Referrals

Referrals let your customers invite friends and earn loyalty points when those friends buy. This page explains how Litestore credits the person who made the referral and what the Referrals screen tells you.

Litestore gives every customer a referral code and a short link at /r/{code} when it creates their record.

When someone clicks the link, Litestore counts the click and sets a cookie. If the visitor then signs up, Litestore writes the referrer onto the new customer's record straight away. The referrer earns loyalty points once the new customer's first order is paid.

Litestore credits the referrer at signup rather than at purchase on purpose. That way the signup step in your funnel shows what actually happened, instead of being guessed later from an order.

Where to find it

Marketing → Referrals

This screen is read-only. You can't create or edit anything on it. It only reports the funnel. Behind it, Litestore uses two records, the customer and their link.

A link for every customer

Litestore generates the code when it creates the customer record.

No referral code can match another customer's code or any short-link slug. Your own links and referral links can never clash.

Some customers were created before Litestore managed referral links. They get a link the first time someone uses their code.

How a referrer is credited

1. Someone clicks the link. Litestore counts the click on the customer's /r/{code} link and sets a cookie.
2. The cookie lasts for the attribution window, which is 30 days by default.
3. The visitor signs up. Litestore records the referrer on the new customer's record at that moment.
4. The first order is paid. The referrer then earns the reward.

Step 3 happens at signup, so Litestore credits a referrer before any order exists. This is how the middle step of the funnel gets its numbers.

A customer can't refer a new account that uses their own email address.

The reward is held

The reward is loyalty points, 100 by default.

Litestore grants the points after the referred customer's first order is paid. It holds them for a period that covers refunds, 14 days by default.

The hold stops anyone from earning points by buying something and then refunding it.

One credit per order

An order can be linked to both a collab and a customer referral. In that case the collab gets the commission and the referrer gets no points.

Each order pays out only once.

What the screen reports

The screen shows one row per referrer with these columns:

• Their code
• The link's click count
• Signups driven
• Orders driven
• Reward points earned
• Their last attributed order
• Whether the link is active, inactive or expired

Settings you can change

You can change four settings:

• Referrals on or off
• Reward points
• Reward hold
• Attribution window

If you turn customer referrals off, Litestore stops crediting new signups and stops granting rewards. Points that customers already earned stay with them. Turning the programme off won't take back what you gave.

Reading the funnel

If a link gets clicks but no signups, people are sharing it but visitors aren't converting when they arrive. Fix that on your storefront, because no referral setting will help.

If you see signups but no orders, the reward never triggers. Litestore only grants it after the first paid order.

If a referrer earned points you didn't expect, check the reward hold. The hold is what stops a refunded order from paying out.

When a referrer's row looks wrong, ask yourself one question:

Where did the funnel stop: at the click, the signup or the first paid order?

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