Working with commission rules
- Former user (Deleted)
What is a commission rule?
Commission rules allow you to create incentives for partners to boost their performance. This can by done by giving a fixed bonus or upgrading the partner to a different commission model with higher commissions:
You can create a rule which automatically rewards your partners with a fixed bonus every time they reach a certain performance level within a set time frame.
You can create a rule which automatically promotes partners to another commission model as soon as they reach a a certain performance level within a set time frame.
This article explains you how.
Creating a new commission rule
Getting started
If you haven’t already done so, login to your admin UI. Click on ‘advertiser’ in the main navigation and proceed to click on ‘manage advertisers’. On the overview page with all the advertisers on your platform, click on the iconnext to the advertiser you want to create a commission rule for. On the page appearing now, you will find the familiar overview of the commission models of your advertiser. Further below, you will find the existing commission rules. To create a new commission rule, just click the button ‘create new commission rule’ in the right corner above the overview.
Main settings of the rule
Once you have clicked the button ‘new commission rule’, the following page will appear:
This feature will guide you through the main settings of your rule step by step, explaining every setting on the way:
First, you have to define the type of rule you want to create. As was mentioned above already, you can choose between a bonus rule and a model upgrade.
A bonus is a fix amount you give partners when they generate a certain number of conversions (open, approved or confirmed), a sum of revenue, an order value, etc. within a certain period. This bonus is awarded the next day with a separate bonus conversion.
A model upgrade automatically assigns partners to another commission model when they reach a certain number of conversions, a sum of revenue, an order value, etc. within a defined period.
Once you have selected whether you want to work with a bonus or a model upgrade, you have to provide further details:
In case of a bonus rule, you have to define the type of performance you want to look at: the sum of revenue partners generate, the order value, the number of conversions or a different type. You also have to define the period, i.e. whether partners need to achieve the performance level within a day, week, month, etc.
In case of a model upgrade you have to define the type of performance and the period as well, along with two other settings:
Whether you want the ad space of the partner to be allocated to a different model immediately, i.e. as soon as the required performance level is reached, or at the beginning of the subsequent period.
The commission model partners will be allocated to when they do not reach the performance level in the subsequent period.
Finally, you will have to give your rule a name and set it to active.
Please note that detailed conditions of your rule can only be defined after you have saved the main settings.
Creating conditions
If you have created the conditions for assignment, you will see a panel appear once you click the icon. This panel will appear under the rule you are working on. What this panel will look like depends on the kind of rule you have created, an assignment or a bonus. Let’s have a look at the assignment first.
Defining conditions for a model upgrade
As soon as you have defined and saved the main settings for your commission rule, you will find it appearing in the list of rules on the main page. To define the conditions, go to the relevant rule and click on the icon. If you do so, a panel will appear below the rule looking more or less like this:
Every row in this panel represents a condition and is structured like a conditional phrase, starting with the word if. The sentence continues to mention what you have based your rule on in the main settings, the number of confirmed conversions in this example above. If you want your rule only to apply to conversions from a specific product category or a conversion target, you can define this in the next two menus in the row – otherwise, just select ‘all’ in both menus.
Following the example above, the sentence is now:
“If the number of confirmed conversions from all categories and all targets …”
To proceed, you decide whether the number must equal (>=) or be bigger (>) than the criterion under ‘operator’. Then, you fill in the criterion, i.e. the number of confirmed conversions a partner has to reach for the rule to apply, and choose the commission model you want him to be assigned to if he meets the criterion. In the right top corner of the panel, you can also modify the fallback model. Following the example above, the sentence would be:
“If the number of confirmed conversions from all categories and all targets exceeds 400, assign the partner to the premium commission model.”
Please note that by clicking the icon, you can create more than one condition. If, as in the example above, you have a third, even better commission model, you could create another condition which defines that all partners who, say, make more than 800 or 1200 confirmed conversions, are assigned to it.
