Who should get the commision?

[steveaich]

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Affiliate A sends you a new customer, they purchase and set up an account on your site. (You pay Affiliate a) the relevant commision)

Subsequently (but within the cookie period of your scheme) they are then refered by Affiliate B, they log in to their existing account on your site and make a new purchase.

Who should get the commision for the 2nd sale.

Would you give the same answer if the second sale was refered by a)PPC advertising by the merchant. b)Natural search listing achieved by the merchant.

[morleymouse]

affiliate B should overwirte affiliate A

a) yes, merchant PPC should overwrite affiliate A

b) no, if its a free search engine listing and no other marketing activity has taken place on the user affiliate A should be given commission, as long as its within cookie period

[scifind]

I would say the commission of the second sale should go to Affiliate B because they have somehow encouraged the Buyer to return to your site and purchase a second item.

Agree - Affiliate B referred THAT sale - affiliate B gets the reward

[morleymouse]

b)Natural search listing achieved by the merchant.

if its acheived by the merchant then wheres affiliate B come from

if affiliate B gets a high listing, then someone goes through their link they would be the last referer and deserve the sale.

last man in

think we got crossed wires but meant the same thing

[pricethat]

This one keeps popping its head up from time to time. The rule is quite clear, the "LAST REFERRER" gets the sale. This is not something that affiliates just accept or came about, it is the universally accepted method of tracking sales that came about from hundreds of these types of discussions.

Having said that there are still some merchants that mess it up with localised cookies only awarding the first referrer, but when it comes down to fair is fair then the last one must always be the one that is awarded.

If the first referrer did more of a job than the second referrer then why was the visitor surfing the net and arriving back at the merchant via a second link!! It is quite clear that the first person didnt offer enough information or close the sale enough in the first place. Sure, between and a and b they both contributed to the close but the final close came from b.

[Shane]

"the "LAST REFERRER" gets the sale" ..."universally accepted method of tracking sales"

yup and rightly so.. although occasionally you do get the odd merchant taking the pi$$ on this and using first cookie tracking which is just perfect for cookie dropers etc.. (so be warned merchants playing/thinking of playing this game.. you may think you are saving some cash as you expect them to visit your site first, but you are probably paying more in the long run with sales being generated from passing traffic on cookie dropers sites that isn't looking for your product at the time the cookie is set)

best one I've had is a merchant insisting on being no 1 on ppc and then using first cookie set tracking.. so basically you sit in second place or lower and end up taking clicks that you can't even get paid for even if you make a sale, if they have clicked the merchant's link first... so even if you "generate" as sale via ppc, if they have visited the merchant (or any other affiliate) first and had the first cookie set.. you get nothing.

sure it works both ways and you probably pick the odd sale up that you set first and someone else sends in later but I'd rather work on last cookie set .. it's the most rewarding and trackable for the affiliate that did all the work in persuading the user to buy.

so affiliate B should get paid for sure

[Mogga]

A being affiliate and B being merchant enticing customer to revisit within cookie length?

Does a straight type in overwrite a cookie
Does a bookmark overwrite a cookie
Does a newsletter referral overwrite a cookie

Or sneakier

Does a email here to get a discount code take away the cookie?

[yesasia]

We also pay the last referrer, but there may be some cases where this does not seem fair. What do you think about these cases ?

Example 1:

- Affiliate A refers customer.
- Customer goes to checkout, and finds a "discount coupon" box. Customer searches on internet for "merchant discount code" and finds one on Affiliate B's site.
- Customer clicks from affiliate B back to merhcant site and uses discount code. Affiliate B gets the commission.
(Of course if the customer just uses the code but does not click on the link, affiliate A still gets the commission)


Example 2:
- Affililiate A is a site that promotes and recommends the merchant on all of their pages.
- Customer remembers the merchants name and searches on google. Affiliate B bids on merchant brand, so gets the sale



Stefan

[pricethat]

We also pay the last referrer, but there may be some cases where this does not seem fair. What do you think about these cases ?

Example 1:

- Affiliate A refers customer.
- Customer goes to checkout, and finds a "discount coupon" box. Customer searches on internet for "merchant discount code" and finds one on Affiliate B's site.
- Customer clicks from affiliate B back to merhcant site and uses discount code. Affiliate B gets the commission.
(Of course if the customer just uses the code but does not click on the link, affiliate A still gets the commission)

I think that scenario is really neither here nor there when it comes to marketing and you win some lose some, i would lose more sales not being credited as the last referrer than i would given your suggestion! Seperately if there was a discount code to offer that i as affiliate a was not showing then i deserve to lose out!

Example 2:
- Affililiate A is a site that promotes and recommends the merchant on all of their pages.
- Customer remembers the merchants name and searches on google. Affiliate B bids on merchant brand, so gets the sale

What is the customer doing searching on google, if affiliate A has done his or her job properly then the customer wouldnt or shouldnt need to go back to google and do a search. Even in the event that they do its tough luck, you win some you lose some.

To explain again this conversation pops up so many times it is really unreal, the last referrer "law" is there for a reason, you can argue it until you are blue in the face, there is never going to be an almighty saviour to losing traffic or sales. It is like this as it is the best solution in "most" cases. No amount of "what if" discussions will change that as its been done a thousand times before around the world, probably by people 50 times more experienced than you or i.

Yes we probably lose some sales, but equally we probably make some sales but all in all the last referrer must and is the only real way of making sure that we get paid for the most amount of sales possible that actually belong to us.

There have been so many discussions about this including what about partial reward allocations like 50% to last referrer and the rest split amongst others and every other combination like ppc amounts to the others and reward to final referrer, no matter what way you look at it the alternatives are open for abuse with cookie droppers and forced clicks or just plain stupidity.

[Hero]

Define "affiliate".
If you mean affiliate, as in through your affiliate network and campaign, then obviously the last one should get the sale, universally accepted method.
If you mean "channel", as in price comparison, PPC (after all, Kelkoo and Google act as affiliates on a cpc model), then both affiliates should get the commission.

[morleymouse]

hero, im not sure why there is this view that affiliates and a marketing channel are different things?

Affiliates are part of the marketing channel, basically if an affiliate account was set up by the merchant and then the merchant used this for all other marketing activity wherever the merchant was last man in no commission would be paid. As you say this is universally accepted.

[Hero]

I just think that last referrer across the board doesn't reward anyone for building brand awareness and doesn't take under account the fact that one channel on its own isn't as effective as two or more combined. You talk about how much the sale and the customer is costing you, yet you leave out the brand building, the exposure, the trust the customer feels that the merchant isn't going to cheat him (if more than one source recommends a certain merchant, you're more likely to buy from them over someone else).

Question: what happens with the cpc models: if a customer clicks on a link from pricerunner, then from kelkoo, then from shopzilla and buys, do you not pay the clicks on all 3? Or is the question only raised when it comes to commission?

[morleymouse]

the question is only raised when it comes to commission, as it is a significant amount.

it is obviously down to the merchant to monitor their CPC deals and track ROI. Like anything if it gets to a stage where they do not acheive an ROI that is acceptable they would be pulled.

some merchants may be able to pay all the parties along the way but that makes you wonder just how much margin they are working on and if infact affiliates with them are getting a fair deal? Nobodys going to be running at a loss so if they are able to continue to pay all parties surely they have a bigger margin than they let on, and in fact could offer affiliates a lot more.

if we lowered commission and increased prices we would have more money to pay all parties, would this be a better solution? Thats a rhetorical question by the way as if anything we will only lower out prices to make us easlier to promote, convert better and be more competative.