[Steve Root]

Do performance tiers, where an affiliate earns a higher commission for increased sales, really drive them to promote a program more? I've got several tiers in my program that pay higher commission for increased sales, but I'm not sure it actually drives affiliate behavior. Any thoughts on this from some publishers would be great...

THx!

Steve

[Marsha Liebert]

What I've found is that there is no clear-cut answer. Yes it works for some publishers, but others won't pay attention to it.

It's a good idea to keep those terms as-is because they can be useful and then do regular audits to see which publishers are consistently reaching those higher benchmarks. Maybe it's time to put them on flat higher payments. If publishers are never reaching them, then it's time to change them and make them more reachable.

Do some a/b testing to see if other tiers may work better. Run some manual bonus incentive campaigns.

Above all, talk to your top performers and find out what's best for them. They'll tell you what does/does not incentivize them.

[Steve Root]

Thanks Marsha! I'm leaning towards a flat payment at a higher level than our current base rate, and then run incentive campaigns. That would allow the motivated pubs to earn more through the incentive campaigns and save me from paying pubs who aren't driving an incremental lift in sales.

[Chuck Hamrick]

I feel that performance incentives work but for a different reason. During peak season an affiliate may get a bonus due to high sales but lose that level of commission during off season. If an affiliate is doing the best they can then its a demotivator to lower their pay when interest is lower. They may be giving you as much site real estate as possible but traffic is down. Should they make less commission? Why not move them up and keep them motivated for your program. Its a percentage of sale anyway. Then when peak season hits they are prepared to bring you the most sales possible.

I build three tiers into programs, base, VIP and High Performer. I use those to negotiate with affiliates and reward those who produce. There are over 10k eCommerce affiliate programs so you have lots of competition.

[darrenz]

I use incentive payout structures and they do work in some cases. I think it depends on the type of affiliate you have in the program. Good affiliates know how to take advantage of incentive opportunities and will put forth the effort if there is a real benefit, otherwise they won't bother. In other programs affiliates try but do not succeed because they just don't have the reach.

I also noticed in the case of CPA offers, incentives seem to bring some of the less desirable affiliates out of the woodwork and issues like fraud and low quality leads increase.

-DZ