Webhooks: Automatically Grant Benefits to Referred Customers

Webhooks in Reditus let you automatically grant benefits (discounts, extended trials, bonus features, credits, or priority onboarding) to referred users the moment a referral event happens. This turns your affiliate program into a powerful double-sided incentive: affiliates earn commissions, and referred customers receive an immediate, tangible benefit.

How It Works

1. Reditus detects a referral event

Examples:

• referral.created – a new user signs up via an affiliate link
• referral.converted – a referred user becomes a paying customer
• referral.upgraded / referral.downgraded – plan changes for a referred customer

1. Reditus sends a webhook to your endpoint

• HTTP POST request
• JSON payload with referral and customer details
• Signed so you can verify authenticity

1. Your system processes the event

• Validates the signature
• Applies your benefit logic (discounts, extended trials, features, credits, onboarding flags)
• Responds with HTTP 200 on success

Why Use Webhooks for Referral Benefits?

1. Increase Conversion Rates

Referred users convert better when they see an immediate benefit, such as:

• 20% off the first 3 months
• Extended 30-day trial instead of 14 days

This reduces friction and makes the decision feel like a special, time-bound opportunity.

2. Double-Sided Incentives

The best affiliate programs reward both sides:

• Affiliate: earns commission
• Referred customer: gets a discount, extended trial, or bonus features

Affiliates can then promote you as offering a real deal, not just another product.

3. Full Automation

Without webhooks, you’d need to:

• Manually check which signups were referred
• Apply discounts or trial changes in your billing system
• Notify customers about their benefits

Webhooks automate this end-to-end so benefits are applied instantly and reliably.

Common Referral Benefit Flows

1. Extended Trial Period

Use case: Standard trial is 14 days; referred users get 30 days.

Flow:

1. referral.created webhook received
2. Your endpoint:

• Looks up or creates the user in your database
• Sets trial_end to 30 days from signup
• Flags the account as referred = true

2. Discount on First Payments

Use case: 20% off the first 3 months for referred customers.

Flow:

1. referral.converted webhook received when the user becomes paying
2. Your endpoint:

• Calls your billing provider (e.g., Stripe, Paddle) API
• Applies a coupon or promotional code to the subscription
• Stores the discount details on the customer record

3. Bonus Features or Credits

Use case: Temporary access to premium features or usage credits.

Flow:

1. referral.created webhook received
2. Your endpoint:

• Grants a feature flag (e.g., premium_features_until = now + 30 days)
• Or adds credits (e.g., credits += 1,000)
• Triggers an email explaining what they received and for how long

4. Priority Onboarding

Use case: White-glove onboarding for referred customers.

Flow:

1. referral.created webhook received
2. Your endpoint:

• Creates a task in your CRM or CS tool
• Tags the account as priority_onboarding
• Notifies your customer success team (Slack, email, etc.)

Implementation Steps in Reditus

Step 1: Define Your Benefit Rules

Decide what benefit to grant and when. Examples:

• "All referred signups get a 30-day trial instead of 14 days."
• "All referred customers get 20% off their first 3 invoices."
• "Referred users get premium features for 30 days + 500 bonus credits."

Document:

• Trigger event(s): referral.created, referral.converted, etc.
• Conditions: specific plans, countries, affiliates, or campaigns
• Exact benefit: discount %, duration, features, credits

Step 2: Create a Webhook Endpoint

Implement an HTTPS endpoint on your server, e.g. POST /webhooks/reditus that:

• Accepts JSON
• Sets Content-Type: application/json
• Parses the request body as JSON
• Validates the signature
• Use the signing secret from Reditus
• Recompute the signature from the raw payload
• Compare with the header value (constant-time comparison)
• Processes the event
• Inspect event.type (e.g., referral.created)
• Run the appropriate benefit logic
• Responds with HTTP 200 on success
• Return non-2xx only if you want Reditus to treat it as a failure

Step 3: Configure Webhooks in Reditus

In your Reditus dashboard:

1. Go to Integrations / Webhooks
2. Add your endpoint URL (e.g. https://yourapp.com/webhooks/reditus)
3. Select the events you need, such as:

• Referral created
• Referral converted
• Referral upgraded / Referral downgraded

1. Copy the signing secret and store it securely (e.g., environment variable)

Step 4: Implement Benefit Logic in Your Handler