Make is part of Referly’s API access, which is included on the Business and Agency plans and isn’t available during a free trial. On other plans the connection will be refused. See API access.
What Referly can do in Make
The app has 22 modules in four groups.Triggers
A trigger module starts a scenario. Referly has nine, and they’re all named “Watch”:
These run no matter where the event came from. A sale recorded by your Stripe or Shopify connection, one you added by hand, and one created by another scenario all start Watch Created Sale in exactly the same way. Referly pushes the event to Make as it happens rather than waiting to be asked, so you can set the scenario to run Immediately.
Action modules
Search modules
A search finds records and hands them to the modules that follow. It changes nothing.
Each search has a Limit field that caps how many records come back — 10 by default. Leave every other field empty and the search returns records from your whole program, up to the limit.
Make an API Call
This module sends a request of your choosing to Referly using the connection you’ve already made. It’s the escape hatch for anything the other modules don’t cover, and it’s the main reason to prefer Make over Zapier for an unusual job.Make an API Call is the only module that needs someone comfortable reading the API reference. Everything else is point and click.
What Make can and can’t track
Two limits that catch people out:
Make can’t work out attribution for you. When a scenario creates a referral or a sale, you have to tell it which affiliate to credit. There’s a section below on getting that value out of your website.
Make can’t record a zero-value sale. Create a Sale needs a total amount above zero. To mark a customer as referred without money changing hands, use Create a Referral instead.
Make or Zapier?
Both reach the same Referly features, with two real differences.
Pick Make if you need branching logic, batches of records, or a part of Referly the standard modules don’t reach. Pick Zapier if you want one thing to happen after another and you’d rather not learn a canvas. Before either, check whether Referly already has a direct connection to your platform in all integrations — a direct connection handles attribution, refunds, and recurring payments better than any scenario can.
Before you start
1
Check your plan
You need a Business or Agency plan. Free trials don’t include API access.
2
Have an affiliate program set up
You’ll pick which program to connect. If you haven’t created one yet, see set up your program.
3
Install the tracking script
Not needed if you only want Referly to start scenarios. It is needed if you want Make to record referrals or sales, because the script is what captures which affiliate sent the visitor. See install the snippet.
Step 1: Create a Make account
Skip this if you already have one.1
Go to make.com
Open
make.com and select Get started free.2
Fill in the sign-up form
Make asks for your email, a password, your name, your country, and a Hosting Region.
3
Choose your hosting region carefully
The region decides which data centre stores your scenario data, and it can’t be changed afterwards. Pick the one closest to you, or the one your own privacy policy requires.
4
Confirm your email
Follow the link Make emails you, and you’ll land on your dashboard.
Make’s free plan gives you a monthly allowance of operations and a limited number of active scenarios, and it won’t run a scheduled scenario more often than every 15 minutes. One operation is spent each time a module runs, so a three-module scenario costs three operations per run. Make’s pricing page has the current numbers.
Step 2: Create a scenario
1
Open Scenarios
Select Scenarios in the left sidebar.
2
Start a new one
Select Create a new scenario at the top right. An empty canvas opens with a single large + in the middle.
3
Add the first module
Select the +, type
Push Lap Growth in the search box, and select the app.4
Pick the module
Choose the module you want from the list — the Watch modules are at the top under Triggers.
5
Name the scenario
Select the scenario name at the top left, which starts as “Integration…”, and give it something you’ll recognise in six months.
Step 3: Connect Referly to Make
You make the connection the first time you add a Referly module. Make opens a Referly window where you approve it.1
Select Create a connection
In the module’s settings panel, next to Connection, select Create a connection.
2
Name the connection
Give it a name that includes the program, like
Referly — Main program. This matters if you run several programs.3
Select Save
A Referly window opens. Log in with your Referly account if you aren’t already logged in.
4
Choose the program
Every program on your account appears as a card with its name and domain. Select Connect on the one you want.
5
Confirm
A dialog explains that the connection will be able to react to your program’s events and make changes to your program. Select Continue.
