Email Notifications
Referral emails carry the invite that asks a customer to share, the reward that thanks them when they do, and the nudge that brings a forgotten code back into use. Bloop ships 16 of these emails, sends them automatically at the right moment, and lets you rewrite every word so they sound like your store.
Each email is a template you can switch on or off, personalise with variables that fill in real values like the reward amount and coupon code, and time with a trigger. Configure them under Branding → Emails, where every email has its own content (subject, body, button, sender) and trigger setting. The sections below walk through the full set, what makes a referral email work, and how to edit and test a template.
Best practice: Treat the invite and the successful-referral emails as your two highest-value sends — one drives sharing, the other reinforces it — and write them in a warm, personal voice rather than transactional copy. Always send yourself a test before going live. For copy you can adapt, see referral email templates and these referral message examples.
The referral emails Bloop can send
Bloop ships with the following referral email types. Each is enabled by default unless noted, with a ready-to-use template you can keep or replace.
Sharing
Referee
A referrer shares their link by email through your widget — delivers the friend's invitation and reward
Invite
Referrer
A customer joins the program — gives them their referral link to start sharing
Gift
Referee
A referee is sent a gift/discount code to redeem
Successful referral (discount)
Referrer
A referral converts and the referrer's reward is a discount code
Successful referral (store credit)
Referrer
A referral converts and the referrer's reward is store credit
Successful referral (cash)
Referrer
A referral converts and the referrer's reward is cash
Successful referral (custom)
Referrer
A referral converts and the referrer's reward is a custom reward you fulfil by hand
Pending referral
Referrer
A referral is recorded but the reward is awaiting review
Denied referral
Referrer
A referral did not qualify for a reward
Not enough referrals
Referrer
A referral succeeds but the referrer still needs more to hit a referee-count goal
Referrer reward expiry
Referrer
The referrer's reward is close to expiring (default: 3 days before)
Referee reward expiry
Referee
The referee's reward is close to expiring (default: 3 days before)
Remind referee
Referee
Reminds a referee to use an unredeemed reward (default: 7 days after)
Remind referrer
Referrer
Reminds a referrer to use an unredeemed reward (default: 7 days after)
Cash payout
Referrer
A cash reward has been paid out
Remind referrer to refer
Referrer
A recurring nudge to keep sharing (default: every 2 weeks)
Bloop offers four reward types for a successful referral — discount, store credit, cash, and custom — with a dedicated "successful referral" email for each, so the wording matches what the referrer actually receives. The custom version announces a reward you fulfil by hand and has no discount code or value to show, so it leans on the reward's description instead. The denied-referral and not-enough-referrals emails depend on how you've set up reward conditions and minimum referee requirements.
The four jobs these emails do
Grouping the 16 templates by job makes it easier to prioritise which to polish and which to leave on autopilot.
Recruit a sharer
Invite, Sharing
Turns a customer into a referrer and reaches their friend
Highest — this is where new referrals start
Reward and reinforce
Successful referral (discount/credit/cash), Cash payout, Gift
Confirms the payoff and makes the next share more likely
High — gratitude is what compounds a program
Manage expectations
Pending referral, Denied referral, Not enough referrals
Keeps a referrer informed when a reward is held, declined, or not yet earned
Medium — clarity prevents support tickets
Recover a lapsing reward
Reward expiry (×2), Remind referee, Remind referrer, Remind referrer to refer
Rescues unredeemed value and revives quiet referrers
Medium — easy revenue you'd otherwise lose
If you only ever polish two of these, polish the invite and the successful-referral email. The invite decides whether a willing customer ever shares; the successful-referral email decides whether they share again.
What makes a referral email actually work
A referral email is not a transactional receipt — it is a request or a thank-you between people, and it performs best when it reads that way. Four things move the needle:
The subject line earns the open. Name the benefit in plain words. "Your friend Maya sent you 20% off" beats "You have a new notification." Use
{{ReferrerName}}or{{StoreName}}to make it concrete, and keep it short enough to survive a phone's preview.Personalisation makes it feel sent, not generated. Drop in the real reward (
{{ReferrerReward}}), the friend's name, the actual code ({{CouponCode}}), and — on the sharing email — the personal note the referrer wrote ({{Message}}). That note is the most persuasive element you can include: a real recommendation in a real voice.One clear action per email. Every email should ask for exactly one thing: share, redeem, or come back. Two competing asks halves the response to both.