Defining conditions for a bonus rule
If you have created a bonus rule, you will see the following panel will appear once you click the icon:
As with the assignment conditions, every row in this panel represents a condition and is structured like a conditional phrase, starting with the word if. The first part of the sentence equals the sentence in the assignment conditions: first, it states what you have based your rule on in the main settings and second it states whether you have limit your condition conversions from a specific product category or a conversion target, you can define this in the next two menus in the row – or just let all categories and targets apply. What follows is the operator, via which you decide whether the number must equal (>=) or be bigger (>) than your criterion, which you fill in in the next field. Following the example above, the first half of your sentence is now:
“If the number of confirmed conversions from all categories and all targets …”
Now you can define your bonus: you can define a fixed bonus, a bonus per conversion or a bonus based on a percentage of the total order value of the conversions, or use a combination. Following the example above, the sentence will now be:
“If the number of confirmed conversions from all categories and all targets exceeds 100, give the partner a bonus of 1.0000.”
Please note that by clicking the icon you can create more than one condition. Following the example above, you could create another bonus when a partner reaches 1000 conversions.
Looking at the rule application history
To get an overview on how often a set rule applies to the number of assigned ad spaces you can have a look at the rule history. By clicking on the icon you can see the history of the last 10 corresponding job runs of a certain rule with the latest, currently running job firstly listed, followed by previous runs:
As you can see, the latest job is listed first. The icon indicates that the defined period for the rule has not yet been completed. The column right next to it shows the period followed by the exact dates of the observation period so that you are able to derive when the period is finished and the decision for whether the rule will apply or not is made. The column ‘Adspaces (affected/assigned)’ shows the number of ad spaces that are assigned to this rule as well as the number of ad spaces for which the rule applied. By comparing these two figures you can check how strict, relevant etc. your rule is. This can be a good indication to change the rule settings and conditions. You are also able to export this information by clicking on the icon of the relevant job run/period. The files contain all ad spaces with their performance values comparing them to the specific rule conditions.
Editing a commission rule
Getting started
If you haven’t already done so, login to your admin UI. Click on ‘advertiser’ in the main navigation and proceed to click on ‘manage advertisers’. On the overview page with all the advertisers on your platform, click on the iconnext to the advertiser you want to create a commission rule for. On the page appearing now, you will find the familiar overview of the commission models of your advertiser. Further below, you will find the existing commission rules.
Finding your rule
In most cases, you will find your rule listed up on the page where you are now. However, it might be that the rule you want to edit has been deactivated. To find your deactivated rule, click the tick box ‘show disabled’ above the list, right next to the create new commission rule button. As soon as you tick the box, you will find the deactivated rules appear in the list as well, marked with the icon under status.
Editing your rule’s main settings
To edit the main settings of your commission rule, click on the icon in the rule’s row. If you do so, a page will appear where you can edit the name, status, object (under ‘based on’), timeframe (under ‘recurring’) and latency time (under ‘executing’). For a comprehensive explanation of all these entries, please read the article on how to apply a rule to a commission model. Do not forget to click the button save when you are done editing.
Editing your rule’s conditions
To edit the conditions of your rule, click on the icon in the rule’s row. If you do so, you will see a panel opening up below the rule. Remember the conditions of the rule are structured in a conditional phrase, starting with ‘if’. Say you are editing a bonus rule which assigns 5% on top of the order value when a partner makes more than 100 sales a week, your phrase will look like this:
“If the number of conversions of all product categories and all conversion targets exceeds 100, a bonus of 5% on the order value will be assigned.”
In principle, you can change all the elements in italic. You can limit the rule to a specific product category or a specific conversion target or, should they be limited, expand them to all product categories or all conversion targets. You can lower or raise the criterion and even change the operator – in the example above, a bonus is assigned when the number of conversions exceeds 100. You could, for example, raise this to 200 conversions and make sure the bonus is also assigned when the number of conversions equals this level. Finally, you can raise or lower the percentage of the bonus amount, you can also add or switch to a fix bonus on the whole amount or per conversion.
When you are done editing, don’t forget to click ‘save’ at the bottom of the panel.