How can I test my referral program?

Once you've published your campaign, you'll want to fully test end-to-end (as both referrer and referred friend).
The goal is to make sure all rewards are unlocked as expected, discounts applied, emails sent out, etc.
Two important notes before you begin testing:
  1. If you are working out of a development environment (e.g., localhost), you will need to whitelist your URL.
  2. Make sure to update your anti-fraud settings to Loose in Campaign Editor > Options (more details here)

Test as a referrer:

  1. Go to your GrowSurf admin dashboard, click the Participants tab, then click "Add > Add A Participant". Enter an email address, first name, and last name. Click submit.
  2. Copy their unique referral link from the top-right More Actions dropdown menu.
    1. If you are testing on a whitelisted URL (e.g., http://localhost:3000), you just need to make sure to have ?grsf=abc123 in the URL. For example, if the referral link is https://piedpiper.com?grsf=abc123 and you are trying to test on http://localhost:3000, you would use http://localhost:3000?grsf=abc123.
  3. Follow the Test as a referred friend instructions below.
    1. Once you complete that, make sure the referrer receives GrowSurf emails (if applicable) and that integrations (e.g., Zapier, Webhooks, Mailchimp) are triggered as expected.

Test as a referred friend:

  1. Open a new incognito or private browser window (this is to avoid any cookie mixups from testing as one person on the same device). Visit the referral link that you got from step 2 in the Test as a referrer section above.
  2. Go through the normal user signup process. Your form(s) should have referral tracking set up on these already. 
    1. If you have multiple signup forms that you have referral tracking set up on (e.g., inline forms, popup forms), make sure to test each of those signup entry points as well
  3. Once you've signed up, go back to your GrowSurf admin dashboard and refresh the page. You should see that a new GrowSurf participant was added with a referral source of the participant you added from the Test as a referrer section above. If this is not the case, view this article to troubleshoot.
  4. The next step is to trigger a referral as the referred friend. Based on how you are triggering referrals -- whether that is using the REST API or Stripe integration -- go through the steps that it takes to trigger the referral (e.g., make a payment, update CRM status).
    1. Make sure that the referred friend receives GrowSurf emails (if applicable) and that integrations (e.g., Zapier, Webhooks, Mailchimp) are triggered as expected.
  5. After triggering a referral, go back to your GrowSurf admin dashboard and refresh the page. You should see a red banner indicating that there are rewards you need to approve or fulfill.
    1. If you have a reward that requires more than one referral, repeat all of the Test as a referred friend steps above until the reward is unlocked.
    2. View the full reward details from the participant's More Actions dropdown menu.

Next steps

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