The "Refer a Friend" application allows you to create a campaign using a referral system to boost the organic virality of your promotion and increase participation.

Users will be asked to share their referral link to invite friends and contacts to join the promotion. You can reward the users who bring in the most referral users with a final prize draw, helping you drive more organic reach and engagement.

📚 Related Resources

Before you begin configuring your promotion, we recommend reviewing the following design guides if you want to customize the look and feel of your promotion:

• Promotion Design Guide: Image specifications for the screens shared by all promotions (welcome, registration, background, final page, sharing, etc.).
• Refer and win Design Guide: Image specifications for the specific assets of the Refer and win page.

The content of the tutorial is as follows:

1. Overview

2. Create the promotion

3. Setting up the Refer a Friend promotion

   • Step 1. Participant registration system

   • Step 2. Publish the "Refer a Friend" page

   • Step 3. Create prizes and rewards

   • Step 4. Communicate with participants via email

4. Participant management

5. Customize the design and finish the settings

1. Overview

The "Refer a Friend" application allows you to launch a contest using a referral system to boost the organic virality of your promotion. To participate, users must share the promotion with their friends and contacts using their referral link, bringing in new participants to increase their chances of winning.

The "Refer a Friend" app enables you to:

• Fully customize the registration form to collect the data you want from participants.
• Reward users based on the number of referrals they generate, with various types of incentives, such as:
  • A final prize draw where only users who reach a minimum number of referrals are eligible.
  • A draw open to all participants, but giving extra entries to those who refer friends, increasing their chances of winning.
  • A direct prize when users reach a specific number of referrals. For example: the user earns a 20% discount after referring 5 friends.
• Integration with Easypromos' virtual coins system, allowing users to earn virtual coins based on the number of referrals they generate.
• Send automated emails to participants to update them on their progress in the contest: you can configure an email to be sent automatically when a user reaches a certain number of referrals, or send a reminder to participants who haven’t yet completed the challenge.
• Provide users with all the tools they need to share their referral link: after completing the registration, participants will have access to multiple options to share the promotion.
• Private user area: each participant has access to a private space where they can view their number of referrals, the rewards they can earn, and their personal referral link to invite more friends.
• Additionally, the referral system can be combined with any Easypromos app or campaign type (such as a Survey, Game, Prize Wheel, etc.) to further increase virality and reach.

2. Create the Promotion

How to get started creating the Refer a Friend promotion? In this tutorial, we'll guide you through the first steps to create your promotion, ensuring you don't miss any important details. You'll learn about all the general management options available in your admin panel to manage and edit your promotion.

Learn the first steps to create your first promotion.

3. Refer a friend promotion setup

Below we explain all the steps to create your "Refer a friend" promotion.

Step 1. Participant registration system

To take part in the promotion, users must identify themselves and register. The organizer can choose which login methods to offer users: email, phone number, or their Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, or Twitch account. If it's the first time a user identifies themselves in the promotion, they must also complete the registration form and accept the promotion's terms and conditions and privacy policy. The form is 100% customizable.

To configure which Login system you want to enable in the promotion, go to Editor > Pages > Login and Registration > Login, where you can set up how you want users to identify themselves to participate. Learn more about the different types of Login and all configuration options here.

Note: Easypromos allows SSO integration with external user authentication systems. Contact us for more information.

If it's the user's first time participating, the first step will be to complete the registration form with the fields configured by the administrator.

To configure the registration form fields, go to Editor > Pages > Login and Registration > Registration, and click the "Add element" button to add the fields you want to request from users in order to participate:

Check the tutorial where we explain how to configure the promotion’s registration form.

Step 2. Publish the "Refer a friend" page

When creating the promotion, the "Refer a friend" section is enabled by default. It’s a private page where each participant can always check their number of referral users, the rewards they can win, and their referral link to get more referrals.

This page is made up of three content blocks:

1. Referral link: In the first block the participant can see their referral link, which they can share with friends to get referral users. This block can be customized with a description and an image.
2. Number of referral users: If enabled, this second block shows the number of referral users the participant has achieved, with the option to view the full list with the names of the users they referred.
3. Rewards: This third block shows the rewards or prizes that the participant can earn by getting referral users. If enabled, you can customize the message displayed and show the user’s progress towards each reward. Note: Only "By referred users" prizes can be displayed. This is a direct prize assigned once the user refers N friends (the number of friends required can be defined). Learn more here about this direct prize type linked to the number of referrals. 

