The Commission Hierarchy

When you set up your affiliate program on the network you assigned a Default Commission Rate that acts as the “base” commission rate for your Affiliates. It’s important to note that there are many ways to modify the commission that your Affiliates can receive. You have the ability to assign custom commission rates to individual Affiliates, set up an Affiliate Group and assign a group rate to the Affiliates in that group, set up Global Commission Rules that run such that a custom commission rate will be applied if specific conditions are met when the transaction tracks in your account, and much more. You can view all of the different attribution types available within your account by going to the Commission Portal.

On this page, you’ll be able to review the Commission Hierarchy. The Commission Hierarchy outlines all of the ways that you can modify the commission that your Affiliates can receive. Each commission setting runs with its own priority in the Commission Hierarchy. The most important aspect of the Commission Hierarchy is that each commission setting overrides all of the commission settings above it!

We’ve outlined the most common/standard commission settings below, however, you can expand the view within your account to review the full Commission Hierarchy (standard, intermediate, and advanced commission settings).

Program Default Commission: This is the global default commission rate that you must set during account creation. It is the bottom-line "last resort" commission rate that will run in a given transaction. You can also think of this as the “base” or starting commission rate that your Affiliates are eligible to receive.

Group Commission: If you set up an Affiliate Group in your account you can also assign a custom commission rate only for the Affiliates that you’ve assigned to that Affiliate Group. This will act as the Group Commission Rate. Your Group Commission Rate will override your Program Default Commission Rate if an Affiliate that’s in the assigned Affiliate Group generates a transaction for your program.

Affiliate Individual Default: You have ability to assign a custom commission rate for a specific Affiliate in your program by going to their Affiliate Info page. By doing so, any time this Affiliate generates a transaction for your program their commission will be based on their Affiliate Individual Default Rate, as opposed to your Program Default Commission Rate and/or Group Commission (if applicable).

Global Commission Rules: These commission settings use the ShareASale rule engine and run second to last during the commission calculation process. This means they have the ability to override almost any other commission rate setting. They are a great way to fine tune your commission schedule for Affiliates using various conditions (if X and Y do Z commission action). So, for example, you can set up a Global Commission Rule to increase your Affiliates' commission rates once they cross a certain performance threshold (ex. increase rate to X% once an Affiliate generates Y sales for your program in the current month).

Individual Commission Rules: These commission settings also use the ShareASale rule engine and can be set up to affect a specific Affiliate's commission using various conditionals (if X and Y do Z final commission action). These will replace or affect Global Commission Rules depending on the commission action set. These will run last during the commission calculation process, which means they have the ability to override any other commission rate setting.