How to launch a referral program

A referral program turns your happiest customers into a sales channel: they recommend you to people who trust them, and you reward both sides for it. Bloop programs are two-sided — a referrer shares a link or code, a referee uses it to claim a discount, and once the referee completes a qualifying purchase, the referrer earns their reward. Nothing is paid out for a share alone; the program only rewards real revenue.

Best practice

Launch with a generous, simple offer rather than a complex one. Launch with a simple flat reward first — a clear “give a discount, get a discount” message spreads fastest. Once your program has traffic, consider FlexiTiers to give your best referrers a reason to keep sharing. See referral program best practices before you decide on numbers.

1. Enable the app embed

Bloop displays its referral widget through a Shopify theme app embed, so the program appears on your live storefront without editing theme code.

1. In your Shopify admin, open Online Store → Themes and click Customize on your live theme.
2. Open App embeds in the theme editor and toggle on BLOOP Refer & Aff.
3. Save. The referral widget now renders on your storefront so customers can join and share.

2. Create a campaign

A campaign holds the rules that decide who can refer, what rewards are issued, and when. Think of it as the single contract behind your program.

1. In the Bloop dashboard, open the Campaigns tab and create a new referral campaign.
2. Under Target audience, choose who can become a referrer: All customers, Members (logged-in customers only), or Customer segments you build in Shopify, such as customers with a tag or with prior orders.
3. Give the campaign a clear name so you can find it later.

For the full reasoning behind each audience choice, see Set your referral target audience.

3. Set the referrer and referee rewards

Each side of the referral gets its own reward, and the balance between them is what makes a program convert.

• Referee reward: the incentive a new customer receives for using a referral link or code, either a discount coupon or a free product on their first order.
• Referrer reward: what the existing customer earns after their referee makes a qualifying purchase. Choose one of five types:

Reward type	How it works
Discount coupon	A Shopify discount code, fixed amount or percentage
Store credit	Credit applied directly to the customer’s Shopify account
Free product	One or more products you pick, given free on a later order
Cash	Tracked in Bloop; you process the payout manually
Custom	A reward you describe yourself (a gift, swag, a service), held as Pending for you to approve and fulfil by hand

You can also require a minimum order value, a minimum number of items, or a referee threshold before a referrer reward is issued. For how each option behaves, see Set up referrer and referee rewards.

4. Brand your program

Give the program a presence on your store before you launch. Two surfaces matter most:

• Referral page — a dedicated landing page you can link from your menu, footer, or newsletter. See Set up and brand your referral landing page.
• Post-purchase popup — the highest-converting moment, right after checkout. See Customize the post-purchase referral popup.

5. Choose your sharing channels

Decide which channels referrers can share through — WhatsApp, Native Share, email, X, Facebook — and in what order, separately for desktop and mobile. See Configure referral social sharing channels.

6. Launch

When your campaign, rewards, branding, and sharing channels are set:

1. Review the campaign settings one last time.
2. Set the campaign status to active to start tracking referrals.
3. Confirm the widget appears on your live storefront.

Your referral program is now live. New referrals, rewards, and activity will appear in the Bloop dashboard as customers start sharing — use that data to refine your offer over time.