Refer-a-Friend for Shopify: How To Offer Store Credit Rewards

Own a Shopify store? A Refer-a-Friend program can be a powerful way to drive business growth, encouraging existing customers to promote your products to their network. 

This guide will walk you through creating and integrating a Refer-a-Friend program on your Shopify store using Partnero and setting up store credit as a reward.

By following this guide, you'll be able to:

• Launch a referral program that motivates your current customers to recommend your products to their friends.

• Integrate the program with Shopify.

• Set up a store credit reward system for successful referrals.

Let's dive in and transform your satisfied customers into your most effective marketers!

Configuring your Refer-a-Friend program

Here is how a Refer-a-Friend program works using Partnero:

1. A customer signs up for an account on your store and is given a unique referral link.

2. The customer shares this referral link with their friends, family, or network via a referral link.

3. When a friend signs up for an account using the referral link, they are considered a referred customer.

4. Partnero tracks the referral and attributes the signup to the referring customer.

Like any partner program, it’s essential to set the structure of your refer-a-friend program. In this article, we’ll create a program to offer the referring customers a $20 store credit for each new customer they bring in.

First, you’ll need your Partnero account. If you don’t have one, sign up!

Create a Refer-a-Friend program

1. Setting up the program

Log in to Partnero and go to Programs → Create a program → Refer-a-Friend program.

Name your program and enter your website URL. Referred visitors will land on this URL. In most cases, this should be your Shopify store link.

Your program is now set up. Let’s customize!

2. Referral portal

The next important step is to make your referral program visible and accessible to your customers. To accomplish this efficiently, we recommend enabling the referral portal. 

This user-friendly interface will allow your customers to easily view their unique referral link and access other essential features of your referral program.

If you haven't enabled the Referral portal during program creation, go to Program → Settings and toggle it on. Click Update to save changes.

Once the referral portal is enabled, a new menu option will appear on the program’s sidebar. You can then go to the Referral portal section to adjust settings and design the portal. Here’s an in-depth overview.

Once your customers access the referral portal (which you can link to from your website), they can log in using their email address. It's important to note that no password is required. Instead, customers will receive a one-time password (OTP) sent to their mailbox each time they attempt to log in.

Alternatively, you can enable an in-site widget to provide even quicker access. An in-site widget allows access to the referral portal via your website or app. For this widget to be available, some conditions must be met, such as integrating your website. Read more about embedding an in-app widget.

Integrate Shopify

The next step is to connect your Shopify and Partnero accounts. To do that, you need to install our Shopify app. Go to the Partnero Affiliate Management app and click Install:

After confirming the installation, you will be returned to Partnero, where you can select the program you’d like to connect. Choose the refer-a-friend program you’ve set up and click Connect. If you’d like to follow more detailed integration instructions, click here.

That’s it! The refer-a-friend program is now connected to your Shopify store.

Set up rewards

Once the integration is complete, you can create rewards. These can be created on the Rewards page based on signup or sale triggers.

According to our example in this article, we will issue a store credit to the referring customer once the referral makes a purchase. Let’s examine how to create such a reward.

Go to Rewards → New reward. 

• Choose a reward name. Please note that the name can be displayed in the referral portal, so we recommend having a customer-friendly name.

• Choose a reward trigger. In our case, we need to choose Sale. The reward should be selected as Store credit.

It's important to highlight the "Start of the Trigger" setting, which determines when the reward will be issued. The reward will be granted immediately after the first successful sale if this trigger is not configured. However, if you prefer to issue a reward only after a customer has made five sales, you can easily adjust this setting to "5 times."

Additionally, you can set the reward recurrence, minimum order value, and other limits here.

Now, you can establish rewards for referring customers and those they refer. We’ll set up a static $20 store credit reward for the referring customer and skip the reward for the referred customer.

Once you’re happy with your settings, click Create.

Customer notifications

We recommend enabling customer notification emails to notify customers when they unlock a reward.

1. Review and design the emails

All program emails can be reviewed under Referral → Emails → Emails tab. Click the gear icon next to the email, then click Edit content.

Change the email design and text to fit your brand.

2. Enable email notifications

Once you’re happy with the program emails, enable them under Program → Settings → Other.

Toggle the setting and click Update.

Test your program

We're almost there! The final step is to test your program.

If you don’t already have a test customer in your Shopify store, now is the time to set one up. Sign up as a customer in your store. Make sure you have access to the mailbox of the email address you’re using!

If you do have a test customer, you’ll be able to find it on Partnero's Customers list. Open the test customer’s profile on Partnero and copy the referral link.

In incognito browser mode, use the referral link to make a purchase at your store. After a successful purchase:

• Referring (test) customer’s profile should update with new stats:

  

• A reward notification email should arrive in your inbox. 

Lastly, check the test customer’s account on your Shopify store admin - the credit should be available.

Congratulations! You’re all set to launch your Refer-a-Friend program!

Grow your Shopify store with Partnero

Implementing a Refer-a-Friend program on your Shopify store can be a game-changer for customer engagement and business growth. With Partnero, you can seamlessly integrate a program that rewards your most loyal customers for spreading the word. Whether you're offering store credits or tailoring rewards to fit your brand, this guide provides a comprehensive roadmap to get started.