With Decentrix AffTraq affiliate sales tracking solution, you are in control of and manage your Affiliates. You will decide what the commission amounts will be, the commission structure you wish to have, when you will pay commissions, how much and what communication you will have with your Affiliates and anything else related to your Affiliate Program.
Your AffTraq affiliate sales tracking solution will provide the core set of administrative tools you will use to easily and automatically accomplish your Affiliate related tasks.
Once you have made the critical decisions about your program AffTraq will be set-up to automatically perform to your decisions and corresponding settings. The following five (5) fundamental decisions are described in detail below:
1. Affiliate commission amounts - what will you pay your Affiliates?
2. Commission structure - how will your commission be structured?
3. When to pay commission - how often will you cut checks, are there thresholds?
4. How to pay commissions - how exactly will you pay your Affiliates?
5. Affiliate communications - What triggers emails to your Affiliates?
Decision #1 - Affiliate Commission Amounts:
One of your first decisions will be to determine your commission amount. This will depend on what you can pay and what your Affiliates will be willing to work for. However, the most important aspect to remember is to reward based on RESULTS. Here are your two (2) options:
- Percentage - This means that the larger the value of any sale the larger the commission amount. It is easy to understand. The actual percentage rate is best applied across all of your products otherwise the administration of your affiliate program could become extremely complicated and perhaps confusing.
- Flat Rate - This means that you will pay your Affiliates the same amount per closed sale no matter what they sell. If products are priced at a similar pricing level this can be a popular way to pay Affiliates.
Decision #2 -Affiliate Commission Structure:
Your next affiliate sales tracking decision is to determine what commission structure you want to administer. With Decentrix AffTraq you have the option of either a one-tier or two-tier structure.
- With a one-tier structure, the commission is straight forward. When an Affiliate joins your program and places a link to your Website on their Website and a prospect clicks on the link to come to your site resulting in sale, you will obviously provide Affiliate "A" a commission. That is the end of it.
- With a two-tier structure, in addition to earning a first tier commission as described above, Affiliate "A" will also earn a commission for sales made by Affiliate "B" if they have referred Affiliate "B" to your program. In other words, for each sale that Affiliate "B" makes, Affiliate "A" will earn a second tier commission amount.
We do not support more than a two-tiered structure. If you require more than a two-tiered structure you should investigate MLM software products designed for this purpose. We believe that your Affiliates should focus on selling for you, not creating a down-line selling arrangement that provides them a comfortable income with little work. We believe that you want your Affiliates to sell directly for you with at most another level of referral and you want to reward them accordingly.
Decision #3 - When to Pay Affiliates:
There are two main factors associated with "when" to pay. The time period to pay or "periodicity", and the minimum commission amount accumulated before you will cut a check to the Affiliate.
- Periodicity - Most Merchants pay Affiliate commission on a monthly basis. This is a common industry practice. For example, you may decide to pay by the 10th of each month for sales made in the prior month. For example, you will pay by December 10th for sales made in November.
- Minimum Amounts - Most Merchants set a minimum amount that the Affiliate must reach before you will issue them a commission check. You will need to determine what that minimum amount will be for your Affiliates and let them know this in advance through your Affiliate Agreement. If an Affiliate has earned a commission, but not the minimum amount for the month, you will simply carry over their balance to subsequent months until the total meets the minimum amount.
Whatever minimum amount you set, you will likely want to clear out your balances by paying everyone that has earned a commission at the end of each quarter.
Decision #4 - How to Pay Affiliates:
Since your Decentrix AffTraq affiliate sales tracking solution is your own Affiliate sales Tracking and Management System, it is your responsibility to write commission checks and get them to your Affiliates. You have a few options for this process:
- Handwritten Checks - Once each month you will run your commission report from AffTrac, writes out checks to each Affiliate, place them in envelopes and send them in the mail.
- Check Writing Application - If you are using an accounting package such as Quickbooks, or others, you can type the checks into the software and your accounting software will print the checks for you. You also have the option of exporting a commission report from AffTraq directly to Quickbooks if this is the accounting system you use. You will still need to place the checks in envelopes and mail them.
- Online Payment Services - Some online payment services will allow you to upload a file that contains your Affiliates' email addresses and the amounts you wish to pay them and they will distribute the money to your Affiliates. Generally it is free for your Affiliates to join these services to receive their commissions.
- Your Bank - Your bank may also be willing to provide a payment service if you provide them a report each month.
Decision #5 - Affiliate Communications:
You will want to create a plan to regularly keep in contact with your Affiliates. They are important to your business and you should let them know you are there to support them. They are your sales representatives. Communications with your Affiliates is the key to a successful Affiliate program. Here are some ways that you may wish to communicate with them and AffTraq automates many emails for you and makes your job as easy as possible!
- Thank You for signing up! You will want an email note sent immediately and automatically when an Affiliate signs up for your program thanking them. AffTraq affiliate sales tracking solution provides this message automatically for you and you will want to make edits to our standard reponse to ensure that it makes sense for your business. Make sure it warmly welcomes your unique Affiliate program. If you will take some time before approving them (remember you will probably want to manually approve them rather than automatically approve them), let them know this immediately and tell them how long they will have to wait. Your AffTraq system will automatically send either type of email for you.
- Congratulations! you have been accepted to our Program! - Once you have approved an Affiliate, AffTraq can send an email that includes the following:
- Welcomes them again
- Provide their affiliate ID
- Show them how to obtain your banners and linking code for them to place on their website
- Provide them a link to your Affiliate Login and a brief explanation of what they will find once they login
- Provide them your contact information including your e-mail address. Make them feel comfortable contacting you whenever they have questions.
- Point them to your website and your FAQ section about your Affiliate program
- You may wish to ask them to let you know when they have placed a banner on their site so that you can look at it
