Run referral rewards or an affiliate program
Let customers recommend you for rewards, or let partners recommend you for a commission: turning each mode on, how people join, what counts, settling commissions, the e-mails each side gets and how refunds work.
Referral programs let other people bring you buyers through a personal link. Zanfia has two modes, and they serve different purposes:
| Referral rewards | Affiliate program | |
|---|---|---|
| What for | free word of mouth, for example around a product launch | partners who recommend you for money |
| Who joins | your customers | partners: other creators, collaborators, affiliates |
| What they get | rewards at 1, 3 or more referrals: access to a product, a coupon code, a digital or physical prize; optionally a discount for the friend | a commission on each referred buyer's first purchase, as a percent or a flat amount |
| Their page on your site | Refer a friend (/app/referrals) | Affiliate program (same page, the partner view) |
| Money | none | yes, you pay partners outside Zanfia |
You run both from Marketing → Referral programs (/marketing/referrals). This article has one part per mode, then the rules both share: the link and its limits, and refunds.
Plan
Both modes are available on Growth and above, and during the free trial. On Starter both cards in New program are locked with an upgrade button. A program that is already running keeps counting after a plan change; creating or activating a program and enrolling people needs Growth or higher.
Part 1: Referral rewards
Your customers share a link, their friends buy, and the customer collects rewards at the thresholds you set.
Create the program
Open Marketing → Referral programs (/marketing/referrals), click New program and pick
Referral rewards. Give it a Program name, choose the Products whose purchase counts as
a referral (at least one), and leave Active on.
Set the rewards
Under Rewards every reward is a card that sums it up in one sentence, for example "After 3 referrals: discount code [code]". Set Referrals needed and pick the Reward; Add reward adds the next card. More options holds the rest: Repeat the reward gives it again at every multiple of the threshold, and Approve manually holds each reward until you approve it on the program page. On a saved program, Set up rewards with the agent opens the assistant, which checks the current rewards and suggests what to give and after how many referrals. The reward is one of:
- Product access: pick the Product; the card's sentence shows its full name. Under More options, Access length is No end date or Limited time, for a number of days.
- Coupon code: pick one of your existing codes under Discount code. Zanfia sends it, and every winner gets the same code.
- Digital prize or Physical prize: type What the participant gets and deliver it yourself.
Add a discount for the friend (optional)
In Discount for the referred friend (optional) pick one of your discount codes. A friend who arrives through a customer's link sees it already applied at checkout, on a product's checkout page and in the checkout window of a page built in Zanfia. Save the program.
Bring customers in
Customers join in two ways:
- By themselves: a customer signed in on your site opens Refer a friend in the account
menu (
/app/referrals) and clicks Join the program. They get their personal link right away. - All at once: on the program page click Enroll all customers. The confirmation shows how many customers of the program's products it enrolls ("You'll enroll [N] customers.") and the box Email their personal link to everyone who agreed to receive emails, ticked by default. Untick it to enroll them silently. The e-mail goes only to customers on your marketing list (subscribed to your e-mails); the others are enrolled too and find their link on Refer a friend.
Follow the results
The program page shows Participants, Valid referrals, Rewards delivered and rewards Awaiting approval. Under Rewards, approve or reject the rewards that wait for you, and retry a delivery that failed.
What counts as a referral
- A friend's purchase of one of the program's products through the customer's link. A free signup to a program product counts too.
- Each friend counts once per program. A customer's own purchase through their own link never counts.
- The customer sees their progress on Refer a friend: their link, the reward ladder ("[current] of [target] referrals to your next reward") and the rewards they earned. Refer a friend works in the browser, on phones too, and in the mobile app, where the customer finds Refer a friend in their profile.
E-mails in Referral rewards
| Who | When |
|---|---|
| The customer | they joined (by themselves, or through Enroll all customers with the e-mail box ticked): a welcome with their personal link |
| The customer | they reached a reward |
| You | a reward waits for your approval (with Approve manually), and when a customer reached a reward |
When you enroll many customers at once, the welcome e-mails go out spread over time, not in one burst.
Part 2: Affiliate program
Partners share their link, buyers pay, and each partner earns a commission you approve and pay out yourself.
Create the program
Open Marketing → Referral programs, click New program and pick Affiliate program. Give it a Program name and choose the Products that earn a commission.
