How To Test Your Referral Campaign Before You Launch

You've built your referral campaign and now you're excited to launch and get referrals 🚀 Before you do, make sure you test your campaign thoroughly.

In this article, you'll learn two options to test your campaign👇 but before you dive in, here is a helpful video that you should watch that shows you how to test your referral program before you launch. 

 

Option 1: Select this option to test your campaign if you want your user to start from step 1 - the person referring page.

Option 2: Select this option to test your campaign if you want your users to bypass the step 1-person referring page.


Option 1: Follow the steps below to test your referral program before you launch it to the public 👇

1. Sign up as a person referring
2. Share your referral link with a colleague or yourself
3. Sign up as a person invited
4. Qualify for a referral
5. Check your email notifications 

1. Sign up as a person referring

To do this, you need to grab your campaign join link. You can do this in two places.

From your campaigns tab: Click on the campaigns tab on the left hand side blue navigation bar. Click on the Join Link block. Copy the link and open it in a new tab in your browser.

From the Promote step: Click "Edit Campaign" on the campaign you want to test. Open the campaign builder and go to the "Promote" step - this will be the last step of the progress bar at the bottom of the builder. Copy the link and open it in a new tab in your browser.

This landing page is the 1st page that you have built for the person referring to the campaign builder. Sign up for the referral campaign as a person referring.

You will then be taken to a landing page with your referral link and any social media channels you have enabled referrers to share. This landing page is the second page for the person referring to your referral campaign.

2. Share your referral link with a colleague or yourself

Tap on one of the social media icons to share your referral link with a colleague. Doing this will also help you check the share text that people invited will see.

If you haven’t added a shared message yet, you can do so on the second page for the person referring to your campaign.

3. Sign up as a person invited

Click on the referral link you shared with yourself or a colleague and sign up as the person being invited.

There are two essential parts to note here:

1. Make sure you open this link in another browser or in incognito mode. Referral Factory works with cookies so if you have signed up as a person referring and open the referral link on the same browser, you will see the second page for the person referring again and not the landing page for the invited person.

2. You will need to use a different email address for this step as Referral Factory only allows an email address to be used once per campaign. If you don’t have another email address to use, you can add a +1 before the @ sign of your email address and it will act as a new address.

For example - We signed up as a referrer using jessica@referral-factory.com and we don't have another email address to test so, we used jessica+1@referral-factory.com to sign up as an invited person.

4. Qualify the referral

If you have opted to qualify your referrals using Referral Factory then now would be the time to test that. Locate the referred lead (this is the person invited that you just signed up as) in your database or CRM. Convert that lead into your system. If you have set up the automation correctly this will qualify the referred lead in Referral Factory.

5. Check your email notifications

Check the inbox for the email addresses you used to sign up as a person referring and a person invited so you can check the email notification that you received when you signed up. 

These are the emails you configured in the Email Notifications step inside your campaign builder. The screenshot below is an example of one such email notification and where you can edit it.

Option 2: Follow the steps below to test your referral program before you launch it to the public👇

 

1. Generate your referral links

Auto-generate a referral link for yourself. There are multiple ways to do this so make sure you choose the method that you want to use for your campaign once you launch. You can do this by uploading users to your campaign, syncing them with your CRM, using Zapier or even our API. Learn more here

 

2. Share your referral link with a colleague or yourself

Once you have generated the referral link, copy it and share your referral link with yourself or a colleague. Doing this will also help you check the share text that people invited will see. (If you haven’t added a shared message yet, you can do so on the second page for the person referring to your campaign.)

3. Sign up as a person invited

Click on the referral link you shared with yourself or a colleague and sign up as the person being invited.

There are two essential parts to note here:

1. Make sure you open this link in another browser or in incognito mode. Referral Factory works with cookies so if you have signed up as a person referring and open the referral link on the same browser, you will see the second page for the person referring again and not the landing page for the invited person.

2. You will need to use a different email address for this step as Referral Factory only allows an email address to be used once per campaign. If you don’t have another email address to use, you can add a +1 before the @ sign of your email address and it will act as a new address.

For example - We signed up as a referrer using jessica@referral-factory.com and we don't have another email address to test so, we used jessica+1@referral-factory.com to sign up as an invited person.

4. Qualify the referral

If you have opted to qualify your referrals using Referral Factory then now would be the time to test that. Locate the referred lead (this is the person invited that you just signed up as) in your database or CRM. Convert that lead into your system. If you have set up the automation correctly this will qualify the referred lead in Referral Factory.

5. Check your email notifications

Check the inbox for the email addresses you used to sign up as a person referring and a person invited so you can check the email notification that you received when you signed up. 

These are the emails you configured in the Email Notifications step inside your campaign builder. The screenshot below is an example of one such email notification and where you can edit it.

 

Now that you have tested the full user journey for the person referring and the person invited and you've checked the email notifications in your campaign and you're happy with all of the steps, you're good to go with your referral campaign 👍