PayPal

For referral programs, trigger referrals on new PayPal payments and automatically send one-time payouts as rewards. For affiliate programs, automate recurring payouts to affiliates.

For Referral Programs

Note: The PayPal integration for referral programs is only available to users on the GrowSurf Business plan or higher. The following countries and currencies are supported here.

Referral Trigger

Description

For referral programs, when you connect your PayPal account to your GrowSurf campaign and enable Referral Trigger, GrowSurf will automatically detect and trigger referrals on new PayPal charges.

GrowSurf will check if the PayPal customer's email address matches a GrowSurf participant's email address. If a match is found, then a referral will trigger, giving referral credit to the referrer and unlocking any rewards, if applicable.

Here's how to set up PayPal referral triggers:

How to Set Up

Important Note: Unless your campaign is configured to add participants automagically (see image), you'll need to make sure you first call JavaScript growsurf.addParticipant() or REST API /POST Add Participant to add new participants.

Step 1: In Campaign Editor > 4. Options > Integrations, click the Connect to PayPal button

Step 2: Once connected, GrowSurf will have Referral Trigger enabled by default.

(Optional) Step 3: You can add a referral trigger hold period by toggling the Show advanced settings section.

Note: The referral trigger hold period is useful for preventing fraud and helps minimizes losses due to refunds and chargebacks. During this hold period, if there is a refund or chargeback, the referral trigger will be cancelled completely.

Payouts

Description

When a GrowSurf participant unlocks a reward, send them a one-time PayPal payout. If the participant is being sent a PayPal payout for the first-time, they will receive an email where they can enter their PayPal email address before the payout is released.

Fee Disclosures

The following fees are applied on payouts made through PayPal's API:
- United States: $0.25 USD per U.S. transaction
- International: 2% of the recipient payment amount, up to a certain amount
Individual payments cannot exceed $20,000 USD.
The recipient (the GrowSurf participants) is charged no payout fee if they receive funds in the same currency as their PayPal account. If the funds arrive in a different currency, PayPal converts them using its exchange rate (which includes a conversion markup), so the recipient may effectively receive less.

How to Set Up

To utilize the PayPal payout feature, you'll need the following (full PayPal payout instructions can be found here) prior to set up:

A PayPal business account (you can sign up for a PayPal business account here)
Get access to PayPal Payouts
A confirmed identity, email, and bank account linked to your PayPal business account
Add sufficient funds to your PayPal business account (make sure to cover enough for payout totals and fees)
When you connect to PayPal within GrowSurf, make sure to login with your primary PayPal account holder's credentials. Using a team member's PayPal credentials can result in permission issues when sending out payouts

Step 1: In Campaign Editor > 4. Options > Integrations, click the Connect to PayPal button.

You must first select a default currency for your GrowSurf campaign in order to use PayPal.

Step 2: Once connected, click the Payouts tab and connect a reward(s) to PayPal by clicking the Connect a Reward button.

Note: When you connect to PayPal, Referral Trigger will be enabled by default. If you are triggering referrals another way, disable the toggle in the Referral Trigger tab.

Enter the details of the payout including the name, payout note (this will appear as a note to the PayPal recipient), and payout type. You can also click Show advanced payout settings to view more customization settings.

Advanced feature tip: Issue different reward amounts by using dynamic rewards

Dynamic rewards let you offer different reward values based on specific attributes of the referred friend (such as the pricing plan they signed up for) or referrer (such as their partner status).

For example, you can award $50 payouts to winners when their referral signs up for your base plan or $100 payouts when they sign up for a higher-costing plan.

Learn more →

Then hit Save. Now, anytime this reward is unlocked by a winning participant, a PayPal payout will also be sent to the PayPal customer associated with the GrowSurf participant email address. If enabled, on their first payout, the participant will receive a confirmation email so they can choose the PayPal email address they want to use.

With double-sided rewards, you have full flexibility in choosing who gets the payout reward: (1) just the referrer, (2) just the referred person, (3) or both referrer and referred person.

Once you save the reward, you should see a green dot, indicating that the PayPal Payouts integration is enabled.

Troubleshooting Tips

If there is an issue with PayPal payouts being sent out to winners, GrowSurf will send out a notification email to the GrowSurf campaign owner. The issue will also be stated in the participant's detail page when you view their reward or when you view the participant's activity logs.

Here are some common reasons why there may be failures:

There may be an issue with your PayPal account. For payouts to work, you must have a verified business PayPal account with access to PayPal payouts and sufficient funds. View the requirements.
- Make sure that the account you connected to PayPal within GrowSurf is your primary PayPal account holder. Using a team member's PayPal credentials can result in permission issues when sending out payouts.
If dynamic reward rules are enabled for the PayPal reward, there may have been no matching rule found.
If you're not seeing a PayPal confirmation email being sent out (which is sent when a participant first unlocks their first PayPal payout), you must first approve the reward. This only applies if you have manual reward approval enabled for your campaign.

If there was a failure, you will need to manually issue the payout from your PayPal dashboard.