6
Back to Make
The window closes and the connection appears in the module, ready to use in every other Referly module in your account.
The approval screen and the confirmation dialog both say “Zapier” rather than “Make”. You’re in the right place — both automation platforms share the same approval screen. Nothing about the connection you’re making is specific to Zapier.
Step 4: Build a scenario that starts in Referly
The simpler direction — something happens in Referly, another app reacts.1
Add the Watch module
Add a Referly module and choose one of the Watch triggers, such as Watch Created Sale. Select OK.
2
Add the module that reacts
Select the + on the right of the trigger, pick the app that should react, and choose its module.
3
Map the fields
Select a field in the second module and a panel appears listing everything the Referly trigger provides — the affiliate’s name, the customer’s email, the sale amount, the commission earned. Select a value to drop it in. You can mix them with your own text.
4
Run it once
Select Run once at the bottom left. Make waits for a real event, so create one in Referly — record a test sale, or add a test affiliate.
5
Check the bubbles
A numbered bubble appears above each module when it runs. Select one to see exactly what went in and what came out.
6
Schedule and activate
Select the clock control at the bottom left, which reads Every 15 minutes by default. Choose Immediately so the scenario runs the moment the event happens. Select OK, then Save, then switch the scenario toggle to ON.
A scenario only handles events that happen after you switch it on. Anything from before is ignored.
Step 5: Send data into Referly
The other direction takes one extra piece of work: telling Referly which affiliate deserves the credit.Get the affiliate ID out of your website
When a visitor arrives from an affiliate link likeyourwebsite.com/?ref=janedoe, the tracking script stores who sent them and puts two values on the page for you to use:
window.affiliateId— the ID of that specific click. The most accurate value, because it ties the sale to one visit.window.affiliateRef— the affiliate’s link name,janedoein the example above.
- Forms (Typeform, Jotform, Gravity Forms, HubSpot forms and similar) — add a hidden field and set its value from
window.affiliateIdwhen the page loads. All of these document hidden fields; search their help centre for “hidden field”. - Checkout and billing tools — most let you attach your own reference or metadata to a customer or an order. Put the value there.
- Course and membership platforms — look for custom fields on the member record.
Record a referral or a free trial
Use this when someone signs up, starts a trial, or books a demo, and no money has been taken.1
Add the module
Add a Referly module and choose Create a Referral.
2
Fill in who the customer is
Map Referral Name and Referral Email from the trigger. Both are required.
3
Add your own reference
The external user ID is required. Use whatever your other tool calls its customer or user ID, so you can match the two systems up later.
4
Say which affiliate to credit
Put the click ID or affiliate link name into Affiliate ID. If your trigger carries the affiliate’s own email address instead, use the affiliate email field.
5
Add the plan, if it helps
The plan field is a free-text label like
Pro trial that shows on the customer’s record. Leave it blank and Referly stores N/A.6
Run once and check
Select Run once, then confirm the customer appears under referred customers with the right affiliate against them.
Record a sale
Use this when money is actually taken. Referly works out the commission itself.1
Add the module
Add a Referly module and choose Create a Sale.
2
Fill in the customer and amount
Map Customer Name, Customer Email, and Total Amount. All three are required, and the amount has to be above zero.
3
Say which affiliate or customer to credit
The Affiliate ID field is more flexible than its name suggests. It accepts an existing referred customer’s ID, a click ID, an affiliate link name, or an affiliate ID.If this is the first time you’re recording anything for this customer, put the click ID or affiliate link name here. Referly creates the referred customer, attaches them to the affiliate, and then records the sale.If the customer was already recorded as a referral, you can leave it blank — Referly matches on Customer Email and credits the affiliate they’re already attached to.
4
Add your invoice reference
The external invoice ID is optional but worth filling in. It’s how you’ll match a Referly sale back to the order in your billing tool when something looks wrong.
5
Override the rate, only if you need to
The commission rate field replaces the affiliate’s usual rate for this one sale. Leave it blank and Referly uses the affiliate’s own rate, or the rate from their commission plan.
