Use Viral Loops to build a newsletter referral program

You can use Viral Loops to create a referral program for your EmailOctopus newsletter. To do it, you'll need Viral Loops, EmailOctopus and Zapier accounts.

Integrating Viral Loops with EmailOctopus via Zapier

1. Set up a Viral Loops referral campaign – to do it, click on the "Create" on top of the page and follow the steps on your screen.

2. When you get to the Connect stage, pick Zapier and click "Connect". 

3. Look up EmailOctopus and set up a zap that will add new Viral Loops campaign participants into your EmailOctopus list. 

4. Connect your Viral Loops account to Zapier by inserting the secret API token, which you'll find on the Connect screen of the Viral Loops campaign setup. 

5. Connect your EmailOctopus account to Zapier by inserting your API key. You can find it here when you're signed in to your EmailOctopus account. 

6. Make sure that your EmailOctopus list has all the necessary fields for the Zap you're about to create. You can see the available triggers here. These are the basics you need to start:

7. Set up the Zap with "New Participant in Viral Loops" as a trigger and "Add/Update Contact in EmailOctopus" as action. 

8. Pick a list you want to connect and map the triggers to the custom fields.

9. Test your Zap and if everything works fine – turn it on.

10. Go back to your Viral Loops campaign setup. On the Finish page, you'll find the "Add referrals in your emails" – click on "Show me how".

11. Copy the widget code.

12. Paste the code into a text editor, look up all the "_ SHARE URL _" and replace them with {{ShareURL}}. 

This is the merge tag associated with the ShareURL custom field you created in step 6 of this guide. If you created it under a different field, make sure to insert the appropriate merge tag.

13. Add a code content block into your campaign and paste the code with corrected merge tags.

14. Go back to the Viral Loops campaign setup and import your existing EmailOctopus contacts from a CSV file. This way, they'll go through the Zap you've just created, and each contact will get updated with their own referral code and Sharing URL.

15. That's it – you're ready to launch your referral program! Make sure to test it thoroughly with a few of your own email addresses to confirm that it all works as expected.