Recurring rewards allow programs to be setup to reward members on an ongoing basis, instead of just a single reward. We have found that SaaS and E-Commerce companies especially benefit from a recurring reward model.
Classic SaaS Affiliate Program: A SaaS company may wish to reward members 30% of every paid invoice of the subscriptions that are brought in.
E-commerce Relationship Program: An E-Commerce company may wish to reward members after their referral makes a repeat purchase online within the first year up to a maximum reward of $500.
Recurring rewards allow for deeper flexibility in incentive structures to align members with the program managers.
Recurring Reward Workflow
The following is a typical workflow for applying Recurring Rewards:
Create a new reward rule: You will setup a reward rule in a program just like you do today but there will be a new option for to setup a recurring reward rule.
Member adds new referral: A member of the program has a referral added and the status is set to approved.
Recurring reward enrollment is created: The new referral now has a recurring reward enrollment (based on the reward rule)
A referral action is received: A referral action (like a referral pays their bill) is sent into Referral Rock to "trigger" rewards for the member based in the enrollment.
Create a new Recurring Reward
Navigate to the Reward Rules tab of the Program Editor and select Add Rule under Member Reward Rules
Under the "Reward Member With" section, select Add New Reward
Select the type of reward and enter the amount and currency (if applicable)
Select Finish
Select Setup to open the "Trigger Reward When" section
Select Recurring Referral Actions as the reward trigger
If the Recurring Referral Action option does not appear, please contact our support team. The Recurring Reward option is available for our Professional Plus and Engage Plus plans.
Select any Additional Conditions that apply to this rule (Optional)
Limit by Total Number setting allows you to set the limit of the number of individual rewards earned from a single referral's enrollment, regardless of amount.
Limit by Total Amount allows you to set a limit of the total amount of rewards a member can receive from a single referral's enrollment.
Set your desired Days After Approved and/or Event Time Range Limit. By default there is no date limitation, but you can also choose to limit by days based off of when the referral was approved, or by a specific date range.
Select your Reward Delivery to issue manually or instantly.
If issuing manually, you can choose to select an issue delay.
If you would only like the Recurring Reward rule to be active during a particular time frame, select "Limit by Date" at the top left of the Reward Rule to set the rule's Active Dates. Here you can also manually disable the rule.
Save your Recurring Reward.
Enrollment
Once a member's referral has been approved, the referral is enrolled into any active recurring rewards.
Enrollments are easily viewed on the Referral Details page. Here you can see the referral's active enrollment to a recurring reward, and the corresponding activities that took place (e.g. referral was approved and the enrollment was added to the referral) along with further details under More Details.
The Add Action button is one of our 2 manual methods of adding a Referral Action shown later in this article.
If you select the name of the enrollment, you will open up the enrollment details page for that specific referral. Here you can adjust the conditions of the enrollment, change the payout settings, disable or delete the enrollment, and easily see any Program Activities such as Referral Actions and rewards.
Any changes made on this page will only affect that particular referral's enrollment.
Only Program Activities such as rewards and Referral Actions directly related to the specific enrollment will appear on this page.
Referral Action
Once a referral has a recurring reward enrollment, you'll need to tell our system when events happen, in order to trigger that reward. We call these events Referral Actions.
A Referral Action happens outside of Referral Rock. For example, renewing a monthly subscription or making a repeat purchase.
All recurring rewards require an action in order to be triggered.
Typically, actions come from your e-commerce store, CRM, or billing system. If that action has enough information to match with an existing referral and that referral has a recurring reward enrollment then a reward is created.
This information can be sent to us through our API or Zapier. You may also manually add a Referral Action inside Referral Rock.
Manually adding a Referral Action
Referral Actions can be easily added manually either through the Referral Details page Add Action button, or through our navigation bar Referrals > Add > Action.
Adding a Referral Action is simple. Adjust the Amount field, the date that the Referral Action took place, and optionally enter an internal note explaining the action. The table below these fields will show you what Member rewards will be created due to this action, if any, along with the reward details.
The Amount field will not affect the reward amount of your Recurring Reward if it is set to a Fixed Amount. If you are using the Percentage Based rule, the reward amount will be determined based off of the Recurring Reward Rule settings along with the Amount entered.
Once a Referral Action has triggered a reward from the Enrollment, you will now see a new section on the Referral Details page Member Rewards Generated to show that the enrollment has created a reward for the Member.
Note: There can be up to a 60-minute delay between when a Referral Action is received and when the associated reward is generated inside of Referral Rock.
FAQs
Can I change the reward type of a recurring reward after it's been turned on?
Yes, but it will only affect new referrals. All existing referrals will continue to earn their existing reward type. We advise disabling the reward rule and adding a new reward rule with the desired reward type. This will ensure all referrals get your desired reward.