Common Questions

This page collects the most popular questions about ReferralHero.

Can I add a subscriber or referral manually?

To add a subscriber or a referral manually to your campaign:

  • go to your campaign dashboard > Subscribers

  • Click the +Add Subscriber button in the top right corner

  • In the modal enter the subscriber's information, like the email address and name

  • Click Add Subscriber

To add a referral make sure to enter the referrer's email address or referral code in the Referrer field. (If you're adding [email protected] who has been referred by [email protected], make sure to enter john.doe@email.com in the Referrer field)

Can I use my own sign up / opt-in form?

Yes! ReferralHero is a very dynamic software solution. You have a few options for using your own sign up form and ReferralHero as your backend to power your referral program. You might want to use your own sign up form if you are looking for a more custom branding experience or want to collect additional opt-in user data than the ReferralHero widget can offer. Here are your options for using your own sign up form:

  1. Use your current CRM sign up form and connect to ReferralHero using our native Zapier connection. Follow these instructions for Hubspot or Mailchimp. These are just examples, you can connect any CRM form to ReferralHero and the connection process would be very similar.

  2. Use a sign up / survey widget and connect to ReferralHero using our native Zapier connection. Follow these instructions for Typeform. This is just an example, you can connect any sign up widget to ReferralHero and the connection process would be very similar.

  3. Build your own sign up form using HTML / Javascript and connect to ReferralHero with our Javascript API or REST API (this option provides the most flexibility but requires technical knowledge).

How does the ranking work?

ReferralHero's ranking system is pretty simple.

In a nutshell, ReferralHero offers two types of campaigns: points-based and referrals-based. The ranking system is determined based on either the number of points or the number of referrals. This means that subscribers can be ranked and positioned in the leaderboard based on their accumulated points or the number of successful referrals they have made.

Let's consider a points-based campaign as an example:

  • Sarah has got 11 points

  • Tom has got 8 points

Sarah will be 1st on the list and Tom 2nd.

What happens if multiple people share the same number of points?

When multiple people share the same number of points, we look at when they signed up, the earlier the better. For example:

  • Sarah has got 11 points and signed up on Monday

  • Tom has got 8 points and signed up on Wednesday

  • Mark has got 8 points and signed up on Tuesday.

Tom and Mark have both 8 points but Mark signed up before Tom. So this is the ranking:

  1. Sarah

  2. Mark

  3. Tom

How many positions do I gain when a subscriber gains another point/refers a new person?

Given the architecture of our referral system, it’s impossible to answer this question. An example will illustrate this.

Continuing with our example, let's say Mark gains another point, bringing his total to 9 points. However, despite gaining points, Mark doesn't move up in the ranking because Sarah still has 11 points.

This illustrates that earning a certain number of points doesn't automatically guarantee a higher position on the leaderboard. However, it also means that no one is ever truly out of the game, as there are opportunities to earn more points and improve their ranking.

Consider this scenario: In a list of 1,000 subscribers, some have earned one point, some two, and some none. Now, a new person signs up and earns three points. This person now has the most number of points in the campaign and jumps to the top of the list, surpassing the 1,000 subscribers ahead of him despite being the last to sign up!

To assign points in your campaign, follow these steps:

  1. Go to your campaign dashboard > Edit Campaign > Goal > Conversion Events and Social Share Actions to enable a points-based campaign

  2. In the campaign dashboard, go to Points to assign points for conversion events and/or points for social share actions

Motivation Prompt for Inviting Friends

Utilize the Motivation Prompt feature within the Dashboard Widget > Dashboard to inspire your subscribers to invite friends and elevate their ranking on the leaderboard. By inviting friends to join the campaign and accruing additional points, they can ascend to higher positions, enhancing their chances of securing the top spot. Here's how it works:

Earn %x% points and jump to %jump_position% position

Subscribers earn points for each friend they successfully invite to join the campaign. Upon earning an additional %x% points, they leap to the %jump_position% position on the leaderboard. The more friends they invite, the greater their likelihood of climbing the ranks.

Similarly, in referrals-based campaigns, for every %x% successful referral, they progress to the %jump_position% position.

