Guest Post by Peter Koning, Affiliate-Software-Review.com
One of the unique features of Post Affiliate Pro platform allows the merchant to split commissions across multiple affiliates. This article reviews the benefits of this feature and also gives a warning about misuse and how to prevent it.
In most online shopping scenarios, there are several stages to the buying process such as problem/solution research, product reviews, price comparison, coupon shopping, and the actual purchase. Many affiliates can be involved at various points in this process, but most affiliate tracking systems only reward the first or last affiliate who's referral link was clicked.
By rewarding some of the other affiliates involved in the sale, you can re-allocate the commissions to some of the affiliates who normally would not generate a commission even if they played a role in the sale. This is what the split-commission feature of Post Affiliate Pro enables you to do.
You can even "skew" the commissions so that the first or last affiliate is rewarded a higher % of the sale, while still giving some credit to the middle affiliates. Although you're possibly paying the first or last affiliate less than they might make in the "all or nothing" scheme, you benefit by having more inactive affiliates making money and possibly getting more motivated to promote your product even more.
There is one risk to this scheme which you should be aware of, as a merchant. Sometimes affiliates may intentionally or accidentally have more than one affiliate account. In this case, if you are using split-commissions, you should be careful not to allow these affiliates to earn multiple times for the same sale, this crowding out the other affiliates by taking a higher % of the commission available.
With Post Affiliate Pro, there is a simple solution to this scenario. As the merchant, all you need to do is:
1) mention in your terms and conditions that you only allow one affiliate account per affiliate
2) when scanning your affiliate sales, review the sales that generated multiple commissions and decline any commissions generated by the same person although different affiliate accounts. Don't forget to remind the affiliate that they are not permitted to promote the product with different accounts, but they are welcome to use subid tracking from the same account (supported by Post Affiliate Pro) if they want to know which promotion methods resulted in the sale. See screenshot below of an example "repeat commission".
- Same affiliate created 3 different affiliate accounts and tried to earn more with split commissions against other affiliates and also second tier commission
By monitoring your affiliates carefully and checking for this repeat commission scenario, you will most likely notice that your affiliates will be promoting you even more.
Why? Because every affiliate likes to know that they are getting credit for the good marketing they are doing - as long as it's not shared too much with other affiliates :)
- 1 Comment(s)
Internet Marketeer/Owner Soft4Profit.com/Share4Profit.com
Future Problem Split Commission And Improvement
I also added this as mantis report: http://bugs.qualityunit.com/mantis/view.php?id=3212
Well it's great that Split commission gives much more flexibility of commissions the
way it is now. It's also great you can set a minimum of commission before
commission is added; of course the developers have done this to make sure that not
100 affiliates get 10 cents or so. Well you know what I mean.
But there is a big problem in that: the problem accurse for merchants like me who
give commission to affiliates for all tracked sales, for all campaign's for infinite times.
Next to that lot's of affiliates use their PAP for all their shops at the same time;
especially merchants who work with mini site per product or simply a lot of products.
Imagine this: if you're a merchant you want to build an army of affiliates; you present
the split commission option which is great of course because it's only fair for the
affiliates who do an effort to promote your products.
Let's say you give 30% bonus for the last affiliate.
Your affiliates send lots of traffic for your campaigns. You add more and more
campaigns to your Pap/Pan and that is great of course. After a while customer X is sent lots of times to your different campaigns by 50 affiliates (this can easily happen if you present yourself in certain niches like the internet marketing niche, diet niche).
Then the system computes for those 50 affiliates because as a merchant you have
chosen split commission for your affiliates. So the system computes and lots of
commission is not added because lots of affiliates don't reach the minimum. Only the
affiliate who gets a bonus commission (the last one in this case who gets 30%) get a
commission added.
If this happens; okay, fine for the merchant, but after that and affiliates keep sending
customer X even more times even the affiliate with the bonus commission is starting
to complain. Because from that moment on you have less commission to pay and the
affiliates will not be happy with that because the affiliates cannot reach the minimum
commission anymore; needed to get commission from customer X.
Simply because of all the affiliates who send this customer X in the past. Like I said;
this can easily happen in lots of niches.
Hopefully you get the picture.
Well, if this is the case with split commission or I didn't see it right, then there is a
solution I thought of which details the program already has to work. I personally think
what I explain now is even more fair for affiliates because then you really pay for the best effort; it will be split commission plus sort of speak.
THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DIRECT PROMOTING OR NOT
Lots of merchants want to give commission over every sale an affiliate refers and this
is kind of the default of PAP/PAN which is only fair.
Normally you set commission for the last affiliate referred or first (this wasn't fully fair
for all the affiliates who did an effort)
With split commission you can let all affiliates get a commission but here is the
problem I just explained. After a while it’s impossible for affiliates to make the
minimum value.
Well, how to solve it then (I did not add any multi tier, but off course that stays the
same):
With every sale tracked you let PAP first check the raw clicks list if there are affiliates
who used banners to promote a product. So, if there is a sale with product id 1 (which
you simply add in your sale tracking code) PAP already knows that this sale belongs to which campaign (merchant simply needs to add 1 to a campaign belonging to
product 1).
So imagine: Customer X buys product 1 and PAP checks the raw clicks list and sees
Customer X was send by 10 affiliates who used banners to promote product 1.
Then: Like the previous example the last affiliate gets a bonus of 30% and the
remaining 70% is going to all witch is 7% each.
There are 11 affiliates who also sent customer X with banners to product 5,9,47
(NOT1) but in this case they do not get anything because they did not do an effort to
send Customer X to product 1
Okay, what happens if PAP cannot find clicks to product 1; well, then it uses the older
form which is to add the commission to the first affiliate or last affiliate who referred
the customer depending on the pap/pan setup.
Overall; it’s the most fair; You always give a commission for efforts affiliates make but
you also make a difference of affiliates who send to specific products or not
Hopefully you see the power of this idea. It only motivates affiliates to promote every
product you have and affiliates still know you always pay commission to your
affiliates; A real win win situation.
You can even make this in a way that the commission if pap cannot see an affiliate in
raw clicks list refer for a product lower than the commission when there is referred.
Regards,
Marc Wijnants
http://www.Soft4Profit.com
http://www.Share4Profit.com