Orders Overview
Orders are how Ambassador tracks every purchase, deal, or revenue-generating opportunity in your program — whether or not it's tied to a referral campaign. Think of an order as a simple record that says: "this customer made a purchase, here's what it was worth, and here's how it happened."
What's in an Order?
Every order includes a few key pieces of information:
- A customer — the person who made the purchase
- A revenue amount — used for reporting, stats, and calculating rewards
- A unique order ID — so your records stay in sync with tools like Salesforce, Shopify, or your CRM
- An optional campaign link — if the order came through a referral, it connects to that campaign
- An optional referral attribution — if the system can identify the advocate who referred the customer, they're connected automatically
- HubSpot deal stage (hubspot_dealstage) — if you're using the HubSpot integration, you can map your deal stage to this field and use it to trigger or filter automations
- External status (external_status) — if orders are coming in through the API, Salesforce, or another integration, you can map your external stage or status here and use it inside automations
Good to know: Only orders linked to a campaign can trigger rewards. Orders without a campaign are still tracked — they just won't generate any referral incentives.
How Orders Connect to Referrals
When a customer places an order through a referral link, Ambassador automatically ties that order to the right advocate. Once that connection is made, it's permanent — the referral attribution on an existing order can't be changed after the fact.
This connection is what makes rewards possible. When an order is linked to both an advocate and a campaign, it becomes the trigger that kicks off the reward process.
How to Create an Order
There are five ways to get orders into Ambassador — pick whichever fits your workflow best:
1. Via the API
Use the order/record endpoint for the smoothest experience. It's a "plug and play" option that creates the order, referral attribution, and contact all in one call — as long as you pass in the right advocate info (like a referral code, coupon code, or advocate email).
2. Via CSV Import
Upload a spreadsheet of orders in bulk. If you include advocate details in the file, Ambassador will create referral attributions automatically for any that don't already exist.
3. Via the Admin Dashboard
Create orders one at a time right from the UI, under Audience Activity > Orders. Just like the other methods, if you provide advocate info, Ambassador will wire up the referral attribution for you.
4. Via Automations
Set up a "Create Order" action inside your automation workflows to generate orders automatically based on triggers you define.
5. Via Integrations
Connect Ambassador to HubSpot, Salesforce, Shopify, Stripe, or other supported integrations to sync orders into Ambassador automatically as deals close or purchases are made.
Good to Know
- The Orders table is found under Audience Activity > Orders in your main navigation.
- Orders without a campaign link won't trigger rewards for the referrer — make sure your integration or import includes campaign info if referral tracking is the goal.
- If you need to add custom fields or metadata to your orders (for example, to use in automation conditions), check out the Order Custom Properties article for setup instructions.
- You can filter and sort orders in the table by customer, campaign, date, and more — or export a CSV for deeper reporting.
- Related articles: Referral Attribution Overview, Journeys Overview, HubSpot Integration Overview & Setup, Order Custom Properties & Metadata, Automations Overview