Split commission is a core concept of multi-attribution approach, where merchants are remunerated not only on the basis of being the last referring affiliate, but also the first, or at any other affiliate touch points.
Traditional affiliate commissions rest upon the idea of the last click principle, where the affiliate that last referred an end consumer right before a qualifying action. This may be great for the last site to touch the customer, but this remuneration model does not take into account any roles that any previous affiliates potentially played in providing exposure that helped close the sale.
The multi-attribution model seems to be picking up, as a few leading referral agencies are working towards making this a reality by actively engaging merchants and affiliate marketers alike. An excellent proposition to both parties involved, and although not a revolutionary concept (it has been in use for some time now by PostAffiliatePro™), it has the potential to innovate a new way of bringing all parties together in terms of transparency and value.
Split commissions enable all affiliate marketing touch points to benefit from compensation. Usually the compensation model offers a flat fee to all affiliates who have influenced a consumer’s decision along the way, and a final full commission to the last affiliate.
Referral traffic ignited discussions over conversion attribution, and the existing last click model has been widely adopted by affiliate networks and in-house affiliate programs. But because there has never been a consensus about it, most affiliates who actively participate in the network for a merchant, have to play it by chance, and therefore, given the odds of which affiliate ends up being the last click referrer, most are not too happy with the idea.
Multi-attribution may just be what these affiliates are hoping to achieve, but as more and more participants gather up to rally up network support to benefit one and all, certain risk based questions will come up. For e.g. how do we identify who really introduced the customer to the brand? This is critical because it takes into account the time beyond the affiliate program’s cookie life. Another question may enquire on the significance of an affiliate’s role in the consumer’s decision-making process. Yet another asks about the value of each affiliate touch point and the ways to measure them.
Solutions to these queries may well dictate the levels of success for split commission models.
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