Cascade

    Referrals

    For anyone running a refer-a-friend scheme. A member shares their code, someone new orders with it, and both of them get paid. Referrals are part of loyalty rather than a separate product, because what a referral pays out is a loyalty rule like any other.

    How a referral happens

    1. A member gets a code. Every loyalty member has one, generated when they join. They see it, and a link carrying it, in the loyalty widget.
    2. They share it. The widget gives them the link and the usual share options.
    3. Someone uses it. A new customer arrives with the code, either from the link on your storefront or by entering it at checkout. Cascade records a pending referral.
    4. The new customer orders. The referral turns completed, and both rules pay out.

    A referral only counts once. One live referral per referred customer per program, so the same person cannot be referred twice.

    What you have to set up

    A loyalty program, with points named, and the two rules that pay out:

    • Refers a friend, on the referrer. This is the rule under Loyalty → Rules with that trigger. You can require several referrals before it pays, set a minimum order size on the qualifying purchase, or give it a deadline. See Loyalty.
    • Something for the referred customer, usually a welcome discount, which is what makes the code worth clicking.

    The loyalty widget on your storefront, which is where members find their code. See Storefront widgets.

    Somewhere to enter a code, if you want checkout attribution as well as link attribution. On a custom storefront this is a field at checkout that you pass to Cascade.

    Codes

    Codes are minted in uppercase from an alphabet with no ambiguous characters, so there is no 0 against O or 1 against l to get wrong over the phone. Cascade normalizes whatever is entered: case and surrounding whitespace do not matter.

    Two things are rejected outright:

    • Self-referral. A member using their own code.
    • The same mailbox. A second account on the same email address as the referrer.

    Both come back as a refusal rather than a pending referral, so they never appear in your numbers.

    Watching referrals

    Referrals in the sidebar lists them all, status first, then who referred, who was referred, the code and the date.

    StatusMeaning
    PendingThe code was used. The referred customer has not ordered yet.
    CompletedThe qualifying order landed and the rules paid out.
    RevokedCanceled. Nothing pays out.

    Hover either customer to open their record, or to narrow the list to the referrals they were part of.

    Filter opens the same bar as every other list: referrer, referred, code, status and date. Save a set of pills you keep coming back to as a quick filter, and it becomes a tab above the list. Export queues a CSV of exactly what is on screen, filter and search included, and it lands under Settings → Exports. Each row carries both customers, the code, the program and a plain-English summary of where the referral got to.

    Source, on the detail pane, says how the referral arrived: from your storefront, or from a code entered at checkout.

    Moving a referral by hand

    Open a referral and the buttons above it are the moves it can make from where it is:

    StatusWhat you can do
    PendingComplete it, or Revoke it.
    RevokedReturn to pending, which puts completion back within reach.
    CompletedNothing. A referral that has paid out stays paid out.

    Complete asks you to confirm, because it pays the referrer the reward your refer-a-friend rule gives and cannot be undone. There is one exception worth knowing: a rule with a minimum order size never pays out on a hand completion, because there is no qualifying order to measure.

    Revoke a referral you believe is fraudulent. A revoked referral cannot complete, and the referrer is not paid for it. It is reversible, so it takes effect straight away: return it to pending first if you change your mind, then complete it.

    Referrals in the activity feed

    A completed referral shows in the member's loyalty activity, both for the referrer and for the person they referred, alongside the points it paid out. See Loyalty.

    Hearing about referrals

    Subscribe to referral.updated to hear about a referral being recorded and later completing. See Webhooks.

    If referrals are not completing

    • Is the referred customer's order reaching Cascade? Completion is triggered by the order, so no order means no completion.
    • Is the order under the same loyalty program the referral was made under? A referral completes against its own program.
    • Does the qualifying order meet the rule's minimum, if you set one?
    • Has the deadline passed, if you set one?
    • Was it a self-referral? Check whether the two customers share a mailbox.