Affiliate Commission Plans

In order to pay out your affiliates, you will need to define Commission Plans that specify how much an affiliate receives for each purchase that they refer. The following guide will outline the basic features and options for creating commission plans.

Introduction

Overview

Commission plans can be found by visiting the LeadDyno Dashboard > Commissions > Commission Plans. 

You will be presented with an overview displaying your Default Commission Plan, along with its settings, and any Payment Plans you have added already. Consider the Commission Plan as consisting of multiple Payment Plans, each with its own settings.

When a purchase or other specified commission-able event comes in, each Payment Plan will be checked to see if it applies, depending on the ruleset you have defined. Then all relevant calculations will be made, and you will be able to view your commission under Pay Commission in the sidebar.

If you're using Alternate Commission Plans, the settings at the top allow you to change the plan code and currency. 

The currency will determine what currency the commissions will represent. For more on this, please see our currency control document.

The plan code is useful if you are using alternate plans, but for most use cases, you shouldn't need to worry about it. The default plan name is not editable. 

Creating a Payment Plan

To create your first Payment Plan, scroll down to find the Add Payment button.

You will then be presented with the basic settings, which allow you to control the core functionality of your plan.

Payment for

The commission can be paid out on a variety of system events and with special rules. These options allow you to determine for which event the commission applies.

• Purchases;
• Leads (when someone enters an email on your site and becomes a potential customer);
• Visitors (when a unique, first-time visitor is gathered by the affiliate);
• Line items (see our guide on per product commissions);
• New-customer bounties (Reward affiliates for a one-time commission for any new customers they refer you. See our guide on new customer bounties.);
• Affiliate-specific products.

How much

Here is where you set how much commission will be paid out to the affiliate when this plan activates.

Percentage

This setting means that the commission will be a specified % of the price that came in with the purchase. If the purchase had a discount, the discount price will have been removed before the commission gets calculated.

Amount

This allows you to set a flat amount for the commission payment. It will be in the currency that is set in the commission plan overview.

When

This setting determines when the commission becomes "due". We recommend setting it to at least 1 month so that if the purchase is canceled within that month, you won't end up paying a commission for a purchase that is no longer being fulfilled.

*Please note that affiliates are NOT paid automatically. For more information on paying affiliates, please view our guide on affiliate compensation.

Who

Here you can specify the Affiliate Group/Type that the plan will apply to. It comes with two defaults. "All Affiliates" means that any affiliate can earn this commission if the rules are met. "Affiliates" is the default group/type that affiliates will be listed under for a new account. You can create new ones to suit your needs.

Advanced Options

Click on Advanced Options to further refine your commission plan.

Intervals

Intervals allow you to set up limits within which the commission will apply. Often, customers will use this to create stepped or tiered-based payment plans. Base commissions on product count or combined purchase totals.

Count

When a purchase is made, a counter will be incremented. This counter is used by the intervals feature to decide when to pay which commission. An example of usage is paying a bonus to affiliates when they get a certain amount of purchases.

In the example below, we have set up a commission plan that starts at 10, credits every 1 purchase, up to 10 purchases. What that will result in is that at only the 10th purchase, this commission will apply.

In this next example, we are starting at 5, crediting every 5, up to 100. The result will be that the customer gets commission at 5, 10, 15, 20 (in steps of 5) and they will get the final commission at 100.

Purchase Totals

When a purchase is made, the price will be added to a running total of all purchases that have been sourced by the affiliate. That total can be used to decide whether to pay commission and if so, how much.

In the example below, we have set up an example where all purchases will get a commission, but once their sourced purchases have reached a total of $100, they will no longer get a commission.

In addition to that example above, we might want to add a plan that applies after $100. See below for how we do that. You can continue creating intervals in this way to create a stepped or tiered commission plan.

Reset monthly

If you have the reset monthly checkbox active, then any accumulated Count or Purchase Totals will be reset to zero at the end of the month, and affiliates will have to climb through the intervals again.

Custom Payouts

Custom payouts allow you to grant commission that is not monetary. You can give store credit in this way, or bonus gifts, free items, and so on. Use the Amount setting to determine how many of this item your affiliate will get.

Our system can not automatically hand out the Custom Payouts. It just logs them as a value. Store credit or bonus gifts must be given manually by yourself to the affiliate.

Multi-Level Marketing (MLM)

MLM allows commissions to be shared between tiers of referred affiliates. For more on this, please see our two MLM guides:

• MLM - Multi-Level Marketing Setup;

• MLM - Step By Step - 3 Level Affiliate Chain.

Time Boxed Commissions

Time Boxed Commissions allow you to define a time range within which this Payment Plan will apply. For example, 01/11/20 to 31/12/20 would make the commission plan be available from the 1st November 2020 to the 31st December 2020. After that, it will stop running.

When you have set the values and saved your payment plan, you will also see these dates reflected in the plan overview.

You can also leave out one of the dates. If you leave out the start date, it will last from today until the end date. If you leave out the end date, it will begin from the start date and then be available indefinitely.

Recurring Payments

Recurring Payments is a feature used to make a purchase renew itself each month and pay commission again. This should be used with CAUTION. It is only necessary for some subscription integrations. For more information see our guide on recurring payments.

Alternate Commission Plans

Alternative Commission Plans is an advanced feature typically used for Stripe or custom API integrations. Please contact us for more information about this feature.

Set up Affiliate Bonuses

It’s possible to set up affiliate bonuses based on the affiliate's performance. To do so, create a Payment Plan to set what the payment is for, how much, when will the payout occur and who is eligible. Next, use Intervals to determine the number of sales required to achieve a certain bonus. The bonus requirements can be set to a defined period of time using Time Boxed Commissions. The bonus can be a set $ amount or a Custom Payout such as a gift or store credit.

Commission Description

Global Commission Description

This editor allows you to describe the compensation you offer your affiliates and appears above the affiliate’s commission information. To edit the Global Commission Description visit Website > Commission. Enter your content and click Save all Changes. As long as there are no commission descriptions for specific affiliate groups, the general description will be displayed. 

Custom Commission Description for Affiliate Groups

You can also set up a custom commission description for each Affiliate Group. To do this, you need to first go to Commission > Affiliate Groups and select the desired group. You'll see the Affiliate Group Details section where you will have to select the 'Edit Affiliate Group' button. 

Here you'll have the  commission description area where you can add your custom description. As mentioned there as well, if blank, the Global Commission Description will be displayed.

As always, are here to help. Contact us at any time and our Support team will be there for you.