Referrals

What is a referral?

A referral is created when a friend submits their contact information through an advocate's unique referral link. The friend becomes a referral in your campaign — a lead you can follow up on and mark as converted once the job is done. When a referral converts, the friend is automatically enrolled as an advocate themselves.

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Overview

Recomly turns your existing customers into a word-of-mouth sales force. Each referral program runs inside a campaign, which defines the reward structure and the people participating.

There are four main actors in every referral:

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The referral lifecycle

1. Set up a campaign — define your reward structure (e.g. "$50 credit for the advocate, $50 off for the friend") and any expiry or limits.
2. Finish a job and invite your customer — after completing a job, invite that customer to become an advocate. Recomly sends them an email or SMS with a link to their personal advocate portal.
3. Advocate refers their friends — the advocate shares their unique referral link. When someone clicks it and submits their contact info, a pending referral appears in your dashboard and you receive a lead notification.
4. You work the lead and close the sale — contact the referral, do the job, get paid.
5. Mark the referral as converted — once the job is done, mark the referral converted in Recomly. If your campaign uses a percentage-based reward, you'll enter the total job value at this step so Recomly can calculate the exact reward amounts for the advocate and the referral. Rewards are recorded and both parties receive a notification.
6. The referral becomes an advocate — the referral is automatically enrolled in the same campaign with their own referral link, creating a self-sustaining referral chain.

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Referral statuses

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The Referrals tab

Open a campaign and click the Referrals tab to see every referral submission that has come in through that campaign's advocate links.

Each row shows:

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Filtering by status

Use the status filter at the top of the Referrals tab to show only:

• Pending — new leads waiting for follow-up
• Converted — closed jobs you have already marked
• All — the complete history

Start your daily workflow by filtering to Pending to see who needs action today.

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Marking a referral as converted

Once you have booked and completed a job for a referral:

1. Find the referral in the Pending list
2. Click Mark as converted
3. If your campaign uses a percentage-based reward, enter the total job value — Recomly uses it to calculate the exact reward amounts for both the advocate and the referral
4. Confirm in the dialog

Recomly will:

• Record the conversion with a snapshot of the current reward amounts
• Credit the advocate's reward balance
• Send reward notification emails to the advocate and the referral
• Enroll the referral as an advocate in the same campaign — they receive their own referral link, portal access, and an initial credit balance reflecting their reward from this conversion, so they can start referring people themselves

Conversions are permanent and cannot be undone from the UI. If you mark the wrong referral by mistake, contact support.

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Reward snapshots

When a referral converts, Recomly captures the exact reward values from the campaign at that moment and stores them permanently on the conversion record. This means:

• Changing reward amounts later does not retroactively affect past conversions
• Each conversion record is a reliable source of truth for what was owed
• Your payout records remain accurate even if you run multiple reward structures over time within one campaign

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Referral submission rules

Advocates cannot refer themselves

If an advocate submits their own email address or phone number via their referral link, the submission is rejected.

An advocate cannot refer the person who referred them

If advocate B was originally referred by advocate A, advocate B cannot submit advocate A’s email or phone number as a referral. This prevents simple referral ping-pong between two people.

Someone already enrolled as an advocate cannot be referred

If someone is already enrolled as an advocate on a campaign, their email or phone cannot be submitted as a new referral on that same campaign. A person cannot hold both roles simultaneously.

A person who already has a pending referral cannot be referred again

If a referral is already in the pending state for a given person on a campaign, no one — including the same advocate — can submit that person again. First submission wins. This ensures attribution is unambiguous and prevents duplicate credit for the same lead.

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Per-advocate referral limit

Each campaign has a configurable maximum number of referrals a single advocate can send. Both pending and converted referrals count toward this total — it is a lifetime cap per advocate per campaign, not a concurrent limit.

The limit can be raised per campaign up to your plan’s ceiling:

When an advocate hits their limit, their referral submission form rejects new submissions on that campaign. Campaign settings cannot exceed the plan ceiling.

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Attribution and duplicate referrals

First-mover wins

Recomly uses a first-submitted wins model for attribution. Once any advocate submits a friend (matched by email address or phone number) to a campaign, that advocate owns the referral for that campaign. If a second advocate tries to refer the same friend to the same campaign, their submission is blocked with the message:

"This person has already been referred to this campaign."

The second advocate receives no information about who referred the friend first — only that the friend is already in the system.

Why first-mover wins

Allowing multiple advocates to hold competing referrals for the same friend creates ambiguity at conversion time — you would have to choose which advocate to credit. First-mover attribution is simpler and fairer: the advocate who got there first earns the credit if and when the referral converts.

Same-advocate duplicate block

If the same advocate tries to submit the same friend twice on the same campaign while a referral is still active (pending or converted), the second submission is rejected with:

"You have already referred this person."

This prevents accidental double-submissions and quota gaming.

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Frequently asked questions

What if the same friend comes back months later through a different advocate?

It depends on what happened to the original referral:

• If the original referral is still pending — the first-mover block applies. No other advocate can submit that friend until the pending referral is either converted or deleted by the business owner.
• If the original referral was deleted — the slot is open again. A new submission from any advocate goes through normally.
• If the original referral was converted — the friend was enrolled as an advocate in that campaign. Re-submitting their email or phone will be blocked with "This person is already enrolled as an advocate in this campaign."

What if I accidentally convert the wrong referral?

Conversions cannot be undone from the UI. Contact support with the referral IDs and we can correct the record.

Can the same friend be referred to multiple campaigns at the same time?

Yes. The first-mover rule applies per campaign, not across your entire account. The same person can have a pending referral in Campaign A and a separate pending referral in Campaign B simultaneously.

What happens if I delete an advocate who was originally enrolled via a conversion?

It depends on how they try to re-enter the campaign:

• Re-invited directly by you — allowed. Once an advocate is deleted, their record is gone and the duplicate guard won't find them. They can be enrolled fresh with a new referral link and portal.
• Submitted again via the same advocate's referral link — blocked. The original converted referral record still exists with their contact info, so the referring advocate's duplicate guard fires: "You have already referred this person."
• Submitted via a different advocate's referral link — allowed. The first-mover block only looks at pending referrals, and the "already enrolled" check only looks at current advocates — neither catches a deleted advocate. They will get a new pending referral credited to the new referring advocate, which can also be converted normally.