What Triggers a Reward?

There are two ways to trigger a reward after a person refers a friend. You can configure this in the Reward Editor from within your account. 

Signup Event

In this scenario, the reward can be earned when the friend simply signs up. This is the easiest method, as the rewards can be automatically be issued after the user successfully triggers a referral. 

Here are some examples:

• Google's "receive up to $30 for every person you refer that signs up to G Suite"
• Dropbox's "for every friend you refer, you’ll both receive an extra 250MB in cloud storage."

For a complete walk-through, see our guide How to Create a Referral Program like Dropbox.

Custom Event

In this scenario, rewards are earned when the friend completes a goal-based action at some point after signing up. 

In this setup, a referral is only counted towards the reward if the custom event is triggered. For example, in a single-sided reward that requires 20 referrals with a "purchase" custom event, if the user has earned 30 referrals already the reward will not trigger until at least 20 of those referred people makes the purchase.  

To properly record a custom event, all you need is the email address of the referred user who did the action and the name of the action. You then have different ways to tell Prefinery that the event occurred to trigger the reward if the conditions are sufficient. For more information about these options, see our guide on How to Trigger Rewards with a Custom Event. 

Here are some examples of rewards using a custom event:

• AirBnB's "send a friend $40 in Airbnb credit. You’ll get $20 when they travel and $75 when they host"
• Uber's "for every friend you refer who takes their first ride with us, we'll give you both a free ride up to $20."

For a complete walk-through, see our guide How to Create a Referral Program like AirBnB.