Referral Program: Getting set up, sharing, and monitoring

The beehiiv Referral Program is an organic way for you to continuously market to engaged audiences by offering rewards to your subscribers as incentives for referring your newsletter to others. The best part is, once you set it up, it’s fully automated and all you have to do is review the results and fulfill the rewards. 

Before diving in, please review this quick glossary of terms:

• Referrals are any subscribers who sign up to your newsletter from a subscriber referral link associated with your publication.
• Milestones are represented by the number of referrals needed to unlock the reward for that milestone.
• Rewards are the gifts received by your subscribers for meeting each milestone.

Watch and learn: How to create a referral program in beehiiv

This video covers getting started with your Referral Program including, adding your rewards and setting their milestones, creating a Milestone Email, selecting the look of your referral card, and adding your referral block to a post. These directions are also written out below. 

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How to set up your Referral Program 

When initially setting up your Referral Program, you’ll need to create the rewards and then set the milestones for those rewards (both are done using the + New Referral button). Once your Referral Program is active, you can monitor it easily from your dashboard, as explained in the next section.

1. From the left panel Dashboard, go to Grow > Referral Program. Click on the + New Referral button found in the top right corner.
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. You'll be taken to a new rewards form, divided into three steps with a summary displayed on the right. Step 1 will be open and ready for you to complete.
   
   
   
   
   
   In Step 1: Set Up Reward, you’ll be able to:

• Enter the Reward Name (required). 
• Select the Reward Type from the dropdown menu (required).
  • Physical: Ideal for sending tangible items like merchandise (e.g., t-shirts). We’ve partnered with Slingshot to help you dropship products directly to readers without managing inventory.
  • Promo Code: Best used for offering discounts or trial codes for redemption.
  • Digital: Great for delivering files, URLs, or access to digital products like virtual courses, eBooks, or PDFs.
  • Paid Subscription Gift: If you have Paid Subscription Offers enabled, you can use this option to add a subscription as a reward.
• Under Number of Referrals Needed for Milestone (required), specify how many referrals are needed to unlock this reward.
• Add a Description (required) to give subscribers a clear understanding of the reward.
• Include a Disclaimer (optional) if needed.
• Add a Prefixed Article (optional) to describe and differentiate your reward. This will be reflected in a live preview to show how it might appear. Any text entered in the Prefixed Article field will be previewed in real-time below.
• Add an Image for the reward. (Optional) 

3. Once you’ve entered all the required information, the Continue button will become active, changing from gray to black. Take a moment to review your selections, then click Continue to proceed.
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. In Step 2: Set Up Milestone Email, you’ll create the email that will be sent to subscribers who reach the specific milestone. The process is similar to creating any other post in beehiiv.
   
   Start by adding a Subject Line (required) and any Preview Text (optional). In the Content area (required), begin typing or use the / command to access the post editor tools you're already familiar with.
   
   
5. You may also want to toggle on the Send Email After Review option located above the Subject Line. Activating this option allows you to manually review each referral as they come in. If left off, the email will automatically be sent as soon as a subscriber reaches the milestone.
   
   
   
   
   
   
6. After drafting your Milestone Email, use the Preview option to see how the email will appear to your subscribers. Once you're satisfied with the content and design, click Continue to proceed to the next step.
   
   
   
   
   
   
7. In Step 3: Additional Settings, you have the option to Auto Fulfill achievements by toggling the setting on or off. This feature is helpful when your Milestone Email includes the actual reward, as it ensures accurate tracking and fulfillment.
   
   Once you've made your selections, click the Save button to complete the setup, and you'll be returned to the Referral Program overview page.
   
   
   

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Monitoring your Referral Program

After you have created some rewards and milestones, the Referral Program dashboard is where you can monitor the progress of everything.

Up top, you’ll see 3 boxes with your current stats for Subscribers with referrals, Total readers referred, and Referrals per subscriber.

Below the stats on your Referral Program dashboard, you’ll see three tabs: Overview, Fulfillment, and Configuration. Click on each tab for more details about what they offer.

Overview Tab

Below your current stats, on the Overview tab you’ll see a list of all of the rewards that have been added. Each reward also shows whether it gets auto fulfilled, what type of reward it is, and its milestone number. 

Click on the 3-dots for any of the rewards to reveal options for Edit, Delete, and Manage Promo Codes.





Fulfillment Tab

The Fulfillment tab is where you can see all of your subscribers who have reached milestones and have redeemed their rewards.

You can search and sort through your rewards and milestones as well as click on Download Referrals to save a CSV file of the data to your device. 

Click on Actions for any of the listings to reveal options for Manage Referrals, Mark as Ignored, and Mark as Pending.





Configuration Tab

The Configuration tab is where you can set the look of the actual referral block as it will appear in posts.

Under Referral Block Configuration, you can toggle on or off the Referral Program. Turning it off will exclude the referral block from all of your posts. If you have it turned on, be sure to also add an Email Description, which will be displayed in the referral block within your posts.





 

Under Referral Template Shown in Post, click the arrows to choose from a handful of templates, all of which will display your milestone rewards differently.

• Default: Shows basic text, a sharing button, and their unique sharing link.  
• Upcoming Milestone Only: Shows default content, and a preview of an upcoming milestone. 
• Reward Program Only: Shows up to 3 upcoming rewards and their unique sharing link.  
• Upcoming Milestones and Reward Program: Shows default content, the next milestone, and up to 3 upcoming rewards.

Above the template options, you can also add an Email Description, which will be displayed in the referral block within your posts.

How to add your referral block to your post

Once you’ve set up your Referral Program and configured your referral block, you can easily add your referral block to any of your posts directly from the post editor.

From an open post, start to type /Referral Program to access the block in the editor and place it in your post accordingly. Then be sure to Preview your post to see your Referral Program block designed to your publication settings. 

Note that the information you see in the block and what each of your subscribers see will differ depending on how many referrals they have, but each will also include their unique referral link.