Use this page when an advocate, friend or invited friend says they didn’t get a Refer a Friend email. Work through the checks in order.
Check whether the email should have been sent
| Is sent only when | |
|---|---|
| RAF: Advocate Coupon | A coupon was created. Check Marketing → Coupons for a new RAF-… coupon. If there’s none, see Referrer didn’t get a coupon. |
| RAF: Friend Coupon | Post-First Purchase Coupon is on and the friend’s coupon was created. |
| RAF: Reminder | Send Referral Program Reminder Email is on, and the customer hasn’t had one before. See Reminder email. |
| RAF: Share with a Friend | The advocate clicked Send Emails and saw no error. |
WooCommerce → Refer a Friend → Event Logs shows each email the plugin sent, with the address. If the email is listed there, the plugin did its part and the problem is delivery.
Check the email is turned on
- In WooCommerce → Refer a Friend → Settings → Email Settings, make sure Disable sending of emails is off. It stops both coupon emails.
- In WooCommerce → Settings → Emails, open the RAF email and check that Enable is ticked.
Send a test email
Under Email Settings → Test Emails, enter your own address and click the test button for the email. If the test doesn’t arrive either, your site isn’t sending email reliably.
Fix email delivery
WordPress sends email through your web host by default, and many providers treat those messages as spam or reject them.
- Install an SMTP plugin, such as WP Mail SMTP or FluentSMTP, and connect it to an email service like your Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 account, Brevo, Postmark or Amazon SES.
- Make sure the “From” address in WooCommerce → Settings → Emails uses your own domain, and that the domain has SPF and DKIM records for your email service.
- Use the SMTP plugin’s email log to see whether the message was sent and whether it was rejected.
- Ask the customer to check their spam and promotions folders.
Reminder emails arrive late or never
Reminders are sent by WP-Cron after the delay. WP-Cron runs only when someone visits your site, and not at all if DISABLE_WP_CRON is set without a server cron job. Check Tools → Site Health for cron warnings, or ask your host to run wp-cron.php every few minutes.
Share emails show an error
- “You can send to a maximum of 15 recipients at once.” The advocate entered too many friends at once.
- “You have reached the email sending limit. Please try again later.” More than 30 emails were sent from the same connection in an hour.
See Share via email.
The email shows old or wrong text
- Edit the text in WooCommerce → Settings → Emails, not in the plugin. For the reminder, the WooCommerce text replaces Email Subject, Email Heading and Email Body once you’ve saved it there.
- Placeholders must use double curly braces, such as
{{coupon_code}}, and only work in the emails listed in Emails overview. - If you translate your site, check the translation of the email text too.