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Referral Factory Make integrationAutomate Referral Factory with Make.

Can a referral program run itself once a sale closes? The Referral Factory Make integration gives you 7 modules: 2 instant triggers and 5 actions. This guide is for marketers who own the program and want to link it to the rest of their tools, one clear step at a time.

Try the Referral Factory integration on MakeSee the 7 modules

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What you can automate

What does the Referral Factory Make integration do?

It links your Referral Factory account to Make so referral events start work in your other tools, and your other tools can update the referral program. In Make you build a scenario, the automation itself, from modules: each module is one brick, either a trigger that starts the flow or an action that does something.

Rewards that close the loop. Watch issuing rewards starts a scenario when a reward is issued, so the next module can log it in a spreadsheet or thank the referrer through your email tool.

Converted customers qualified on their own. When your billing or shop tool records a payment, Qualify user with email address, Qualify user with coupon or Qualify user with referral code tells Referral Factory that the referred lead converted. Pick the one that matches the data you have at hand.

New signups enrolled in the program. Add New User puts a person into your referral campaign and hands back their unique referral link, ready to drop into a welcome message. Watch new users works the other way: each new referred lead can land in your CRM.

The integration has no search module, so a scenario cannot look up an existing user with a listed module. For any other endpoint, Make an API Call reuses the same connection. The same app often has an n8n node too; the n8n vs Make page lays out the differences, and Make training covers the editor from the start. If something breaks, see Make troubleshooting.

Connect

How do you connect Referral Factory to Make?

  1. 01

    Copy your API key

    In your Referral Factory dashboard, open Settings, then the API Access or API tab, and copy the API key shown there. You need an active Referral Factory account for this key to exist.

  2. 02

    Add a Referral Factory module

    In a scenario, add any Referral Factory module and click Create a connection. A connection is your account linked to Make once, then reused by every Referral Factory module you add later.

  3. 03

    Paste the key and save

    Give it a name in Connection name if you plan to link several accounts, which is optional. Paste the API key, or follow the instructions on screen, and save. Make then shows the connection as ready.

First scenario

Your first scenario: qualify a referred customer after a sale

GoalWhen a customer pays in your billing tool, Make tells Referral Factory that this referred user converted.

  1. 01

    Create the scenario

    From the Scenarios page, create a new scenario and click the +. Pick the trigger of the tool where payments happen, your shop or billing app, and link its account.

  2. 02

    Add the qualify action

    Click the + on the right of that first module, search for Referral Factory and choose Qualify user with email address. Click Create a connection and paste your API key.

  3. 03

    Map the customer email

    Fill the module with the email address coming from the payment module. Each bundle, one item passing from a module to the next, here one payment, carries that address.

  4. 04

    Test with Run once

    Click Run once to execute the scenario a single time, then open the bubbles above each module to read the bundles it received and check that the right person was qualified.

  5. 05

    Schedule and switch on

    Set the schedule on the first module, every 15 minutes by default, then switch the scenario on. Each module run on one bundle counts as one operation on your Make plan.

Triggers

What can start a Referral Factory scenario?

2 modules start a scenario when something happens in Referral Factory. A scheduled trigger is checked by Make on the scenario's schedule; an instant one is called by Referral Factory as soon as it happens.

Referral Factory1Watch issuing rewards

Watch issuing rewards

Instant trigger

In Make“Triggers when rewards issued via make.com”

This trigger turns every issued reward into the start of a follow-up, so nobody has to remember to thank a referrer or update the books by hand. The official description says it fires when rewards are issued via make.com.

How it fires
instant. Referral Factory calls Make through a webhook as soon as it happens, which is the lightning badge on the module.
When to use it
a referrer just earned a reward and the finance team wants a line in their tracking sheet.
Watch out
click Create a webhook before the connection, otherwise the trigger has no address to receive events.
Referral Factory2Watch new users

Watch new users

Instant trigger

In Make“Triggers when a new user has been referred to your campaign. This is often called a new referred lead.”

Every person referred to your campaign becomes a fresh lead in the rest of your stack, the moment Referral Factory records them. That is what the vendor calls a new referred lead.

How it fires
instant. The app calls Make through a webhook as soon as a user is referred, so there is no interval to wait for.
When to use it
sales wants each new referred lead created in the CRM the moment it comes in.
Watch out
avoid pairing it with Add New User in the same campaign, since each added user could start the scenario again.
Modules

What can Make do in Referral Factory?

