How It Works
A referral program rewards existing customers, called Advocates, for inviting friends to shop with a brand. When a Friend uses an Advocate's referral link and completes a qualifying purchase, both the Advocate and the Friend receive a reward.
Advocate and Friend Rewards
Set separate reward terms for each side of the referral:
The Advocate (the customer who refers a friend) earns credit once the Friend completes a qualifying purchase, configured under Advocate's Reward.
The Friend (the customer who was referred) receives a reward for making their first purchase, configured under Friend's Reward.
Automatic Tracking
rediem tracks all referrals automatically. Every Advocate and Friend is credited for their reward once the referral qualifies, with no manual review required.
Fraud Protection
rediem blocks a referral from qualifying for a reward in any of the following scenarios:
The Friend's shipping address matches the Advocate's shipping address.
The Friend's IP address and user agent match the Advocate's.
The Friend's IP address matches the Advocate's IP address.
The Friend and Advocate refer each other.
The Friend's email or cookie matches a prior purchase on the account.
The Friend's email is a close match to the Advocate's email.
How To Set It Up
Set Up Branding
In the rediem merchant admin, navigate to Referrals → Branding to customize the look and feel of the referral program.
Set Up the Advocate Reward
Navigate to Referrals → Campaigns.
Under Referral Rewards, next to Advocate's Reward, click Add Reward to create a new reward, or click Edit to adjust an existing one.
Set the Title, Reward value, Description, and optional Start date and End date.
Under Reward criteria, set the purchase type (dropdown options: Any, One-time Purchase, or Subscription) and a Minimum amount, if desired.
Under Redemption criteria, set Applies to (Entire catalogue, Specific collections, or Specific products) and Purchase type (New Purchase, Active Subscription, or Both) to control what the Advocate's referral credit can be redeemed against.
Under Combination, choose whether the reward can combine with Product discount, Order discounts, and/or Shipping discounts, and set a Maximum limit on how much credit an Advocate can redeem at one time, if desired.
Optionally, select Add a prefix to discount codes under Discount code to prepend a custom prefix to generated referral discount codes.
Set Up the Friend Reward
Under Referral Rewards, next to Friend's Reward, click Add Reward to create a new reward, or click Edit to adjust an existing one.
Set the Friend Title, Advocate Title, Reward value, Description, and optional Start date and End date.
Under Discount, set Applies to (Entire catalogue, Specific collections, or Specific products) and a Purchase type (for example, One-time Purchase).
Under Minimum requirement, select None or Minimum purchase amount, and enter an amount if required.
Under Combination, choose whether the reward can combine with Product discount, Order discounts, and/or Shipping discounts.
Under Discount code, toggle Only send code via email if desired, and optionally select Add a prefix to discount codes to prepend a custom prefix to generated codes.
Review either reward at any time on the Referrals → Campaigns page. Click Edit to make changes.
Launch the Referral Program
On the Referrals → Campaigns page, under Referral status, click Activate to turn on the referral program.
If the page shows a warning that the rediem Referral App is disabled in your theme settings, click Enable Now to enable it. Alternatively, enable it manually: in the Shopify theme editor, navigate to App embeds and toggle on Rediem Referral.
Copy the Referral HTML from the Campaigns page and paste it into the code for the page where the referral program should display.
📋 Note: Contact your Customer Strategy Specialist for help with branding setup.
Monitor referral performance at any time under Referrals → Analytics.
Key Notes
rediem tracks all referrals and credits Advocates and Friends automatically.
The Advocate reward is configured under Advocate's Reward, with separate Reward criteria and Redemption criteria. The Friend reward is configured under Friend's Reward, with a combined Discount section covering purchase type, minimum requirement, and combinability.
Referral fraud protection blocks matching shipping addresses, matching IP address and user agent combinations, IP-only matches, Advocate-and-Friend mutual referrals, matching email or cookie on a prior purchase, and closely similar emails.
Referral performance can be monitored under Referrals → Analytics.
Coming Soon
Omnichannel Referrals: Offer rewards for in-store referrals to drive in-store sales.
Referral Milestones: Create referral rewards that increase in value based on the number of referrals an Advocate completes.