The member lifecycle describes how a member can move from simply pre-registered for your referral program, to activated (engaged) and actively sharing your business. Your goal is to activate as many members as possible and keep them engaged and sharing. After all, you can’t get referrals unless you have engaged members.

Member statuses make it easier to manage your members based on where they are in their lifecycle, and manage who receives what promotional campaigns.

On your Members page, you can check the status of each member at a glance, and sort members by status using the tabs on the top menu.

Here's a detailed review of the different member statuses.

Preloaded members are members you’ve imported through a CSV file, imported through API or Zapier, or added manually as an admin (without sending an invite email).

They’ve already been registered in your program, so they already have a referral link. But they haven’t yet been invited to your program via an email, and they haven't engaged with your program.

The preloaded status enables you to upload all of your business contacts as members, without sending those members any automated program emails.

Instead, it lets you prepare a list of members and then send them a targeted invite email, to encourage them to participate in the referral program and share with friends.

Using the Bulk Import feature, you can upload your entire list of initial members as preloaded if you wish.

First, identify the business contacts that you want to participate in your referral program. Then, promote the program to them.

Preloaded members will count towards your plan’s member limit. If you are concerned about preloaded members not engaging, then talk with your Referral Rock account manager about potential options.

The Invited member status shows which members have already received an invite to your program, but haven't yet engaged with the program.

When a preloaded member gets sent an invite email, their status changes to Invited.

If the 7-day reminder is turned on, an invited member will get a second invite email 7 days after the first (but can't receive any more invites after that).

Invited members will start receiving Monthly Summaries 14+ days after the invite email. This serves as a continued reminder of the program after the two invite emails are sent.

Invited members will count towards your plan’s member limit.

Once a member (preloaded or invited) engages with your program, they become activated.

Activated members are your current sharers – active participants in your program. They can log in to the portal, share with friends, get program emails, and receive rewards.

They’ll receive automated emails meant to keep them engaged and sharing, including:

All activated members will have a “last active” date, so you know when they last engaged with your program. Find this date by clicking on a member name and opening up their Member Details menu.

Ideally, an activated member will never go dormant, as your automated program emails should keep them engaged. But if activated members haven't performed any engagement actions in a while, you can run a re-engagement campaign (member campaign) based on members’ last active date.

In addition to using the automated emails we described above, take advantage of all the other ways you already interact with your customers to promote the program.

Disabled members have no access to the referral program or program emails. They can't login, add referrals, or receive rewards. But you can still see their member details and history by opening up their Member Details menu.

A member can become disabled if they:

There are also limits on what you (the admin) can do with disabled members.

You can’t:

You can disable a member by opening their Member Details menu, selecting More Options, then selecting Disable Member. You will then be prompted to give a reason for disabling a member.

You can enable a disabled member by opening their Member Details menu, selecting More Options, then selecting Enable Member.

The member will then become preloaded if they were not invited, invited if they previously received an invite email but didn't engage, or activated if they have any history of engaging with the program.

If you exceed your member limit, then all “new” members added will automatically be disabled. At this point, you can either increase your member limit (using a paid add-on) or disable members that haven’t engaged with your program.

Once you’ve increased your member limit or disabled dormant members, you can “enable” other members (make them preloaded, invited, or activated, depending on their previous engagement status).

If you're debating between disabling or deleting members, here's the breakdown:

From the Member List, locate and click on the member, then scroll down to "disabled reason" in the member's profile.

No, there isn't a notification that goes out when members are disabled. However, you may check out your disabled members tab periodically to see if members were newly disabled.

Suddenly disabled members (that you didn’t disable manually) marked emails from Referral Rock as spam, so communications would not reach the member.

​

If a member selects emails coming from us as spam, we note that as they are not interested in the program and auto-disable them.

If you manually re-enable them, they still won’t receive emails as they opted out.