Timing decides whether anyone acts. A thank-you that lands the moment a referral converts feels alive; one that arrives a week later feels like bookkeeping. Reminders work because most unredeemed rewards are forgotten, not refused — a nudge a week after the reward, and again before it expires, recovers value with almost no effort.
These principles are why referral emails outperform ordinary promotional email: they carry an implicit personal endorsement. A recommendation from a friend is the most trusted form of marketing — Nielsen's Global Trust in Advertising study found 92% of people trust recommendations from people they know above any advertising. Your sharing email is the vehicle for that trust, so write it as the referrer would talk, not as your brand would broadcast.
How triggers work
Each email's timing is controlled by its trigger setting. There are five trigger types:
Immediate
Sends as soon as the event happens (the default for most emails)
Delayed
Sends a set number of days after the event
Event after
Sends a number of days after a reference event — used for reminders
Event before
Sends a number of days before a reference event — used for expiry warnings
Recurring
Sends repeatedly on a schedule, with a stop condition
Most emails are immediate. The reminder and expiry emails come pre-set with sensible defaults you can change:
Reward expiry (referrer and referee) — event before, 3 days.
Reminder to use a reward (referrer and referee) — event after, 7 days.
Remind referrer to refer — recurring, every 2 weeks.
Recurring emails keep sending until a stop condition is met: a number of successful referrals reached, a number of emails already sent, or a time limit (the "remind referrer to refer" email defaults to stopping after 12 months).
The defaults are chosen so each job lands at the right moment: rewards and confirmations fire immediately while the customer is still engaged, reminders wait a week so they nudge rather than nag, and expiry warnings arrive just before value would be lost. Change the numbers to fit your sales cycle, but keep the shape — immediate for gratitude, delayed for recovery.
A worked example: the email sequence behind one referral
The wording below is illustrative — it shows how the emails chain together, not a fixed script.
Follow a single referral from invitation to second share to see how the templates work as a sequence.
Maya joins the program. Bloop sends the Invite email immediately: subject "Maya, here's your link to share 20% off." Body uses
{{ReferralLink}}and explains the give-and-get. One button: Share your link.Maya shares with Leo via the widget. Bloop sends the Sharing email to Leo immediately: subject "Maya sent you 20% off at {{StoreName}}." It carries Maya's personal
{{Message}}("you'll love their candles") and Leo's{{CouponCode}}. One button: Shop now.Leo buys. The referral converts. Bloop sends Maya the Successful referral (store credit) email immediately: subject "Your friend's order earned you $10." It shows
{{ReferrerReward}}and thanks her warmly. This is the reinforcement moment — the email that makes the next share likely.Maya's credit sits unused for a week. The Remind referrer email fires (event after, 7 days): "Don't forget — you've got $10 waiting." Recovered value, zero extra work.
Two weeks on, Maya hasn't shared again. The Remind referrer to refer recurring email nudges her: "Know someone else who'd love {{StoreName}}?" It keeps nudging on schedule until she refers again or the 12-month stop condition is hit.
No single email carries the program — the sequence does. The invite starts it, the sharing email does the persuading, the successful-referral email banks the goodwill, and the reminders make sure nothing earned is left on the table.
Enabling and disabling emails
Every email can be turned on or off independently — toggling an email off stops it from sending without deleting your edits. Some emails (such as denied referral) may ship disabled by default, since not every store wants to email customers about a referral that didn't qualify.
When an email is disabled, Bloop skips it at send time rather than queueing it, so turning an email back on only affects events going forward.
Editing an email template
Open any email under Branding → Emails and you can edit:
Subject line — the email's subject, with variables supported.
Body — the main message. You can format text, add headings, and insert variables.
