How to create a newsletter referral program for Substack

Grow your Substack subscribers with a referral program!

Are you looking to grow your Substack and allow your current subscribers to refer you new subscribers? Well, you’ve come to the right place!

The Subshark newsletter referral tool allows you to build a referral program for your Substack in under 2 minutes! Let’s take a look at how you can get started:

What is a newsletter referral program?

A newsletter referral program allows your current subscribers to bring you new subscribers, and get rewarded for it. Each of your current subscribers can generate their own unique referral link for your newsletter. Anytime someone signs up using their unique link, the new subscriber will be attributed to them, allowing subscribers to earn rewards for the subscribers they send to you.

Newsletter referral program for Substack

Substack is a great place to start, build, and grow an email newsletter, but unfortunately the platform does not feature a built-in referral program.

Luckily the Subshark.io Substack referral tool allows Substack writers like you, to create a referral program on Substack!

The Subshark newsletter referral program takes 2 minutes to set up, and allows your current subscribers to bring your new subscribers, and get rewarded for it!

Subshark’s newsletter referral program can be set up in just 4 steps:

1. Create a new referral campaign.

2. Input your newsletter title and description.

3. Select the rewards that subscribers will receive at referral milestones.

4. Publish the link in your next newsletter with a custom button!

Once you receive new referrals, you can download the CSV from your Subshark dashboard, and upload your new subscribers to Substack.

Want to get started quickly? Check out this quick start video to get started:

Creating your referral program for Substack

1. Log in to your Subshark account, and select “Create New Campaign”

2. Add your newsletter title and description (this will be displayed on your referral program landing page).

   

3. Set your milestone tiers and rewards. Check out 9 free-to-you reward ideas to use in your referral program.

4. Copy the link to your referral program and share it in your newsletter!

Bonus: You can use the Substack Custom button to embed the referral program link into your Substack Newsletter. Check out How to Use the Substack Custom Button for Your Referral Program.

Once your subscribers click on your referral program link, they are sent to your referral program landing page.

From this page your subscribers can find:

1. The milestones and corresponding rewards.

2. Their unique referral link

3. How many new subscribers they’ve referred to you.

Adding your new subscribers to Substack

At the moment, Substack does not offer an API which means you will need to manually import new subscribers. Luckily Subshark’s CSV export allows us to import our new subscribers to Substack in seconds!

1. From your Subshark dashboard, select the “dashboard” button for your campaign.

2. From here you will find your referees and your new subscribers! When a referee brings you a new subscriber through their link, it will automatically show under their subscriber count.

   

3. From here, you can download the CSV containing your new subscribers and upload it under the “Subscribers” tab in Substack.

And that’s it! You’ve officially set up your Substack referral program.

Make sure to check our Subshark.io to start growing your Substack today!