Word of mouth has always been one of the most powerful ways to grow a store. The Perkie referral program turns that into something you can actually measure — and reward. Customers share a unique link, a friend clicks it, places an order, and both of them get something nice. You get a new customer. Everyone wins, and once it’s set up you barely have to think about it.
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Why It Matters
Referred customers convert better and tend to stick around longer than customers from ads. They arrive with a built-in layer of trust because someone they know vouched for your store. And because both sides of the referral get rewarded, you’re giving your existing customers a real reason to share — not just hoping they’ll remember to mention you.
The referral program runs itself. You set the rules once, and Perkie handles the rest: tracking clicks, recording referrals, applying rewards, and surfacing everything in your customers’ My Account pages.
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Before You Start
- Enable the feature toggle first. The referral program is turned off by default. Go to Tracksies > Settings > Features, find the Perkie tile, and make sure Referral Program is toggled on. Without this, the Referrals tab won’t appear in your Perkie settings.
- Make sure Perkie is active and your points programme is set up (earn rate, tiers) before enabling referrals. Referral rewards are issued in points or coupons, so having your base programme configured first will make the settings feel a lot more intuitive.
- If you’re planning to use the Coupon reward type, it helps to decide on a prefix and expiry period before you dive in.
- Think about your return window. The clearance period setting is designed to match it — so if you offer 14-day returns, you’d set clearance to 14 days (or a little over).
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The Steps
Step 1: Turn referrals on
- In your WordPress admin sidebar, go to Tracksies > Settings > Features
- On the Perkie tile, switch Referrals on. It ships off.
- Go to Tracksies > Perkie and click the Referrals tab, which appears once the switch is on
That one switch is all there is. Once it’s on, the rest of the settings on this tab take effect.
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Step 2 — Set the Referrer Reward
The referrer is the existing customer who shared the link. This is what they get when a friend places a qualifying order.
- Under Referrer Reward, choose your reward type:
– Loyalty Points — awarded directly to their balance
– Coupon — % off — a percentage-discount coupon code
– Coupon — fixed $ amount — a flat-dollar-off coupon code
- Enter the reward amount — points count for Points, percentage for % off, dollar amount for fixed $
- If you choose a Coupon type, the coupon settings section further down lets you configure prefix, expiry, and stackability — see Step 5
- Click Save Changes
The default of 500 points is a good starting point, but adjust it to feel meaningful relative to your earn rate. If customers typically earn 50–100 points per order, a 500-point referral reward feels like a genuine thank-you. If you’re offering coupons instead, 10% off or $10 off are sensible starting values.
Note: the Loyalty Points option is hidden when the Points feature is disabled under Tracksies > Settings > Features. You can’t award points if the points system itself is off.
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Step 3 — Set the Referee Reward
The referee is the friend who clicked the link and made a purchase. This is their welcome reward for trying your store.
- Under Referee Reward, choose the same three options: Loyalty Points, Coupon — % off, or Coupon — fixed $ amount
- Enter the amount (default is 250 points). To reward only the referrer, untick Reward the referred friend too (two-sided referral) or set the amount to 0
- Click Save Changes
You can use different reward types for the referrer and the referee — for example, points for your existing customer and a discount coupon for the newcomer. That’s a common pattern: points feel like loyalty-programme money to someone already in the programme, while a coupon works better for a first-time buyer who doesn’t know what points are worth yet.
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Step 3b — Subscription Credit routing (WC Subscriptions only)
If you’re running WooCommerce Subscriptions, a third option appears in the Referrals tab: Subscription Credit toggle. This one needs a second switch too, Subscription Credit Payout at Tracksies > Settings > Features, which also ships off. The two names are nearly identical and both have to be on.
When enabled, Perkie checks at referral-completion time whether the referrer has an active subscription. If they do, their reward is applied as a renewal-only coupon on their next subscription renewal instead of as a standalone coupon. The customer’s next renewal invoice shows the discount as its own line item — “Renewal Discount −$10” — and the coupon expires after that one use.
Requires the referrer reward type to be a coupon type (Points rewards can’t be routed to renewals — they just go to the balance as normal).
Falls back to the standard coupon flow if the referrer has no active subscription, so it’s safe to turn on even when only some of your customers are subscribers.
When to use it: stores where a meaningful chunk of your customer base is on subscriptions. Subscription credit is psychologically worth more to a subscriber than a standalone coupon — it reduces their next auto-bill, which is a visible, imminent saving rather than a code they have to remember to use.
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Step 4 — Configure Cookie Duration and Minimum Order
Cookie Duration
When a friend clicks a referral link, Perkie sets a cookie in their browser. If they place an order before that cookie expires, the referral is recorded.
- Under Cookie Duration, enter the number of days (default is 30)
- Click Save Changes
30 days is a generous window and works well for most stores. If your products take some consideration before purchase, you might increase it.
Minimum Order
You can optionally require a minimum order value before a referral counts as successful.
- Under Minimum Order, enter an amount in dollars (default is $0, meaning any purchase qualifies)
- Click Save Changes
Leaving this at $0 maximises the number of successful referrals. Setting a threshold (for example, $50) means only orders above that value trigger rewards — useful if you’re concerned about very small orders gaming the system.
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Step 5 — Coupon Settings (if using Coupon rewards)
If you chose Coupon as the reward type for either the referrer or the referee, you’ll see a Coupon Settings section.
