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Can I Pay-Out Commissions From My Commission?

by James Liberty
18 replies
Let's say I set up a web page that has five
great affiliate product reviews on it.

Now let's say that my mom decides to
send a visitor to my review page, and
that person ends up buying an affiiliate
product through one of my links.

Can I then pay my mom a 50% commission
from the affiliate commission that I earned?

Is this allowed... and is there a way
to automate the process?
#affiliate management #commission #commissions #payout
  • Profile picture of the author Andy Fletcher
    It's definitely allowed by most affiliate programs but tracking who the referals were that lead to sales can be a pain. I'm not aware of any software that automates it but for some where like clickbank you could give each affiliate a tracking id.
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    • Profile picture of the author James Liberty
      Originally Posted by Andy Fletcher View Post

      It's definitely allowed by most affiliate programs but tracking who the referals were that lead to sales can be a pain. I'm not aware of any software that automates it but for some where like clickbank you could give each affiliate a tracking id.
      Wow, I'm surprised that there wouldn't be any software for this. Is that because most affiliate management systems need a shopping cart in order to function properly? :confused:
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      • Profile picture of the author Jelasco
        If there's no software that does it, it's because this is an unusual request. The software would have to be different for every affiliate program in order to work with their links.

        This is like a 2-tier plan with the person on tier 1 paying the person on tier 2, where a normal 2-tier program would have the product owner paying both.
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        • Profile picture of the author GuruGazette
          Last time I looked, ClickBank didn't allow this. It's what's known as incentive based marketing and many affiliate programs don't allow it.

          With that said though, places like Commission Junction, Share a Sale, and various CPA netoworks have a tracking feature usually called the "subid". You can use that to automatically track referrals from your mom or otherwise
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          • Profile picture of the author Jelasco
            Kathy, are you sure? The Clickbank rule I know of is about an affiliate sending a rebate to a customer, not an affiliate paying another affiliate.

            I've never seen a rule on that, and this thread is the first I've heard of the idea, so I'd be surprised if there are many rules about something so obscure.
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            • Profile picture of the author GuruGazette
              Like I said: "Last I knew"

              About a year or so ago giving away rebates and other types of kickbacks got really popular, then CB came out with a blanket statement that said you weren't even allowed to offer bonuses. They shut a couple of people down and sent warnings to others.

              Since then I don't know if it's changed again (originally the rule was you couldn't SELL rebates if I remember right) and I know plenty of people still offer bonuses ::shrug::

              Guess I should go look to see what the current wording is hmm?
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              • Profile picture of the author GuruGazette
                Ok I can't find it anymore. They used to have a page that talked about allowed and disallowed products, but the best I can find is this one:

                "You agree to make no such promotions promising customers rebates, coupons, tickets, or vouchers in connection with their ClickBank purchase."
                https://www.clickbank.com/terms.html

                So maybe it's not an issue anymore (again)
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                • Profile picture of the author James Liberty
                  Anyone happen to know how I would go about attempting something like this? What sort of person would I need to hire? A programmer? A web-based software programmer? A Java-script guy? (lol) Ummm...

                  Seriously, I don't really know what each of the different types of programmers do. What type would I need to hire to pull-off this sort of thing?
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                  • Profile picture of the author internetmarketer99
                    I don't think it applies to Clickbank.

                    And I don't think that would be considered an "incentivized offer", which IS strictly prohibit by most affiliate offers.

                    Otherwise, for a high-commission product, you would quickly have affiliates running ads saying "buy from me, and I'll give you $50", then "buy from me, I'll give you $100", etc.

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              • Profile picture of the author Jelasco
                Originally Posted by GuruGazette View Post

                Like I said: "Last I knew"
                About a year or so ago giving away rebates and other types of kickbacks got really popular, then CB came out with a blanket statement that said you weren't even allowed to offer bonuses. They shut a couple of people down and sent warnings to others.
                Again, that applies to giving things to CUSTOMERS. Are you aware of any rules about paying other affiliates, which is what this topic is about?
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                • Profile picture of the author keyblast
                  Banned
                  [DELETED]
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                  • Profile picture of the author johnmiley
                    I agree with Keyblast's post.

                    And, theoretically, if you use a sub id to track sales, only you will know that certain sub-id's are tagged in your affiliate deck, so it's just a matter of you keeping track of it, and handling the payouts.

                    To keep it simple, test this with your mom, give her a sub-id., keep a ledger or her sales and pay her out manually via Paypal or similar service.

                    If you like how it works, consider building on it for other affiliates in your network.

                    And, if you aren't dealing with an army of sub-affiliates, I think you can manage it manually for quite some time, before it's too cumbersome.

                    Unless I've overlooked some strict policies against this (by vendor), I can't see it causing waves.
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                • Profile picture of the author GuruGazette
                  Originally Posted by Jelasco View Post

                  Again, that applies to giving things to CUSTOMERS. Are you aware of any rules about paying other affiliates, which is what this topic is about?
                  Nope, you're right I missed the affiliate vs. customer part of things. Sorry about that.
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  • Profile picture of the author Floyd Fisher
    Originally Posted by James Gilchrist View Post

    Let's say I set up a web page that has five
    great affiliate product reviews on it.

    Now let's say that my mom decides to
    send a visitor to my review page, and
    that person ends up buying an affiiliate
    product through one of my links.

    Can I then pay my mom a 50% commission
    from the affiliate commission that I earned?

    Is this allowed... and is there a way
    to automate the process?
    Can it be done? Absolutely.

    How to automate it? The affiliate program itself has to be a two level in order to do that.
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    • Profile picture of the author James Liberty
      Originally Posted by Floyd Fisher View Post

      Can it be done? Absolutely.

      How to automate it? The affiliate program itself has to be a two level in order to do that.
      Hmmm... can someone please elaborate on this for me? Only 49% of my brain is grasping the concept.

      (And can I do a two-tier affiliate program if I don't even have a product to sell?)
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      • Profile picture of the author Floyd Fisher
        Originally Posted by James Gilchrist View Post

        Hmmm... can someone please elaborate on this for me? Only 49% of my brain is grasping the concept.

        (And can I do a two-tier affiliate program if I don't even have a product to sell?)
        A two tiered affiliate program is where an affiliate can recruit others below them, and get a cut of everything the affiliates below them sell.

        The program you're promoting through has to be two tiered in order to do this. Since clickbank is single tiered, it's impossible to automate.

        Two tiered programs are pretty much gone since paypal banned them.
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        • Profile picture of the author Richard HAN
          James

          Why not get your mom to register a ClickBank ID, set up a review page with her aff id and be done with it?


          .
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          • Profile picture of the author James Liberty
            Originally Posted by Floyd Fisher View Post


            The program you're promoting through has to be two tiered in order to do this. Since clickbank is single tiered, it's impossible to automate.

            Two tiered programs are pretty much gone since paypal banned them.
            If I can figure out how to pay my affiliates a commission from the affiliate products that I sell, I will probably become a millionaire.

            But seeing this comment was rather deflating.

            Originally Posted by Richard HAN View Post

            James

            Why not get your mom to register a ClickBank ID, set up a review page with her aff id and be done with it?
            My idea is actually far more complicated than the example I gave here... and it would involve hundreds of affiliates.
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          • Profile picture of the author Jelasco
            Originally Posted by Richard HAN View Post

            James

            Why not get your mom to register a ClickBank ID, set up a review page with her aff id and be done with it?
            How would that even work? James is not the vendor but an affiliate.
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