For almost 20 years, Affiliates have steadily helped Retailers increase traffic, acquire new customers and boost sales. However, e-commerce continues to evolve at an incredibly rapid rate, and Merchants must continue to develop their Affiliate strategy in response to these changes.

Part 2 of 3 of “Maintaining a Modern Affiliate Program” looks at how to set up various types of commission rules and why this is important in building a successful program within an Affiliate Network. 

PART II: COMMISSIONING

It is possible to set customized commission rules for just about any scenario in your Merchant program. Examples include sales on specific products, Affiliate types, customer types, coupon code usage and much more.

When setting up your customized rules, there are three ways to segment your Affiliates: 

1. Make rules that apply to all your Affiliates.
2. Rules that apply to a specific Affiliate group or tag.
3. Rules that apply to an individual Affiliate (you add these in their specific Affiliate Details page).

Examples of rule conditions:

New vs. Recurring Customers

The following is an example of a rule set up where a Merchant will pay an Affiliate a 10% bonus every time a sale is made by a new customer.

Inside the Setup Commission Rules page, the Merchant would click on ‘Commission Action’ and choose ‘Bonus as percentage’ and then add in the rate at 10. 

They then click the “Add Condition” button and find ‘customer is specific type’ and choose ‘New’. 

When setting up this rule, Merchants can change the name of the rule and write their own custom description as well. 

Product Based Commissions

Here, a Merchant wants to pay his Affiliate based on the sale of a specific product. The Merchant wants to set a 5% commission on all products that start with the letter ‘B’ and also run a bonus campaign where they would pay out a flat fee on a specific SKU that they have listed. 

This is set up in the rules by adding the condition rules:

“Product matches pattern” and “Product SKU List matches a specific value”. You can add the particular details inside both these rules and it would look like this:

Predefined Rules

We have also built a set of predefined rules based on common scenarios under three main categories: Join incentives, Clickstream Attribution and Transaction Based.

Once you select a predefined configuration, you will still have the option to customize it as you see fit. 

These are just a few examples of various ways Merchants can set up rules using different conditions. There are countless other rules to be set up to protect and pay your Affiliates on a more individualized basis. Try some out today! 

How to Maintain a Modern Affiliate Program – Part 1

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES