Turning on application review does not override an alternative audience that qualifies the same contact.
ReferralCandy manages supporting audiences for affiliate enrollment. Existing segments may still have names such as Approved Affiliates, Signed-up Affiliates or Invited Affiliates. Read the current enrollment summary and audience descriptions rather than inferring behavior from an old segment name. For application review and invitations, see Managing affiliate signups.
Managing segments in your account
To manage the segments in your ReferralCandy account, go to the Contacts > Segments page in the ReferralCandy web app or Shopify app. Here you’ll see a list of your existing segments, each shown with its criteria and the campaigns that include or exclude it.
View a segment’s contacts. Click the segment’s name to open it and see the contacts in it.
Edit a segment. Open the segment, then click Edit segment. You can change its name and, for dynamic segments, its criteria.
Note: If you modify the criteria of a segment targeted by a live campaign, enrollment is re-evaluated using that campaign’s included and excluded segments. Because segments are shared across your account, editing a segment can affect every campaign that uses it.
Create a segment. Click Create new Segment, choose either Dynamic or Static, enter a segment name, and save.
Can I delete a segment?
Segments can’t be deleted — there’s no delete option in the ReferralCandy web app or the Shopify app. A segment is just a saved group of contacts, so you don’t need to delete one to change who’s in your campaign.
To change eligibility for a whole group, you can:
Edit a dynamic segment’s criteria — open it and click Edit segment. This can affect every campaign that uses that segment.
Remove it from your campaign’s Target Audience — on the campaign’s Target Audience page, unselect the segment if it is editable. An affiliate campaign’s required application audience cannot be removed this way. The segment stays in your account. Contacts may still qualify through another included segment.
A segment that no campaign includes or excludes has no effect on campaign enrollment. You can leave it in place, or rename and reuse it later.
Changing a segment or a campaign’s target audience does not delete the customer record. To exclude only one person or a few people while keeping the rest of a shared segment, use a separate static exclusion segment. If you intend to delete the customer record itself, review the platform-specific instructions and consequences first: [Shopify] How to subscribe/unsubscribe or delete contacts or [Other Platforms] How to subscribe/unsubscribe or delete contacts.
Setting a target audience for your campaign
Once your segments are set up, you can start targeting or excluding those segments in your campaign.
Open your campaign from Referral campaigns or Affiliate campaigns. Under Get started, choose Target audience; for an affiliate campaign, open Advanced Settings first. You can also open Affiliates > Advanced targeting settings.
In the Target these segments section, select one or more segments from the options.
Under Exclude these segments (optional), select any segments you want to exclude. A contact who belongs to an excluded segment is excluded even if they also belong to an included segment.
Save the changes.
Note: Your campaign must be live for the target audience to take effect. Learn more
How do I exclude one person or a few people from a campaign?
Create a separate static segment containing only those contacts, then exclude that segment from the campaign. You can keep a broad segment such as All Customers included: the separate exclusion takes priority. This changes campaign participation without deleting the customer record.
Go to Contacts > Segments in ReferralCandy. Click Create new Segment, select Static, click Create, name it clearly (for example, “Exclude from customer referral campaign”), and save.
In the static segment, use Import contacts > Add customer by Email. Enter the existing contact’s exact email address and current name, then click Add customer. Repeat for any other contacts, or use Upload a CSV for a list. Review the queue, click Import, and confirm. See Importing customers to a segment for the import steps.
Open the campaign’s Target audience settings using the steps above. Keep the segments for the people you want enrolled selected under Target these segments.
Under Exclude these segments (optional), select the new static segment and save.
Allow the enrollment update to finish, then open the contact and check their enrollment status for that campaign. A previously enrolled contact should now show Unenrolled.
Use this new segment only as an exclusion for the campaign you intend to change. Other campaigns keep their own audience settings. Editing a shared segment’s criteria or unselecting a whole included segment can affect more people than intended.
Importing contacts can also make them eligible for other campaigns, depending on those campaigns’ audiences. Review the contacts and campaign selections before confirming an import.
If you only want to stop campaign emails while allowing the person to keep referring, use campaign email unsubscribe instead. Exclusion removes campaign participation; it is not an email-only change.