Your best subscribers know people who would like your emails too. Share with a friend gives each of them their own link to your signup form. A friend counts for the person who shared it once the friend signs up through it, confirms their email, and then clicks a link in one of your emails. At the numbers you pick, they get a reward: a tag and an email you write, for example with a promo code or a free guide.
It is part of email, so you find it under Settings, Email, below Signup forms.
Switch it on
- Make a signup form first, if you have none.
- Go to Settings, then Email, and find Share with a friend.
- Under Signup form the link opens, pick the form.
- Add up to three rewards, for example at 1, 3 and 10 friends. For each, pick a tag they get, and write a few words about what they get. The words show on their page.
- Press Switch on.
The links work without rewards too. Then people only see how many friends joined.
Put the link in an email
Each person gets their own link. There are two ways to put it in an email:
- Add the Share with a friend block. It shows a few words you write, the person's link, a button to their sharing page and how many friends joined so far.
- Or type the tag Referral link in any text, for example "Send this to a friend: {{referral_link}}". The tag Friends who joined gives the number.
The block and the tags work in campaigns and in automation emails. A good place is the welcome email: people are most keen right after they sign up.
While Share with a friend is off, the block is left out of the email and the tags show the fallback you wrote. The checks panel tells you before you send.
The sharing page
The button in the block opens the person's own page. It shows their link with a Copy link button, a Share button on phones, and Email it. It also shows how many friends joined, how many signed up and still wait for their first click, and the next reward.
The page and the link are the person's own. The link itself says nothing about who they are: it holds a short code, never a name or an address.
Send a reward email
Each reward can send an email. It is an automation that starts when someone reaches that number of friends.
- Under the reward, press Write the reward email.
- Write the email. Put the promo code or the link to the guide in it.
- Press Start.
You can also make one from Email, Automations: pick Friends join through their link under What starts it, and type the number.
The tag goes on the contact at the same moment. You can use it for a segment, or to start another automation.
What counts
A friend counts once, and only when:
- they sign up through the link and press the button in the confirmation email
- after that, they click a link in a campaign or automation email you send them, within 60 days
- their address was not on your list before, also not written another way (a Gmail address with or without dots is the same address)
- they are not the person who shared the link
- at the moment they click, they and the person who shared the link are both still on your list, and Share with a friend is on
The click is what makes it count. A made-up address can be confirmed by a script, but it rarely clicks a link in an email days later. Opening an email does not count: some email apps, like Apple Mail, open every email by themselves. A click in the first minute after an email goes out does not count either, since some mail filters open every link when an email arrives. The links in the email footer, like Unsubscribe, never count.
Until that click, the friend is waiting. You see them under Your numbers, and the person who shared the link sees them on their sharing page. A friend who has not clicked a link within 60 days of confirming no longer counts.
One link counts at most 20 new friends a day. Friends after that still sign up as usual, and they do not count that day. This keeps a link posted somewhere public from filling your list with fake signups.
A reward goes out once per number. Someone who reaches 3 friends gets the reward for 3 once, even if a friend later unsubscribes.
Your numbers
Below the settings you see how many friends joined, per week for the last 12 weeks, and the people who brought in the most. When some friends signed up and wait for their first click, a line says how many, for example "1 more friend signed up and is waiting for their first click". They move to the count when they click. You see how many each person brought, never who. Subscribers only ever see their own link and their own count.
FAQ
Do friends get anything?
They get your emails, and the welcome email of the form if you wrote one. To give them a gift too, put it in the form's thank-you gift or its welcome email.
Can someone cheat by signing up with made-up addresses?
A friend counts only after they confirm their email and then click a link in one of your later emails, so every address must be a real inbox that someone reads. A link counts at most 20 friends a day, and the same inbox written another way does not count twice.
Why does a friend who signed up not count yet?
They count at their first click on a link in one of your emails, a minute or more after it was sent. Until then they show as waiting. Send your next campaign, or give your signup form a welcome email with a link in it, and most friends count within a few days.
What happens if I switch it off?
Links stop showing in your emails, and friends who confirm or click after that do not count. Links in emails already sent still open the form, so people can still sign up. Switch it on again and counting starts again, with everyone's count as it was.
Does it work with a form on my own website?
The link opens the form page Postfjord hosts for your form. Signups on your own website count only when they come through that page.
Can I change the numbers later?
Yes. A reward email starts at the number it names. If you change a reward from 3 to 5 friends, open its email and change the number under What starts it too.