How can a subscriber in my campaign see the status of their referrals?

Directly on the share widget. When building your campaign, you have the option to show or not show the leaderboard, people referred, and/or their position on the share widget.

  • Go to your campaign dashboard > Edit Campaign > Widget Builder > Dashboard Widget > Dashboard to customize the look and feel of your share widget

In addition, if you choose to show reward images, when a member unlocks a reward, the reward box will be grayed out and display "unlocked" as default.

Subscribers have a few way of accessing the share widget:

  1. Directly after they sign up (this happens by default but you can also do a redirect to a different page)

  2. Automatically when they revisit your landing page

Go to your campaign dashboard > Edit Campaign > Widget Builder > Dashboard Widget > Dashboard > Template Settings > Advanced Options and switch on Open sharing screen if already signed up

  1. Check Status button on the Dashboard Widget Signup Form

Go to your campaign dashboard > Edit Campaign >Widget Builder > Dashboard Widget > Signup Form, click on the ‘Form Submit Button’, in the 'Property Options' tab, customize the text for the login button

How do I import existing contacts?

To import your existing users/subscribers in ReferralHero go to your campaign dashboard > Subscribers > Import.

On that page you can upload a CSV file containing the data of your existing users.

File Formatting

Your CSV file must have headers and they must be lowercase. The only two required headers are email and domain. The domain column will be used to create the referral link. So if you want the referral link to be http://mywebsite.com/competition, the domain column should be http://mywebsite.com/competition.

We highly recommend using our example file as a starting point and please delete all blank rows/columns in your file before uploading.

Here are all the fields that you can use with your import:

column

description

email

(Required if campaign's primary identifier) Subscriber's email

domain

Default referral link (e.g: http://mywebsite.com/competition). * If left blank, the default referral link set in the GOAL campaign builder will be used

name

Subscriber's name

phone number

Subscriber's phone number (eg: +141234xxx34) Country code must be present.

extra field

Subscriber's extra field (e.g: age)

extra field 2

Subscriber's extra field 2 (eg: country)

date

Subscriber's sign up date (DD/MM/YYYY or DD/MM/YYYY HH:MM)

referrals

Subscriber's number of referrals. Useful if you're importing people who have already accumulated referrals from a previous referral program

referrer

Use this column to indicate the referrer of a subscriber. The value is the email address of the referrer

Good to know

  • All imported subscribers will have imported_from_csv as their source.

  • You can choose to send a Welcome email to your imported subscribers by switching on Send welcome email. The Welcome email will be sent only if you have created one and is active.

  • If you enable the option to subscribe imported contacts to integrated CRMs, your contacts will also be imported into the selected CRM list. If an imported contact already exists in your CRM list, we will update the name and custom fields.

Can I install multiple Tracking Codes on my website?

Depending on the date your account was created. Please email into [email protected] if you want your account updated.

  • For accounts created before March 1, 2024: You need to install multiple global tracking codes on your website to run multiple campaigns.

  • For accounts created after March 1, 2024: You will only need to install the single global tracking code once on your website.

Does ReferralHero support all languages?

Yes. Depending on your needs, you can accomplish this in two different ways:

  1. Edit the text of any campaign to the desired language.

  2. Set up multiple campaigns for each language.

It is not possible for a campaign to switch between multiple language selections.

How do I change the referral links of existing subscribers?

There could be many reasons why you want to change the referral links of your subscribers:

  • you put the widget on the wrong page by mistake

  • you have changed landing on your website

  • you have changed your website URL

Whatever the reason, to update the URL of the referral links:

  1. Go to your campaign dashboard > Edit campaign > Options

  2. Enter the new URL in the Default Referral Link field. It must be a valid URL (eg: https://mywebsite.com/refer-a-friend, with http or https)

  3. Click Save

  4. A popup will appear. Choose your desired option to either “set as default for new” or “reset & set as new”

  5. The referral link will be updated according to your selection

How do I redirect users to a different page after sign up?

You can redirect people to a separate page instead of displaying the sharing screen.

