Case Studies In Dynamic Commission Payouts (Attribution)

Case Studies In AttributionHow Top Brands Are Using Attribution To Create

Actionable & Dynamic Referral Programs

Affiliate Summit East, 2015Case Studies In Attributionby @ChadW8

Chad WaiteMarketing Manager, [email protected]

So, What Are You Going To Learn?

1. what is attribution2. how are top merchant using it

to build better programs

Case Studies In Attributionby @ChadW8

Affiliate Summit East, 2015

What Is Attribution?

it isn’t just marketing channel clickstreamdata and arbitrary “value” or “credit” numbers



What Is Attribution?

clickstream activity +automated, actionable business rules



What Problem Does It Solve?


1 in 6 affiliate saleshave multipleaffiliate referrals


AvantMetrics


attribution based on:- when

- how many- impact of

affiliate referrals made.


AvantMetrics Referral Groups


introducers influencers checkout influencers

first time a customer visits brand’s site, referralmade through an affiliate





referrals made after first visit butbefore checkout process is started





referrals made after checkoutprocess has been started


AvantMetrics Business Rules


assign portion of overall commissionfor each group, split payout dynamically


AvantMetrics Case Study #1


(using attribution for 8 months)


AvantMetrics Case Study #1Rock/Creek


problem:wanted a more dynamic payout structure that

accounted for all activity from affiliates



purpose of AvantMetrics:attribution was used to process data from

individual sales to award affiliate activity appropriately




data showed 10% of affiliate sales had multiple affiliates involved. lcw

model wasn’t optimal




introducer: X%influencer: 30%checkout influencer: 20%




result:sales with multiple referrals resulted

in dynamic payouts. huge win for affiliatesearly and mid click stream





very large clothing retailer(using attribution for 10 months)




problem:considering cutting all coupon sites based on

assumptions of program impact but no data to back up those assumptions




purpose of AvantMetrics:attribution used to determine referral value

based on real data, award commissions accordingly




data showed that many coupon sites made referralsat all different points of the clickstream- not just

during checkout phase








result:built program that included payouts to everyone involved and based on value of referral, saved

relationship with many, many coupon sites




large home & personal goods retailer(using attribution for two months)




problem:needed data to show value of program versus other

online marketing channels + make payouts more dynamic for each sale




purpose of AvantMetrics:attribution used to track impact of all marketing channels on individual customer sales + create

dynamic payout system




data showed high cost of other paid channels used multiple times per sale versus one commission payout

to multiple affiliate referrals in a single sales cycle












result:showed program had high value, other paid channels were heavily repeated for same sale. made a more

dynamic payout system.




(using attribution for 13 months)



problem:nearly all sales coming in from coupon sitesdespite focus on developing a core affiliate

base of content based review sites

AvantMetrics Case Study #4Horizon Fitness



purpose of AvantMetrics:focus on inclusion of all referrals + data totrack referral behavior based on products

offered and availability





sales with multiple referrals:15-20%








pre-attribution




post-attribution






result:dynamically shifted commission payouts to keep content affiliates rewarded for valid referrals. built hyper-loyalty with these partners. identified trends

in referral behaviors with new product line




future will bring demand for this from affiliateand merchants looking to be more dynamic

Final Thoughts


Case Studies In AttributionHow Top Brands Are Using Attribution To Create

Actionable & Dynamic Referral Programs


Chad WaiteMarketing Manager, [email protected]
