Advertisers: Why Commission
Segmentation Matters to You
Affiliate Summit East 2014
Aug. 11, 2014 New York City
Presented by
If you’re live-tweeting about this presentation
be sure to use hashtag #ase14.
Brook Schaaf
CEO and Co-Founder
Schaaf-PartnerCentric
Affiliate Program Management Agency
Twitter: @schaafpc
Thank you for being here!
What is Commission Segmentation?
The Path to Purchase Arrow
ShareASale LeapFrog Tool
Common Forms of Commission Segmentation
• Tiered by Volume
• First Touch Credit
• Time Based (Click to Conversion)
• New vs. Returning Customers
• Category Based/Flat Changes
• De-duplication Across Channels
• First to Cart
Case Study – Touch Points
• 12 month time span
• 121,000 total conversions
• One channel only: 51%
• Including company email
• Affiliate first click: 17,000 or 14.7% of conversions
• 66% credited to affiliate with last click
• 34% credited to a channel other than affiliate
Conversion Path Touch Points
% Solo
% 2 Participants
% 3 Participants
% 4 Participants
% 5+ Participants
Case Study – Coupon / Loyalty
• After analyzing program performance we began segmenting
coupon and loyalty publishers for a retail client.
• Value was lower for these “introducers” than it was
for other publishers who were “closers.”
• Coupon/loyalty publishers commissions were lowered
from 8% to 5%
What was the outcome?
Case Study – Coupon / Loyalty
• Revenue for coupon/loyalty publishers saw a modest year-
over-year decrease (6.66%) while the commissions paid to
those publishers dropped by 49.95%.
Overall Revenue and Commissions
Spread of Publisher Commissions
Case Study – Midline Commissions
• A new client had been paying coupon publishers a 5%
commission and non-coupon publishers a 20% commission.
However, many non-coupon publishers were still
promoting coupons.
What was the solution?
Case Study – Midline Commissions
• We established a midline commission rate and based a
tiered commission structure on that.
Commission payouts and the cost of sale remained
steady during this period of adjustment.
Monthly
Data Table
Revenue and Commissions Over Time
Cost of Sale Over Time
Case Study – Lowering Commissions
• An advertiser was offering a default 8% commission rate
that we lowered to 5% for most publishers (allowing two
top performers to remain at 8%).
Commission payouts fell from an average 6 - 6.5% to 5 –
5.5%. Click throughs and revenue remained consistent
with advertiser’s historical data.
Monthly
Data Table
Revenue and Commissions Over Time
Cost of Sale Over Time
Case Study – Lowering Commissions
• A top coupon publisher was earning a 10% commission rate
at initial takeover. This was lowered to 5% and then 1%,
dramatically reducing the cost of sale. Revenue remained
consistent with past performance.
Top Coupon Publisher
Revenue & Commissions
Top Coupon Publisher
Cost of Sale
Paid Placements
• A summary of Q4 2013 placements (20 in all) for a client:
Examples – Paid Placements
Examples – Paid Placements
Examples – Paid Placements
Paid Placements
Thank You
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