Customize commission structures to better suit your business and attract more affiliates.
Until now, our Affiliate Center has enabled sellers to control Affiliate Commissions at a global level for all affiliates. We wanted to bring sellers with large audiences the flexibility to create customized commission structures to attract more affiliates.
This new Affiliate Commission tracking feature will enable more Sellers to take advantage of SamCart’s Affiliate Center, reduce the number of errors calculating manual payouts, and reduce the amount of total time it takes to pay Affiliate commissions.
This article will walk Sellers through the process of creating additional Commission Plans. If you’re an Affiliate looking for guidance, check out our article on how to use your Affiliate Dashboard.
Creating Additional Commission Plans
Navigate to your Affiliate Center via the Marketing tab in your marketplace dashboard.
To create a new Commission Plan, click on the “Edit Commission Plans” button on the Commission Structure table (about halfway down the Affiliate Center page). This will bring up a modal allowing you to create and name new Commission Plans.
Additionally, you can change the name of the “Default” plan to align more closely with how your business defines various commission structures.
Creating New Products
When a new product is created, that product will be added to all Commission Plans.
Additionally, we’ve updated the default commission for new products to be 0% (previously, new products had a default commission of 50%). Going forward, whenever you create a new product, you must update the commission for that product in the appropriate Commission Plans.
Assigning Affiliates to Commission Plans
To change an Affiliate’s Commission Plan, click on an Affiliate in the Affiliate table to see their details. At the top of the Affiliate Detail view, you can change the Commission Plan for that Affiliate. Affiliates can only be assigned one Commission Plan.
At this time, Commission Plans must be assigned individually on an Affiliate-by-Affiliate basis.
After adding an Affiliate to a Commission Plan, you can see the plan associated with that Affiliate on the Affiliate table under the “Plan” column. Additionally, you can search for Affiliates in Commission Plans by searching the name of the Commission Plan in the Affiliate table search bar. Affiliate Commission Plans are also shown in the Affiliate export.
Adjusting Commission for Different Commission Plans
When there are multiple Commission Plans, you will be able to toggle between the Commission Plans created and adjust the commission on a per-product basis, exactly as you have previously.
When making changes to commissions, the changes are saved automatically and apply only to the Commission Plan selected in the dropdown.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Have existing Commission Plans been changed?
A: No. Upon the release of this feature, existing commission structures will be completely unchanged and there will be no difference in the commission applied at checkout.
However, as the Seller, you will notice that your Commission Structure table now shows a “Default” Commission Plan and a button to manage Commission Plans.
Q: What happens to existing subscriptions if an Affiliate’s plan is changed?
A: In the event the Affiliate’s Commission Plan is changed, all future Orders and Subscriptions will use the terms of the new Commission Plan.
Active subscriptions for which the Affiliate is collecting commission will be unchanged. All existing subscriptions will use the commission terms set when the Subscription was first created.
Q: Can Affiliates see which Commission Plan they are assigned to?
A: At this time, Affiliates cannot see which Commission Plan they are on. Nothing in the Affiliate’s dashboard has been changed with this feature.
Q: What happens when I delete a Commission Plan?
A: If you wish to no longer use one of your Commission Plans, you can delete the Commission Plan. When a Commission Plan is deleted, all Affiliates in that Commission Plan will be automatically migrated to the Default Commission Plan which cannot be deleted.
Even if a Commission Plan is deleted, active subscriptions will continue to use the commission terms set when the subscription was created. Therefore, deleting a Commission Plan will simply remove all Affiliates from that Commission Plan and prevent it from being used again in the future.