How to confirm if a payout was sent:

Go to your PayPal Transactions History page to view all transactions

You can disregard the "Mass Payment" items. They are not duplicate payments, but rather records of GrowSurf's usage of the PayPal API to send out payouts via Mass Pay.

Click "Filter", select "Payments sent" for "Transaction type", then click "Apply Filters". You can now browse the list to confirm if payouts were sent out to GrowSurf participants.

Other notes:

If the GrowSurf participant does not have a PayPal account (or if it is unconfirmed), they will receive an email from PayPal notifying them to sign up for one or to confirm their account.
If you have manual reward approval enabled for your campaign: PayPal payouts will only be issued to the winner(s) only after you approve the reward.
If the referral was triggered recently (or if the reward was approved recently), please allow for a few minutes of server processing before viewing the participant's reward from your GrowSurf admin dashboard. During this time, the data displayed for the participant's reward may not be accurate.

For Affiliate Programs

Note: The following countries and currencies are supported here.

Description

For affiliate programs, you can send bulk PayPal payouts to affiliates with a click of a button from your admin dashboard. Once affiliates' earned commissions pass the hold period (i.e., to account for any refunds/chargebacks), the affiliates will be eligible to be paid out, but only if their total amount meets your payout threshold (i.e, $50 payout minimum).

Fee Disclosures

The following fees are applied on payouts made through PayPal's API:
- United States: $0.25 USD per U.S. transaction
- International: 2% of the recipient payment amount, up to a certain amount
Individual payments cannot exceed $20,000 USD.
The recipient (the GrowSurf participant) is charged no payout fee if they receive funds in the same currency as their PayPal account. If the funds arrive in a different currency, PayPal converts them using its exchange rate (which includes a conversion markup), so the recipient may effectively receive less.

How to Set Up

To utilize the PayPal payout feature, you'll need the following (full PayPal payout instructions can be found here) prior to set up:

A PayPal business account (you can sign up for a PayPal business account here)
Get access to PayPal Payouts
A confirmed identity, email, and bank account linked to your PayPal business account
Add sufficient funds to your PayPal business account (make sure to cover enough for payout totals and fees)
When you connect to PayPal within GrowSurf, make sure to login with your primary PayPal account holder's credentials. Using a team member's PayPal credentials can result in permission issues when sending out payouts

Step 1: In Campaign Editor > 4. Options > Integrations, click the Connect to PayPal button.

You must first select a default currency for your GrowSurf campaign in order to use PayPal.

Once connected, you should see a green "Connected" badge and details of your connected PayPal account.

The system will automatically aggregate all affiliates' approved commissions (which means they have passed their hold period to account for refunds/chargebacks) and they can be issued as a single payout as long as the total amount meets your minimum payout threshold (which is defined in Campaign Editor > 4. Options). Any commissions that are still pending do not count towards affiliates' upcoming payouts.

Manual Payouts

To send payouts, navigate to the Payouts page of your admin dashboard then click the Pay Affiliates button. You'll see a popup that will let you confirm the affiliates that will be receiving payouts and the total payout amount.

Note: Eligible affiliates will only show up if they have a PayPal email address on file (which they can set from the GrowSurf window or the GrowSurf-hosted referral portal). These affiliates will not receive their upcoming payout if you click "Pay Out", but you can toggle a checkbox which will send them the "Confirm PayPal Email Address" email. Once added, they will become eligible for payouts upon your next bulk payout.

Troubleshooting Tips

Once a PayPal bulk payout is completed, a "New Payout Sent" email will be sent out to affiliates (if the email is enabled in Campaign Editor > 3. Emails) as well as a notification email to the GrowSurf campaign owner. Failed payouts will be noted in the notification email, as well as listed in the admin dashboard (in Payouts > Failed).

Here are some common reasons why there may be failures:

There may be an issue with your PayPal account. For payouts to work, you must have a verified business PayPal account with access to PayPal payouts and sufficient funds. View the requirements.
- Make sure that the account you connected to PayPal within GrowSurf is your primary PayPal account holder. Using a team member's PayPal credentials can result in permission issues when sending out payouts.

If there was a failure, you will need to manually issue the payout from your PayPal dashboard.

How to confirm if a payout was sent:

Go to your PayPal Transactions History page to view all transactions

You can disregard the "Mass Payment" items. They are not duplicate payments, but rather records of GrowSurf's usage of the PayPal API to send out payouts via Mass Pay.

Click "Filter", select "Payments sent" for "Transaction type", then click "Apply Filters". You can now browse the list to confirm if payouts were sent out to GrowSurf participants.

Other notes:

If the GrowSurf affiliate does not have a PayPal account, they will NOT be eligible to receive payouts. Affiliates can always update their PayPal email address from the GrowSurf window or from the GrowSurf-hosted referral portal.
When participant logs to see if a payout was sent successfully, please allow for a few minutes of server processing time before viewing the affiliate's payout from your GrowSurf admin dashboard. During this time, the data displayed for the affiliate's payout may not be accurate.

Last updated 14 days ago

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