The Custom reward lets you give advocates and affiliates an incentive the built-in reward types can't — anything that isn't a discount code, cash payout, or store credit. You choose what the reward is, and you deliver it yourself. Common examples:
Points in your own loyalty program.
Physical merchandise, swag, or a free gift.
A third-party or branded gift card (such as an Amazon gift card).
Account credit, a free subscription month, or a service upgrade in your own platform.
A donation to charity on the advocate's behalf.
ReferralCandy's job is the tracking: it confirms which referrals are successful and tells you who has earned a reward. Fulfilling the reward — sending the gift card, shipping the merchandise, adding the points — happens on your side, in your own systems. Because the reward lives outside ReferralCandy, our support team can't look into the delivery of a custom reward the way we can for a coupon or a PayPal cash payout.
How to set up a custom reward
To set up a custom reward for your advocates or affiliates:
Open your campaign in ReferralCandy. On Shopify, go to Apps > Referral Candy in your Shopify admin and select your campaign. On other platforms, sign in at my.referralcandy.com and select your campaign.
In Set rewards, click Advocate reward.
Select a reward tier to Edit.
Choose Custom as the reward type.
Enter a Reward description — this is what advocates see in your ReferralCandy emails, pages, and widgets (for example, "a free tote bag" or "500 loyalty points").
Click Save.
The reward description is the only field to set. There's no amount or code for ReferralCandy to generate, because you fulfill the reward yourself.
Tracking referrals so you can fulfill rewards
Because you fulfill custom rewards yourself, you need to know which referrals have succeeded. There are two kinds of methods: simple manual ones that need no setup, and automated ones that scale to higher volume but take development work. Pick based on how many referrals you're handling.
Manual methods (best for lower volume)
These manual methods need no technical setup, so they're the quickest way to start and a good fit when you only have a handful of referrals to reward.
Email alerts
When an advocate earns a custom reward, ReferralCandy sends reward notifications to the advocate and merchant. The required purchases must qualify, pass review, and meet any purchase-count or tier requirement. A purchase becoming rewardable does not by itself mean a custom reward is ready to fulfill. For a low volume of referrals, these alerts alone may be all you need.
The Reports tab (Referral Report)
Your campaign's Reports tab — often called the Referral Report — gives you a dated summary of referral activity: your referred purchases, your Top Referrers (the contacts with the most successful referrals), and sales and revenue figures. Use the date-range filter to focus on a period, and Export to download the data and work through who to reward. Find it under Referral campaigns > Reports — in Apps > Referral Candy on Shopify, or at my.referralcandy.com on other platforms.
Automated methods (scale to higher volume, need development)
These automated methods connect ReferralCandy to your own systems so referrals can be processed without manual checking. They take development work on your side — ReferralCandy can't troubleshoot custom code or your own integration.
The ReferralCandy API
The referrals method of the ReferralCandy API lets you query referred purchases made over a given period, so you can pull referral data into your own systems programmatically rather than checking a page by hand.
Webhooks (real-time)
With a webhook, ReferralCandy sends the referral details to a URL on your side every time a referred purchase is detected — so your own system can process the referral data automatically. This webhook reports a detected purchase; it is not a notification that a custom reward has been earned. Your system must check the review period and your reward rules before fulfilling a reward. It's the most scalable option; if you're not building it yourself, here's the shape of the work to share with your engineering team:
A developer sets up an endpoint — a public URL on your side that can receive web requests.
You let us know that URL (and that it's for the Custom reward), and we add it to your account.
Each time a referral succeeds, ReferralCandy sends that URL a small payload — the referred friend's email, the advocate's email, and a timestamp.
Your endpoint verifies the request came from ReferralCandy, records the referral data, and replies with 200 OK. Deliver the custom reward only when your reward rules and review requirements are met.
For the exact payload, signature verification, and a code example, see Custom reward: Accumulating referral rewards in your own platform.
Custom reward FAQ
Does ReferralCandy send the custom reward automatically?
Does ReferralCandy send the custom reward automatically?
No. With a custom reward, ReferralCandy tracks the successful referrals and tells you who has earned a reward, but you deliver the reward itself — that's what makes it "custom." If you'd rather ReferralCandy handle delivery end to end, choose a reward type it fulfills automatically instead: a coupon, cash (via PayPal or Tremendous), or store credit.
How do I know which advocates are owed a custom reward?
How do I know which advocates are owed a custom reward?
Use the custom-reward notifications to identify rewards ready to fulfill. Your campaign's Reports tab lists referred purchases and top referrers, but do not assume each listed purchase equals one custom reward: your campaign may require several purchases for a reward or use milestone tiers. See Reward conditions. The ReferralCandy API and webhooks can help automate referral-data handling; apply your reward rules before fulfilling a reward.