Successful Affiliate Marketing for Merchants

Payment Plans—How Much to Pay

You’ll find that affiliate payment plans are all over the map because several forces are at work. For most companies, it’s their gross profit margins that dictate the payouts to their affiliates. That’s why commissions are relatively low on commodity items, such as books, CDs, videos, PCs, and consumer electronics. There’s not much there to pay affiliates.

For companies that sell downloadable products, such as software and books, the margins are a lot higher. In these cases a merchant can pay a much higher pay out. Sometimes even this doesn’t happen. Merchants tend to be stingy with their affiliates and forget that they are a true business partner and should be compensated at the level of their best portal partners. ...