As part of our big Referrals 2.0 release, you can now set up automated refunds as a reward to participants who refer others.
Referrals can be turned on to automatically generate a special URL with a special referral code each time someone registers. The URL looks like: https://test.runsignup.com/MoorestownTurkeyTrot?raceRefCode=HWITKUho.
When a participant shares this link with a friend via Email, Facebook, Twitter, etc., then their friend will click on it and RunSignup keeps track of who was the original referrer. This can be very powerful for promoting your race.
You can turn on referral tracking in the Promotion -> Referral Tracking -> Setup:
For example, you could set up to give a runner a $2 refund for each participant they refer to the race. The setup in the Race Director Dashboard looks like this:
The above example limits the number of refunds to 5.
Another example is to give a single large refund once a minimum number of people have been referred. In this example, the race gives a $20 Refund once 5 people register. The 0 indicates that no additional refunds will go to this person. The 1 is not too meaningful in this example like it was in the last example.
You can build more than one set of refund rules. For example in this set up, the registrant gets a $2.50 refund for each of the first 4 registrations referred. The registrant then gets a $5 refund when the 5th referred registration occurs. There are no refunds after that. The referred registrations must occur before 1/15/2016 at 11:59pm.
As the Race Director, you will be able to keep track Page Views, SignUp Page Views and Completed Registrations on a per referrer basis with the Referral Report:
You will also be able to see the refunds that were made in your financial Refund Reports with the reason for the refund automatically populated:
You can also see a summary report that measures the ROI on your referral refunds:
Refund Timing
The referral processing takes place at 12:20am. It looks at registrations from the previous day to determine which refunds to issue. Multiple referral refunds for a single registration will be grouped together. At 20 minutes after every hour, a process will run to check if any of the refunds set up in the 12:20am process can actually be refunded based on the refund reserve.
Multi-Person or Multi-Event Registration
When someone registers multiple people at once or registers for multiple events at once, a new referral code will be generated for all registrants and all registered events. However, the referral code for the first registration will be the one used in the share links on the confirmation page and E-mail.
Warning #1: Creditable Amount
The “Ensure Registration Balance ≥” option looks at the registrations creditable amount, which is the total paid for that registration minus any refunds. However, that is the total amount paid for that registration, including giveaway costs, add-ons, etc. Therefore, it is possible to refund add-on purchases on accident. For example, if a registrant purchases $15 in add-ons, but the “Ensure Registration Balance ≥” field is set to $10, it’s possible that $5 worth of add-ons are refunded.
Other Notes
- There is no cost for this service. We do NOT charge the $1 refund process fee.
- The processing fee is NOT refunded.
- Referral counts are based on number of registrations, even if the registrations are done together.