Regional Restrictions: Block Your Referral Program in Specific Countries

Samantha Brown Updated by Samantha Brown

Overview

Regional Restrictions lets you prevent your referral program from appearing to visitors in specific countries. This is useful if you're seeing fraud, abuse, or unwanted signups concentrated in a particular region, or if you have legal or business reasons to keep your program out of certain markets.

When a region is blocked, referral widgets and Advocate Landing Pages are fully hidden from visitors there, as well as Friend Incentive widgets accessed by referred friends in those blocked countries.

Where to find it

Go to Settings > Program Integrity. You'll see a new Regional Restrictions card below the existing Block Lists card.

Note: Regional Restrictions is currently available by request. Reach out to your Friendbuy Customer Success Manager or support@friendbuy.com to have it enabled on your account.

How to set it up

  1. Open Settings > Program Integrity.
  2. In the Regional Restrictions card, click into the Block Regions field.
  3. Search for and select any countries you want to block. Each selected country appears as a removable chip.
  4. If you'd like blocked visitors sent somewhere specific instead of a blank experience, enter a Fallback Redirect URL. This is required once you've added at least one blocked country.
  5. Click Save Changes. You'll see a confirmation message once your settings are saved.

You can add or remove countries at any time. Changes take effect immediately and apply across your entire account, not just individual campaigns.

What visitors in a blocked region experience

  • On your site generally: No referral widgets, ribbons, or on-site prompts appear. Nothing in the page indicates a referral program exists.
  • On a direct Advocate Landing Page link: The visitor is redirected to your Fallback Redirect URL. If you haven't set one, they'll see a neutral page with no referral content.
  • No error or explanation is shown. The experience is designed to be silent, so blocked visitors simply don't encounter the program.

This applies no matter how the visitor arrived, including from an email link, a shared referral link, or a saved bookmark.

How the fallback URL works

  • The fallback URL only applies when a blocked visitor lands directly on an Advocate Landing Page. Widgets elsewhere on your site are simply hidden, not redirected.
  • Enter your fallback destination without the https:// prefix. It's added automatically.
  • If the fallback page happens to include a Friendbuy widget, that widget will still be suppressed for the blocked visitor.

Rewards and fraud protection

  • Purchases made by visitors in a blocked region will not trigger a friend incentive or advocate reward.
  • If an advocate in an allowed region refers a friend who turns out to be in a blocked region, that friend is redirected to your fallback URL and no reward is issued.
  • Rewards already earned before you blocked a region are not affected or clawed back. The block only applies going forward.
  • Rejected rewards are clearly flagged in your reporting so you can see when a conversion was blocked for regional reasons.

Good to know

  • No maximum on blocked countries. You can block as many as you need.
  • Applies account-wide. The block covers every campaign on your account, not just one.
  • Mid-session changes: If you add a new blocked region while a visitor already has a widget open, the block applies on their next page load rather than interrupting their current session.

FAQ

Can I block a region for just one campaign?

No. Regional Restrictions apply to your entire account across all campaigns.

Will blocked visitors know they've been blocked?

No. The experience is intentionally silent. No message or error is shown.

What happens if I don't set a fallback URL?

Blocked visitors who land on an Advocate Landing Page will see a neutral page with no referral content, rather than being redirected elsewhere.

Does this affect rewards that were already paid out?

No. Blocking a region only affects future activity. Past rewards are untouched.

Have questions about setting this up? Reach out to your Customer Success Manager or email support@friendbuy.com.

How did we do?

Referral Reward Store

Generate a QR Code for a Referral Link (API)

Contact