All About Refundable Samples
Refundable samples let affiliates buy a product themselves, post a video, and get refunded once that video drives a sale. They protect your sample budget, since a sample either stays paid for or gets refunded after generating revenue, but creators tend to be less responsive to them than to free samples.
What refundable samples are
In TikTok Shop Affiliate Center, a refundable sample is a product an affiliate purchases with their own money. Once they post a video and it meets the refund condition, they get their money back.
The typical refund condition is generate orders >= 1, but sellers can customize the threshold to generate orders >= N.
This is different from free samples, which are shipped to creators at no cost.
Refundable vs. free samples
The tradeoff is straightforward:
- Upside: you lose far less money on samples. Either the sample is never refunded (so the creator paid for it), or it is refunded because it produced sales.
- Downside: creators are usually less responsive to refundable sample offers than to standard free samples, especially top performing creators. Typically targeted at the lower-earning creator segment.
Getting creators to request samples
Configure refundable samples on the product in Affiliate Center: Collaboration > Open Collaboration > (select the product) > Refundable Samples.
In Cruva, send an Open Plan + Message automation containing those products.
Affiliates click the link in the message to purchase the sample.
Tracking refundable samples in Cruva
Sample requests
Requests populate under Affiliate CRM > Sample Requests > Refundable Samples. From there you can:
- view every refundable sample status
- filter by status and other criteria
- export the data
Analytics
Under Affiliate CRM > Sample Requests > Analytics, you get graphs for:
- Refundable samples
- Refundable samples shipped
- Samples refunded
- Sample refund amount
You can also add these stats to the main dashboard analytics page, along with refundable samples delivered.
Building groups and automations
Under Affiliate CRM > Groups, you can create groups using these refundable sample conditions:
Condition
What it matches
Refundable Sample Products
The PIDs creators purchased refundable samples for
Refundable Sample SKUs
The SKUs (variants within PIDs) creators purchased refundable samples for
Refundable Sample Status
The fulfillment status of the refundable sample, e.g. shipped
Combining these makes it easy to build messaging triggers. For example: send a creator brief whenever someone's refundable sample for PID 12345 gets shipped.
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