Go to your campaign dashboard > Edit Campaign > Widget Builder > Dashboard Widget > Signup Form > click on ‘Form Submit Button’ > go to ‘Property Options’ > switch on ‘Redirect after sign up’ > enter a ‘Redirect URL

When you enable this option, people who sign up through one of our embeddable widgets will be automatically redirected to the URL you entered.

To make it easy to know WHO has been redirected to that page, ReferralHero adds some parameters to the URL. They are:

Parameter

Description

rh_email

The subscriber's email address

rh_name

The subscriber's name

rh_extra_field

The subscriber's extra field value

rh_extra_field_2

The subscriber's extra field 2 value

rh_code

The subscriber's referral code

Displaying referral links

A common use case is to redirect a person to a page and show them their referral link. There are two ways to achieve this:

  1. Use ReferralHero's widget Just embed the ReferralHero widget on the destination page and make sure to switch on Open sharing screen if already signed up in Edit campaign > Widget Builder > Dashboard Widget > Dashboard > Template Settings > Advanced Options

  2. Use "rh_code" parameter If you have some coding skills, simply grab the rh_code parameter from the URL and use it create the referral link. Remember that a ReferralHero-valid referral link must use the mwr parameter in the URL. So for example, if you want to create a referral link that points to https://mywbesite.com, your referral link will be https://mywbesite.com?mwr={rh_code}

How do I test and review my campaign?

To test your referral journey and all conversion events please take note of the following points and then follow our step-by-step process:

Important:

  • You must clear your cookies or spin up a new incognito window every time you want to sign up (as a referral or non-referral).

  • You cannot have any other open browsers/windows/tabs to your website (otherwise you will still be cookied).

  • ReferralHero does not recognize alias email addresses as referrals. An alias email address is an email address that contains the + sign (e.g: [email protected]). It is not possible to use an alias email address to create a Referral but is registered in our system as Organic.

We have these measures in place to prevent fraud (and we are very good at detecting it) so you need to avoid our anti-fraud system while you test.

Process:

  1. Sign up as an organic subscriber and get your referral link from our Dashboard Widget or your subscriber list

  2. Check ReferralHero subscriber list to make sure a new organic subscriber was created

  3. Close out of any open browsers/windows/tabs to your website

  4. Open a new incognito window, paste your referral link in the web address bar, and load the page

  5. Check ReferralHero visitor list to make sure a new referred visitor was created

  6. Browse your website and navigate to your first conversion event (ie. signup form, book meeting form, etc.)

  7. Sign up and submit the form

  8. Check ReferralHero subscriber list to make sure the referred visitor converted to a new referral

  • If your Campaign Goal is set up to track one conversion event, the referral will be set to Confirmed.

  • If your Campaign Goal is set up to track two or three conversion events, the referral will be set to Pending.

  1. (If applicable) Proceed to trigger the second conversion event.

  • If your Campaign Goal is set up to track two conversion events, the referral will be set to Confirmed.

  • If your Campaign Goal is set up to track three conversion events, the referral will be set to Unconfirmed.

  1. (If applicable) Proceed to trigger the third conversion event.

  • If your Campaign Goal is set up to track three conversion events, the referral will be set to Confirmed.

How do I customize the CSS of the embeddable widgets?

ReferralHero's embeddable widgets automatically use the font set for the parent container, however sometimes this means that the wrong font is used.

To change the font of the widget, you have two options:

  1. Change the Font Family in each individual design element, e.g. text element, etc, you use in the widget design.

  2. Within the widget builder, the property options for each element give access to change the font, size, and style of any text.

  3. Go to you campaign dashboard > Edit Campaign > Widget Builder > 'Signup Form' or 'Dashboard' > Template Settings > Custom CSS. For example, you can enter the following text to make font customizations:

#mtr-optin-form *, #mtr-sharing-screen * {
  font-family: 'Nunito'
}

Don't forget to change 'Nunito' with the font-family you want to use.

Click here to see other stylizing options you can customize with CSS.

How do I stop/close a campaign?

To close a campaign simply go to your campaign dashboard and click on the Stop campaign button.

Good to know

When you stop your campaign your widget will immediately stop working and we'll stop sending all the Automation emails. If you change your mind, you can always resume your campaign by clicking the Resume campaign button.

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