6
Run once and check
Select Run once, then confirm the sale and its commission appear on the affiliate’s record.
Recurring payments need one scenario run per payment. Point the trigger at your billing tool’s “payment succeeded” or “invoice paid” event rather than “subscription created”, and Referly keeps paying commission for as long as the affiliate’s commission plan allows.
Example: post to Slack when a sale comes in
A good first scenario, because nothing can go wrong in Referly.- Trigger — Push Lap Growth, Watch Created Sale.
- Module 2 — Slack, Create a Message.
- In the message text, mix your own words with values from the trigger: the affiliate’s first name, the customer’s name, the sale total, and the commission earned.
- Run once, then set the schedule to Immediately, save, and switch it ON.
Example: only welcome affiliates who are already approved
This one shows why people choose Make — the filter sits on the line between two modules.- Trigger — Push Lap Growth, Watch Created Affiliate.
- Select the line leaving the trigger, then Set up a filter. Give it a name and a condition: the affiliate’s status equals
active. - Module 2 — your email tool, its “add or update subscriber” module. Map the affiliate’s email, first name, last name, and affiliate link.
- Run once, then schedule and switch it ON.
If you use Klaviyo, Mailchimp, MailerLite, or Brevo, Referly can add affiliates to a list without Make at all. See email integrations — a direct connection is more reliable and spends no operations.
Example: record a sale from a checkout Referly doesn’t support natively
- Make sure the tracking script is on your site and the affiliate value reaches your checkout, as described above.
- Trigger — your checkout tool, its “new payment” or “order paid” module.
- Module 2 — Push Lap Growth, Search Referrals, looking the customer up by email. This tells you whether they’re already known.
- Module 3 — Push Lap Growth, Create a Sale. Map the customer’s name, email, and amount, and put the affiliate value into Affiliate ID.
- Run once with a real, small purchase, then schedule and switch it ON.
Module reference
Required fields are marked. Everything else is optional. Field names read slightly differently between modules, so match on meaning rather than exact wording.Create an Affiliate
An affiliate created this way gets the welcome email if they end up active, and gets any automatic promo codes your program creates.
Update an Affiliate
Takes the affiliate’s ID or email to identify them, plus any of first name, last name, email, commission rate, affiliate link, and status. Adding an affiliate link that’s already in use fails rather than replacing it.Create a Referral
You must fill in either the affiliate ID or the affiliate email.
Update a Referral
Takes the referral’s ID, plus any of name, email, external user ID, plan, and status.Create a Sale
Update a Sale
Takes the sale’s ID, plus any of customer name, customer email, total amount, external invoice ID, external sale ID, commission rate, and commission earned. Setting the commission earned fixes the amount directly and ignores the rate.Delete an Affiliate, Delete a Referral, Delete a Sale
Each takes the record’s ID. Deletions can’t be undone, so put a filter in front of the module if there’s any chance of a mis-mapped value reaching it.Search Affiliates, Search Referrals, Search Sales
All three have a Limit field, which is 10 unless you change it. Each record found becomes its own bundle, so the modules after a search run once per record — worth remembering when you’re counting operations.
What Referly sends when a Watch module runs
Affiliate triggers hand over the affiliate’s name, email, status, commission rate, affiliate links, promo codes, totals for referrals, clicks, revenue and commission earned, and their commission plan and tier. Referral triggers hand over the customer’s name and email, your external user ID, their status and plan, total revenue and total commission generated, the landing page they arrived on, and a nested block with the affiliate’s details. Sale triggers hand over the amount, commission rate, commission earned, your external invoice and sale references, the products bought, whether a payout has been created, and nested blocks with the affiliate and the referred customer. The three delete triggers only hand over the record’s ID — the record is already gone, so there’s nothing else to send.Testing your scenario
- Test with a real affiliate link. Open your site through
yourwebsite.com/?ref=plus a real affiliate’s link name in a private browsing window, then sign up or check out as a customer would. It’s the only way to know the affiliate value is being carried through. - Read the bubbles. After Run once, the numbered bubble above each module shows exactly what went in and came out. When a module fails, the error appears here first.