Set the commission and the waiting period
In Default commission choose Percent (of the net amount after discount) or Flat amount (per sale, in the order's currency). Waiting period is how many days a commission waits before you can approve it, for example a 14-day withdrawal period (14 days by default, 0 allowed). Save. Later you can give a partner their own rate with Change rate on Partners.
Invite partners
Partners join in two ways:
- Invite link: on the program page, the Invite link card has a link anyone can open to join as a partner. They enter their e-mail, confirm it with a code and get their partner link at once. Generate new replaces the link; the old one stops working, partners who already joined stay.
- Add partner: on Partners, type the partner's e-mail and name. They are added to your contacts and you see their link to send them.
Check your invoice details
Partners see your invoice details on their page under To invoice, so they know whom to bill.
The details come from Settings → Billing (/settings/billing). If they are empty, partners
see a note to ask you directly.
Settle the commissions
Every sale through a partner link shows on Conversions as Pending. Then:
- Approve once the waiting period is over (before that the button says "You can approve after [date] (withdrawal period)"). Tick several rows to approve them together.
- Reject asks for a reason; the partner sees it next to that sale.
- Edit amount changes a commission before you pay it.
- Mark as paid after you have paid the partner outside Zanfia.
- Export CSV downloads the list with your filters (partner, status, settlement, product, dates) for your bookkeeping.
What counts as a commission
- The first purchase of each buyer, per program. Later purchases and subscription renewals of the same buyer earn nothing.
- Net of VAT, after discount. Order bumps and one-time offers bought in the same order are part of the base.
- Not counted: a partner's own purchase, a sale while the program is inactive, a sale by a blocked partner, a free order, a product outside the program.
- The partner sees each sale on their page with the buyer's e-mail masked, and four totals: Pending, Approved, Paid and Cancelled. Block on Partners stops new commissions for a partner; the ones already earned stay.
Paying partners
Zanfia doesn't pay partners. You pay them yourself, usually against their invoice, and then click Mark as paid. The partner's To invoice box shows the approved commissions not paid yet.
E-mails in the affiliate program
| Who | When |
|---|---|
| The partner | they joined (invite link or Add partner): a welcome with their partner link |
| The partner | a sale through their link: the commission amount and, with a waiting period, the date until which it waits; never the buyer's e-mail |
| The partner | their commission was approved, rejected (with your reason) or marked as paid |
| The partner | on the 1st of each month: a statement of approved commissions not paid yet, with your invoice details |
| You | a new partner joined |
| You | on Monday mornings, when commissions past their waiting period wait for you: "[N] commissions waiting for approval", once a week per program |
Partner e-mails come from your sender and brand, in the language of your site.
Shared rules
The link
- Every participant's link looks like
https://[your site]/r/[code]. For a program with one product it opens that product's checkout; otherwise your home page. - The link is remembered for 30 days, so a buyer can come back later and still count.
- Someone who signs up through one of your forms after a partner's link is tied to that partner for good, but only if the signup created a new contact. An existing subscriber who signs up again is not tied to a partner.
- A page with its own domain sends
/r/links to your site's main address, where the link is remembered. Share links on the main address.
Refunds
A full refund cancels what the purchase earned: in Referral rewards the referral stops counting (a reward already delivered stays); in the Affiliate program a commission that is still Pending is cancelled with the reason "Order refunded".
Whether Zanfia learns about the refund depends on where you make it:
| Where you refund | Reversed automatically |
|---|---|
| In Zanfia (card refund, or a refund you record in Zanfia) | yes |
| In the Stripe panel | yes |
| PayU, in Zanfia or in its panel | yes |
| In the Tpay, Przelewy24, PayNow, PayPal or TubaPay panel | no: also record the refund in Zanfia, or the commission stays |
| A partial refund, anywhere | no |
To record a refund made in a gateway's panel, open the client's Access tab, choose Revoke with refund… on the product and pick The funds were manually refunded. See Cancel or revoke a subscription.
A refund after you approved or paid a commission doesn't change it. The row shows Refunded after approval, and you decide what to do, for example Reject it if you haven't paid it yet.
Good to know
Programs created with the earlier version of referrals are listed in the Old programs section on Referral programs, read-only. They keep working as they did; new programs are created with New program.
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