By default, the page is published, and you can customize its contents in Editor > Pages > Refer a friend:

Below we detail the customization options available:

1. Customize the page with a header image and description, which you can use to remind users of the promotion dynamics and the challenge to achieve (for example: refer at least 1 friend to enter the prize draw).

2. Customize the page name that will appear in the promotion menu.

3. Display the participant’s referral users, allowing them to track their progress and see the names of the users they referred.

4. Display a list of rewards that the user can achieve in the promotion. 

5. If the rewards list is enabled, you can also show the participant’s progress towards each reward.

Step 3. Create prizes and rewards

Easypromos provides a complete Prize and Winner Management system that lets you create the prizes you want to give to users participating in the promotion, as well as configure how to assign prizes and select winners.

Below, we explain the different types of prizes and rewards that can be created for the "Invite & Win" contest.

Prize by Random Draw

This allows you to conduct a draw among all users who have participated in the promotion. The random draw assignment system supports the following two dynamics:

1. Final draw with a minimum number of referred friends required

To be eligible for the draw, participants must reach a minimum number of referrals.

Example: Only participants who obtain 4 referrals will be entered into the final draw.

Check out this video tutorial where we show you all the steps to run the giveaway by filtering users based on the number of referrals.

2. Final draw with additional entries

This allows you to conduct a draw among all participants, but awards additional entries for each referral.

Example: All users who have participated in the promotion will be entered into the final draw, regardless of whether they have obtained referrals or not, but 1 additional entry will be given for each referral. In this case, you will start with the complete list of participants, and in the first step of conducting the draw, the system will allow you to manage the additional entries.

See this tutorial to learn how to assign additional entries based on the number of referral users.

Direct prize for reaching N referrals

This allows you to create a prize that will be automatically awarded to the user when they reach a certain number of referrals, which the administrator can set.

Example: The user receives a 20% discount upon reaching 5 referrals.

Below are the steps you need to follow to create this type of prize:

1. In the Prize Inventory, click the Create Prize button and select the prize type "For referring users":

2. Next, in the pop-up window that appears, specify the prize information (Name, Description, and Units) and indicate the minimum number of referrals the user must achieve to win this prize:

Once created, you can use the Email Platform to create an email that will be sent automatically to the winner of this prize, informing them that they have won and providing all relevant prize details.

To do this, you can create a "Upon winning a prize" email:

Next, in the Recipients filter, you should select the "For referring users" prize:

Check this tutorial where we explain in detail how to create an "Upon winning a prize" email.

Assignment of virtual coins for obtaining referrals

If the Virtual Coins system is activated, this type of prize allows users to earn virtual coins based on the number of referrals they achieve.

More information on how to assign virtual coins based on referral users obtained.

Step 4. Communicate with participants via email

The success of the promotion depends on two main factors: whether users clearly understand what they need to do to participate, and whether it’s easy for them to refer their friends.

To help with both points, you have the Emails Platform, which allows you to communicate with participants directly and personally by sending automated emails. The purpose of these emails is threefold:

1. Provide each participant with their unique referral link, making it as easy as possible for them to get referral users.
2. Motivate them to keep referring friends. Remind them of the guaranteed reward!
3. Send reminders and keep them updated on their progress: how many referral users they have, how many are left to reach the goal, and of course, congratulate them when they succeed!

Click here to learn how to use the Email Platform to communicate with your participants.

4. Participant Management

From the promotion's User Manager, the administrator can view all the information for every user who has participated in the promotion.

Specifically, from the User Manager, the administrator can:

1. Sort by "Referrals" number. When accessing the User Manager, the administrator will see the "Referrals" column, which can be sorted to see which user has obtained the highest number of referrals:

2. View the details of a participant's referred users individually. Additionally, you can click on a specific participant, which will allow you to see the details of the users referred by that participant, including their name, the participation date of each referral, and the option to export the information to a .CSV file.

3. See who referred a participant. For each participant, you can check if they were referred by another user. If so, the name of the referrer will be displayed.

4. Filter by number of referrals. You can also use the Filter tool to quickly locate participants based on the number of referrals they have obtained.

5. Export user list. Finally, you can export the list of registered users in the promotion. For each user, the following information is included:

• Number of referrals: indicates how many users they have referred to the promotion.
• Referred by: shows the name and identifier of the user who referred them, if applicable.

5. Customize the design and finish the settings

Once you have configured the Refer a friend contest, the next step is to finish the configuration of the other options of the promotion, such as customizing the design template with your own colors and texts, introducing the legal bases, the viral content settings, etc. 

Check the tutorial to finish the configuration and customization of your promotion.