Note: We use "Program" and "Member" as label-agnostic terms to refer to any marketing you are using Buzzbassador to facilitate, whether you refer to it as an affiliate program, influencer marketing, ambassador program, referral program, creator partnerships, brand reps, partner program, etc.

When importing members, you have a couple of options to choose from in our pre-import pop-up. The option you select for each of these questions will dictate how Buzzbassador handles the importing of your members in relation to your program tiers and referral codes.

The most enquired about question in the pre-import process is related to the members' referral codes, specifically what happens if your members already had existing codes that you want to import as well.

For example, let's say you had 20 members before you installed Buzzbassador that you were managing a different way (spreadsheets, a different app, etc.), and you had already created a discount code for each of those members. So, you have 20 existing discount codes that you created in Shopify that A) may already have accumulated a Shopify sales history, and B) may have already been shared and promoted by that member.

In that case, you probably want to keep things simple by just keeping everyone's codes the same as you transition them to Buzzbassador -- and so do we!

When you import your list of existing members, you will be able to enter their existing codes to import them to Buzzbassador. However, before the import, you will be prompted to choose between keeping OR deleting those existing codes. Below is an explanation of each, and the pros and cons to consider for each.

If you select this option, the exact codes that exist already in your Shopify account from when YOU created them will be kept active, and they will simply be linked to the associated member in Buzzbassador's tracking system, so that the app can continue to track the orders placed with that code.

Any sales performance history for the existing codes (from before you installed Buzzbassador) will be kept in Shopify's logs, displayed within that discount.

Since a code that existed before you installed Buzzbassador cannot be included in the referral rule you set up in Buzzbassador, any time you edit your referral rule(s) in Buzzbassador, these codes from this particular import will NOT be affected.

This con is significant and therefore requires further explanation. If you remember, your referral code rules in Buzzbassador are the rules you set for your members' individual unique referral codes to follow. If you import your members' codes from before Buzzbassador and decide to keep them external to the referral rule, that means that these codes will NOT follow that referral rule.

In other words, if you one day decide that you want all of your members' referral codes to be worth 20% off instead of their previous rate of 15% off, instead of being able to simply set your referral rule to 15% off (which would then automatically change the rates of the individual codes in that rule), you'd have to search each individual code in Shopify and edit it manually.

If you select this option, the codes that your members were assigned prior to installing Buzzbassador will be deleted so that our app can recreate them within the Buzzbassador referral rule. The exact same code title will be used - so your members' actual code will not change.

For example, if your member has been assigned the code "ALIA10" for 2 years before Buzzbassador, their code will still be "ALIA10" after transitioning to Buzzbassador. The only thing that changes is the back-end code in your Shopify admin - it simply gets deleted, and recreated as a "sub-code" of the referral rule. More about that here.

Any future edits you make to your referral rule in our app -- whether it's changing the product eligibility, usage limits, discount rate, or anything else -- will be automatically applied to all the pre-existing codes you're importing, because they are a part of the Buzzbassador referral rule. No need to manually edit each individual code separately.

The summarized sales performance history -- as shown in the screenshot in the previous section -- will not be displayed in the individual codes anymore, as the original code was deleted. However, you can still see a sales history for that code title by going to your Orders section and searching the code title, which will display all orders placed with a discount code of that same title -- even if it's from a now-deleted back-end code (because the newly created code has the same title).

Overall, it's up to you which option you choose during your import process. Either way, your imported members will be able to keep the same code title that they've always had, avoiding confusion and promotion mishaps on their end.

This topic may seem complicated, so if you have any questions about this or any other parts of the import process, make sure to check out the other articles about importing members.

If you need any further help, please don't hesitate to send us a chat at the bottom right corner of your app screen, or email us at [email protected]!