Referral Factory gives you 5 modules. For each one: what it does for you, when to reach for it, and what to watch out for.

Referral Factory1

Add New User

Action

In Make“Automatically add new users to your referral campaign and get their unique referral link back.”

You get a person enrolled in your referral campaign and their unique referral link back, ready to use in the next module of the scenario.

When to use it
a customer signs up in your app and should receive a welcome email that already contains their sharing link.
Watch out
map the link from this module's output into the email step, not a static value, or everyone gets the same link.
Referral Factory2

Make an API Call

Action

In Make“Alternatively you can use referral factory api for more actions”

This one reaches any endpoint of the Referral Factory API with the connection you already set up, which covers everything the listed modules leave out.

When to use it
you need to read or change something in Referral Factory that no other module offers, for example looking up an existing user, if the Referral Factory API offers it.
Watch out
you write the request yourself, so keep the Referral Factory API documentation open next to the editor.
Referral Factory3

Qualify user with coupon

Action

In Make“Automatically qualify when a referred user successfully converts. This is when a referred lead becomes qualified.”

A referred lead turns into a qualified conversion, found through the coupon they used, which is the moment rewards can follow.

When to use it
your checkout records coupon codes and that code is the only link between the order and the referral.
Watch out
map the coupon from the order module exactly as it was entered, since that is the value the module relies on.
Referral Factory4

Qualify user with email address

Action

In Make“Automatically qualify when a referred user successfully converts. This is when a referred lead becomes qualified.”

Here the conversion is matched on the buyer's email address, the simplest identifier most payment and CRM tools already hold.

When to use it
a deal is marked won in your CRM or a payment clears, and the contact email is available in the previous module.
Watch out
if the customer paid with a different address than the one they signed up with, the referral may not match.
Referral Factory5

Qualify user with referral code

Action

In Make“Automatically qualify when a referred user successfully converts. This is when a referred lead becomes qualified.”

With this action, the referral code the lead arrived with is enough to mark them as converted, even when their email changed along the way.

When to use it
your signup form or database stores the code, and email addresses are not reliable between signup and purchase.
Watch out
choose one qualify module per scenario, so the same customer is not qualified twice by different identifiers.
Need help

Need help automating Referral Factory with Make?

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FAQ

Referral Factory and Make: common questions

01Is the Referral Factory Make integration free?
Yes, on the Make side. Referral Factory is a standard app, available from the Free plan. That plan allows 2 active scenarios, a minimum of 15 minutes between two scheduled runs, 5 minutes of execution per run, files up to 5 MB and 512 MB of data transfer. Paid plans drop the interval to 1 minute and remove the cap on active scenarios. You still need an active Referral Factory account with API access, and its subscription is set by Referral Factory, not by Make.
02What is needed to connect Referral Factory to Make?
An active Referral Factory account and its API key. The key sits in the Settings section of the Referral Factory dashboard, under the API Access or API tab. In Make, add any Referral Factory module, click Create a connection, optionally name it, then paste the key. For the two watch modules, click Create a webhook first. The connection is then shared by every Referral Factory module, so you only do this once per account.
03Do Referral Factory triggers in Make fire in real time?
Yes. Both triggers, Watch issuing rewards and Watch new users, are instant: Referral Factory calls Make through a webhook as soon as the event happens, so the scenario does not wait for a polling interval. That is different from the scheduled triggers of many apps, which Make checks every 15 minutes by default. The plan interval limits only matter for scenarios that start from a scheduled module of another app.
04What if a Referral Factory module is missing in Make?
Use Make an API Call. It calls any endpoint of the Referral Factory API with the same connection, which covers actions the 5 listed modules do not. The integration has no search module, so looking up a user, if the API allows it, goes through this route too. Also note that the Make documentation for this app states it was generated with AI and may contain mistakes, so check important details with Referral Factory directly before relying on them.
05Should Referral Factory be automated with Make or n8n?
It depends on the tool your team already runs. On Make, Referral Factory comes with 7 ready modules, 2 of them instant triggers, plus Make an API Call for anything else. The same app often has an n8n node as well, so check whether it exists before deciding. The practical criterion is where your other automations already live: keeping referral flows next to them makes maintenance simpler than splitting them across two tools.
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