- Set the Coupon Prefix — this appears at the start of every generated coupon code (default is
REF-). You can change this to anything that makes sense for your store. - Set the Coupon Expiry — how many days the coupon is valid after it’s issued (default is 30 days)
- Stackable is ticked by default, so these referral coupons can be combined with other coupons at checkout. Untick it if you’d rather they can only be used on their own.
- Click Save Changes
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Step 6 — Clearance Period and Fraud Prevention
Both protections are on by default. Keep them on if your store has a return window, which most do.
Enable Delayed Rewards
- Find the Clearance Period section under the Referrals tab
- In the Delayed Rewards row, Enable clearance period before rewarding referrals is ticked by default
- Set the Clearance Days: how long Perkie waits before issuing rewards after a referral order completes (default is 16 days)
A good rule of thumb: set clearance days to match your return window, or just slightly over it. If you offer 14-day returns, 16 days gives a small buffer.
Fraud Detection
- Enable Fraud Detection is on by default
- Perkie will flag referrals that look suspicious based on three signals:
– Same billing address as the referrer
– Same email domain as the referrer (for example, both using the same company email)
– Same IP address as the referrer at the time of purchase
- Click Save Changes
Flagged referrals are held for your review — they are not automatically blocked or rejected. You’ll be able to see flagged referrals in the admin and decide whether to approve or discard them.
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The Customer Experience
Here’s what the journey looks like from your customer’s point of view:
- A customer visits My Account and clicks the Points & Rewards tab
- They scroll down to the Refer a Friend section
- They see their unique referral link — something like
yoursite.com/?ref=ABC123— along with a Copy button - They copy the link and share it however they like: text, email, social media, whatever feels natural
- Their friend clicks the link. Perkie sets a cookie in the friend’s browser, valid for however many days you configured
- The friend browses the store and places an order
- Once the order is marked complete, Perkie records the referral as successful
- If you have delayed rewards enabled, both parties wait for the clearance period to pass
- Once cleared (or immediately if delayed rewards are off), both the referrer and the referee receive their rewards. A friend who isn’t a member yet has their points held, and paid once they join or create an account
Customers can also see their referral history right in the Points & Rewards tab — how many successful referrals they’ve made, how much they’ve earned through referrals, and any rewards currently waiting for clearance.
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About Referral Codes
Each customer’s referral code is six characters long, using uppercase letters and numbers. To keep them easy to read and share, Perkie deliberately avoids characters that look alike — so you won’t see O and 0, or I, 1, and L in a code. Every customer gets one code that stays the same, so they can save and reuse their link as many times as they like.
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Common Questions
Can someone refer a customer who’s already bought from my store?
The referral system records a referral when the referee’s purchase completes. If the friend already has an account or has ordered before, Perkie will still record the referral and issue the reward — there’s no “new customers only” gate built in. If you’d like to restrict referrals to first-time customers only, this is worth bearing in mind when planning your reward values.
What if the referee returns their order?
Perkie reverses the referral if the referee’s order is refunded, cancelled, or partly refunded by half or more. A reward coupon that hasn’t been used yet is withdrawn. One that has already been spent is left alone. Referral points come back off the balance even if they’ve been spent, so a balance can go below zero until the customer earns more. The clearance period still helps: by holding rewards until your return window closes, fewer go out for orders that come back. That’s the main reason Delayed Rewards is worth turning on if your store has a return policy.
Can I see all referrals from the admin side?
Yes. The All Referrals list on the Referrals tab in Tracksies > Perkie shows both customers, the order and the status: pending, completed, rewarded, flagged or rejected. You can filter it by status. A flagged referral links down to Flagged for Review, where you approve or reject it. The list shows referrals that led to an order, not every click on a referral link.
What if a customer loses their referral link?
No problem — it’s always there in their Points & Rewards tab in My Account. Their code never changes, so they can come back and copy their link any time.
Can a customer refer themselves?
Fraud Detection helps with this — if the referrer and the order share the same IP address, email domain, or billing address, the referral gets flagged for your review rather than automatically rewarded.
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If Something Goes Wrong
Referrals aren’t being recorded
Check that the Referrals switch at Tracksies > Settings > Features is on. Then double-check the referral link format — the ?ref= query string needs to reach the site intact. Some link shorteners or social media platforms strip query strings; if your customers are using one of those, the referral won’t register.
Rewards aren’t being issued
If delayed rewards are enabled, rewards won’t appear until the clearance period has passed. If the clearance period has passed and rewards still haven’t appeared, find the referral in the All Referrals list on the Referrals tab. If it’s flagged, it’s waiting for you to approve it.
A referral is stuck on “Pending”
Referrals move to Complete when the order is marked complete in WooCommerce. If an order stays in Processing for a long time, the referral will stay pending. Check the order status first — once it’s set to Complete, the referral should update shortly after.
Coupons aren’t being generated
Make sure the Coupon reward type is properly saved and that WooCommerce’s coupon system is enabled on your site (WooCommerce > Settings > General > Enable coupons). If coupons are disabled in WooCommerce, Perkie can’t create them.
A referral was flagged but looks legitimate
Head to the referral record in your Perkie admin and approve it manually. The fraud flags are signals, not definitive blocks — family members living at the same address, for example, will trigger the billing address check even if the referral is completely genuine.