The typical affiliate program pays out commission to the last referrer and nobody else. While this is great for the last site to touch the customer, it doesn’t account for any previous affiliates that played a role in closing the sale.
But what if there were a way to spread the commission across some or all affiliates that played some role in the ultimate transaction?
As far as I know, this hasn’t been an option to date, but that is changing with the launch of a split commissions feature by UK affiliate network MoreNiche on June 14.
MoreNiche will enable merchants to pay on first referrer, last referrer, everyone in the middle or a combination of all three.
Initially, they are rolling out with one merchant, Proactol, who will continue to offer their current commission of 30% for the last referrer, but now they will also offer a bonus £3.50/$5.00 for the first referrer.
More details coming soon at http://www.moreniche.com/.
I wonder if we’ll see this innovation cross the Atlantic sometime soon.
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Hi Shawn,
one more thing I forgot to write in last comment:
Split Commissions opens new space for fraud if affiliate manager doesn’t watch affiliates in split.
You can read more about it here: http://www.qualityunit.com/blog/blog-post/2010/04/28/split-commissions-but-dont-repeat-them/
Hi Viktor -
Definitely, a lazy affiliate manager is the thief’s best friend.
Hi Shawn, Did you know, that Post Affiliate Pro and Post Affiliate Network had this feature long time ago ?
In PAP or PAN you can define even bonuses for first or last affiliate, but still pay also affiliates in between.
I had no idea – how long have you offered it?
It is very early days for affiliate marketing and how commissions are distributed, but I’m sure we can expect the systems to get more complex and more data and research is done.
This post might be worth looking at for more insights:
http://www.affiliates4u.com/news/2010/05/payment-on-influence-new-model-affiliate-channel/
Interesting read on the subject – thanks.
Thanks Shawn, I do believe many more networks will start to experiment with who gets credit and when as affiliate marketing becomes more competitive. Vodafone have already started something similar.
We have also released a video this morning to explain this in more detail:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTcCxzYnaf0
I see a lot of loopholes in this one. For example, what if they pay for first referrer, who doesn’t have to make the sale but just gets that first click, why wouldn’t everyone want to be the first referrer?
We can use any type of method to get a click. But to make the sale requires a different type of affiliate altogether.
It’s definitely a situation that begs safeguards with cookie stuffing and the like.
But last referrer has it’s perils, too, with adware and other methods taking credit for sales they didn’t refer.
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