- Check both sides. Look at the affiliate in Referly and confirm the referral or sale is on their record with the right commission.
- Use the History tab. Once the scenario is on, open it and select History to see every run, when it happened, and how many operations it spent.
- Turn on Store incomplete executions. In the scenario settings, this keeps failed runs so you can fix the problem and retry them instead of losing the data. Worth having on for anything that records sales.
- Delete your test records. Test referrals and sales count towards your plan’s limits and skew your reporting.
Limits to plan around
How often a scenario can write to Referly. To keep things fast for everyone, Referly limits how many requests a connection can make: 100 a minute for reading, 30 a minute for creating, updating, or deleting, and 20 every fifteen minutes for anything to do with sales. Going over doesn’t break the connection, but it does mean Make is the wrong tool for importing thousands of historical records. Use the import tools instead. Your Referly plan’s limits. Affiliates and referred customers created by a scenario count towards the same limits as ones created any other way. Once you’re at the limit, the module fails with a message saying so. Make’s operations. Every module run spends one operation, including searches that return nothing. A search that returns 10 records makes every module after it run 10 times, so a scenario that looks cheap can be expensive. Watch the operation count in History. One program per connection. A connection can’t reach across programs. No two-way syncing. Two scenarios pointed at each other will loop. If you create affiliates in Referly from another tool and also push Referly affiliates back to it, add a filter so each scenario ignores records that came from the other one.Troubleshooting
I can't find Referly in Make's app picker
I can't find Referly in Make's app picker
Search for
Push Lap Growth, Referly’s former name. That’s still how the app is listed.The connection is refused when I try to create it
The connection is refused when I try to create it
Your plan doesn’t include API access, or your trial hasn’t converted to a paid plan yet. Check API access and try again.
The approval screen says Zapier, not Make
The approval screen says Zapier, not Make
That’s expected — both platforms share the same approval screen. Carry on and select Continue.
Create a Referral fails with an affiliate error
Create a Referral fails with an affiliate error
The value in Affiliate ID doesn’t match any affiliate, click, or affiliate link in the connected program. Open the module’s input bubble and look at what was actually sent — most often the hidden field on your form arrived empty because the visitor didn’t come through an affiliate link.
Create a Sale fails saying an amount is required
Create a Sale fails saying an amount is required
Total Amount was empty or zero. Some checkout tools send the amount in cents, or as text with a currency symbol. Put a Tools module in front to turn it into a plain number.
The sale was recorded but no commission was given
The sale was recorded but no commission was given
The sale wasn’t tied to an affiliate. That happens when the affiliate field was blank and the customer’s email doesn’t match a referred customer already in Referly. Check the email matches exactly, or fill the affiliate field in on the next run.
Create an Affiliate says the affiliate already exists
Create an Affiliate says the affiliate already exists
Someone with that email is already in this program. Use Update an Affiliate instead, or put Search Affiliates in front with a filter so the create module only runs when nothing was found.
The scenario turned itself off
The scenario turned itself off
Make deactivates a scenario after repeated errors, and a scenario with an instant trigger can switch off on the first one. Open History, find the failed run, fix the cause, then switch it back ON.
The same sale is recorded twice
The same sale is recorded twice
Both a direct integration and your scenario are recording it. If Stripe or Shopify is connected to Referly directly, that connection already records the sale. Turn one of them off.
Disconnect Referly from Make
Disconnecting is done on Make’s side. Open your profile menu, go to Connections, find the Referly connection, and delete it. Every scenario using it stops working immediately, so check which ones depend on it first. Make connections don’t appear on your API keys screen, so there’s nothing to remove in Referly afterwards.Related
Zapier
The same jobs, on a simpler platform with more apps.
All integrations
Check for a direct connection before building a scenario.
API keys
For custom integrations built by a developer.
Install the tracking script
Required before Make can attribute anything.