Button — the call-to-action button text, link behaviour, colour, and font. Leave the button text empty to hide it.
Sender and reply-to — handled in your wider email settings; the referrer/referee address comes from the customer involved.
Image — an optional header image (available on paid plans).
Changes save per store and apply to every future send of that email type. Clearing your edits restores the default template Bloop provides for that email.
Tip: The button links to your store by default. You can point it at a specific page — for example a collection or your referral landing page — using the redirect option on the email.
Template variables
Variables are placeholders wrapped in double braces, like {{StoreName}}. Bloop replaces them with real values when the email sends. If a variable has no value for a given send, Bloop leaves the placeholder text rather than showing a blank — use only variables that fit the email.
{{StoreName}}
Your store name
{{ReferrerName}}
The referrer's name
{{ReferrerReward}}
The referrer's reward (discount amount or value)
{{RefereeReward}}
The referee's reward
{{ReferralLink}}
The referrer's unique referral link (rendered as a clickable link)
{{ReferralCode}}
The referrer's referral discount code
{{CouponCode}}
The coupon/discount code for the recipient
{{ReferrerMinimumRequirement}}
The minimum purchase, item count, or referee count the referrer must meet
{{RefereeMinimumRequirement}}
The minimum the referee must meet to earn their reward
{{ReferrerCodeExpired}}
How long until the referrer's code expires (e.g. "7 days")
{{RefereeCodeExpired}}
How long until the referee's code expires
{{RemainQuantityOfReferees}}
How many more friends the referrer needs to refer to earn the reward
{{Message}}
The personal note a referrer adds when sharing
Use the variable that matches the email. For example, a successful-referral email naturally uses {{ReferrerReward}}, while a gift or expiry email uses {{CouponCode}} and {{RefereeReward}}.
The referral hub button
Referrer-facing emails — the invite, pending, denied, not-enough-referrals, reward expiry, reminders, and the recurring refer nudge — automatically carry a button that opens the referrer's personal referral hub, already signed in. There's nothing to configure: the link is a secure, single-referrer magic link valid for two hours from when the email was sent, so a referrer can jump straight from an email to their rewards, tiers, and share tools. The friend-facing (referee) emails and the reward-earned success emails don't carry it.
If you send referral emails through Klaviyo or Mailchimp instead, use the permanent hub link those integrations sync (BLOOP Hub Portal / *|BLOOPHUB|*) rather than the built-in button — see Klaviyo and Mailchimp.
A note on languages
Each referral email has one template per store. Bloop does not store separate language versions of an email, so if your audience is in one market you can write the templates in that language. The customer-facing referral widget and sharing pages support many on-site languages — see social sharing branding for those storefront translations.
Test before you go live
Before relying on an email, send yourself a test. A test send uses sample values (a placeholder coupon like BLOOP123example and an example link) so you can preview the layout and wording exactly as a customer would see it, without affecting a real referral. Read it on a phone as well as a desktop — most referral emails are opened on mobile, where a too-long subject line or a buried button quietly costs you opens and clicks.
Common mistakes to avoid
Writing transactional, not personal. A referral email that reads like a shipping confirmation wastes its strongest asset — an implied recommendation between friends. Warm beats formal.
Two asks in one email. Pairing "share again" with "redeem your reward" splits attention and weakens both. One email, one button, one action.
Leaving the personal note out of the sharing email.
{{Message}}is the referrer's own voice and the most persuasive element you have. Dropping it turns a recommendation into an ad.Disabling reminders to "avoid spamming." Most unredeemed rewards are forgotten, not refused. Skipping the reminder and expiry emails throws away revenue a single nudge would recover.
Going live without a test send. A broken variable or a subject cut off on mobile is invisible until a customer sees it. Always preview first.
Related
Referral rewards — set the discount, store credit, or cash that these emails announce.
Referral campaign settings — control the conditions that decide when a referral succeeds, pends, or is denied.
Social sharing branding — customise the on-site widget and its languages.
Referral email templates — copywriting ideas you can adapt for the editable templates above.
Referral message examples — ready-to-tweak wording for the invite and sharing emails.
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