Understanding how Bloop works
Bloop is a Shopify app that grows your store through word-of-mouth — from loyal customers and the external partners you recruit. It runs two programs in one dashboard: a referral program that rewards existing customers for inviting friends, and an affiliate program that pays external partners a commission on the sales they drive. You set the rules and rewards; Bloop tracks every share, click, and order and calculates who earned what.
This page is the high-level map — what the two programs are, why they live together, and how growth happens through each one. When you’re ready to build, Getting started with referrals and Getting started with affiliates walk through the setup.
Two programs, one dashboard
Section titled “Two programs, one dashboard”Most stores need both kinds of word-of-mouth, and they pull on different relationships:
- A referral program turns happy customers into advocates. A customer shares a personal link or code with friends; when a friend buys, both sides earn a reward. Trust does the selling, because the recommendation comes from someone the new customer knows.
- An affiliate program turns external promoters into a pay-for-performance sales channel. Creators, bloggers, and publishers promote you with their own link and earn a commission on the orders they bring in.
Running them together means one place to manage rewards, track revenue, and see what is working. You can launch one first and add the other later, or run both from day one.
How referral growth happens
Section titled “How referral growth happens”Referral growth is a loop. A customer shares, a friend redeems, that friend becomes a customer, and the cycle continues. Every Bloop referral is two-sided and reward-on-purchase: the referrer earns nothing for a share alone, only after their referee completes a qualifying order. This keeps the program tied to real revenue rather than empty clicks.
You control three levers that decide how fast the loop spins:
- Who can refer — everyone, logged-in customers, or a Shopify customer segment, with segments you can exclude. See Set your referral target audience.
- What each side earns: a referee discount or free product to lower the barrier, plus a referrer reward (discount, store credit, cash, a free product, or something custom) to thank the advocate. See Set up referrer and referee rewards.
- How customers share — a unique link, a short code, or both, surfaced on your storefront. See Choose a referral sharing method.
For the customer-side experience of this loop, read The referral journey.
One program, up to five campaigns
Section titled “One program, up to five campaigns”Those three levers aren’t set once for the whole store — they belong to a campaign, and you can run up to five at a time. A campaign owns its audience, its rewards, its widgets, its sharing channels and its emails, which is what lets a VIP segment see a richer offer than everyone else without either group knowing the other exists.
A customer can belong to several campaigns at once, and carries a separate referral link and code for each. Start with one campaign; add a second when you have a group worth treating differently. See Campaign setup.
How affiliate growth happens
Section titled “How affiliate growth happens”Affiliate growth is a recruitment-and-reward cycle. You enlist partners, give each a unique link (and optionally a discount coupon), and pay a commission only on the orders they drive. Because cost scales with revenue produced, it is one of the lowest-risk ways to expand reach.
The mechanics:
- A campaign sets the commission structure and the cookie window — how long after a click a purchase still counts for the affiliate. See Affiliate campaigns and commissions.
- Affiliates join by manual invite or self-registration, and you approve who gets in. See Managing affiliates.
- When a customer buys through an affiliate’s link, Bloop records a sale and calculates the commission. You review and approve sales, then pay out. See Affiliate sales tracking and Affiliate payouts.
For the partner-side experience, read The affiliate journey.
Where customers meet Bloop
Section titled “Where customers meet Bloop”Bloop shows up in several places, and each one has its own page for setting it up:
- Popup and widget: the launcher that opens the referral panel on your storefront, and the popup a referred friend sees on arrival.
- Referral page: a permanent page on your store that you can link from menus, emails and social bios.
- Thank-you page: a referral prompt right after checkout.
- Customer account: referral blocks on the profile and order pages of logged-in customers.
- Referral Hub: a personal dashboard where referrers track their rewards and activity.
- Share Button on product pages: a share link that sends friends straight to the product.
- Affiliate portal: where your affiliates sign in to find their link, materials and earnings.
What Bloop tracks for you
Section titled “What Bloop tracks for you”Across both programs, manual work is minimal because tracking is automatic. Bloop attributes each order to the right referrer or affiliate, calculates rewards and commissions from your rules, holds anything suspicious for review, and surfaces results as activity and analytics. Your focus stays on the decisions that matter — the offer, who is in, and paying reliably.
Where to go next
Section titled “Where to go next”- New to the customer side? Read The referral journey.
- New to the partner side? Read The affiliate journey.
- Unsure of a term? Check the glossary.
- Want a tour of the dashboard? See Platform navigation.