4 Reasons To Use Affiliate Bonus Commissions

With more and more businesses using affiliate marketing to promote their products, attracting and incentivizing top affiliates is key to your program’s success.

But how do you make your affiliate program stand out from the crowd?

Everything from tempting commissions to simple signups and easy onboarding can give you a competitive edge. But to really make your program stand out, look no further than bonus commissions.

Bonus commissions are an excellent way to attract top talent, encourage affiliate sales, and boost overall conversions.

As part of Tapfiliate’s Pro Plan, bonus commissions are a way to take your affiliate program to the next level. In this article, we’ll discuss how bonus commissions work, why they are important, and ways to use them. Let’s get started.

What are bonus commissions?

Bonus commissions reward affiliates when they reach a set goal.

Bonuses can be customized to fit your overall marketing strategy and budget, including target goals, bonus amounts, bonus periods, and bonus tiers.

Target goals: The set goal for your affiliates to work towards. This can be either the total number of conversions or the total conversion amount.

Bonus amounts: The amount of commission affiliates will earn as a bonus. You can offer a fixed bonus commission or a percentage-based bonus commission.

It’s important to note that bonuses are not based on commission amounts. They are based on conversion amounts.

Bonus periods: The time period for affiliates to reach the target goal. You can choose to set your own time period or use a fixed time period, like a calendar month/week. If you choose this, the bonus will run for a month/week and reset once the month/week is over.

Bonus tiers: The different bonus offers awarded when affiliates reach different goals. This could be offering higher bonus commissions if they reach higher target goals (i.e., 5 conversions is a 5% bonus, 10 conversions is a 10% bonus).

Let’s use an example of bonus commissions

To stay competitive and increase sales during the holiday season, you offer your affiliates a bonus. For the month of December, affiliates that drive 5 or more conversions will earn an extra 5%. If they reach 10 or more conversions, they will earn an extra 10%.

An affiliate drives 7 conversions during this bonus period, so a 5% bonus will be added to all 7 conversions.

Once the bonus period is over, you will approve any bonuses. For this affiliate, the 5% bonus for these conversions will be added on top of the standard commission for that period.

If the affiliate drove more 3 conversions on January 1st, these would not count towards the target goal since the bonus period is over. As bonuses are not cumulative, the affiliate will only receive the offer corresponding to the tier they reached in that time frame. In this case, the affiliate will earn an extra 5%, not 10%.

Why your affiliate program needs bonus commissions

Think about the last time you found a $5 bill in your pocket. It felt pretty good, right? For almost anyone, even a small bonus like this can be exciting.

That’s exactly what offering bonus commissions do — offer that little extra to your affiliate program.

Here are some of the benefits of bonus commissions:

1. New way to incentivize affiliates

As we said before, who doesn’t love getting a little extra money?

Bonus commissions offer an additional incentive for affiliates. This encourages them to give that extra effort to hit their target goal and as a result, more sales.

If an affiliate has 4 conversions but knows that if they reach 5, they will get a bonus, it’s more than likely they’ll work hard to get one more conversion.

2. More flexibility in your commission structure

Bonuses are a way to keep your affiliate program costs within budget while simultaneously keeping your commission rates competitive.

Typically, it’s advised not to start your affiliate commissions too high. By offering the highest commission possible within your margin, you limit the ability to raise commissions or offer additional incentives. This also sets a certain standard for your affiliate program and can be a major disadvantage in case you ever need to lower commissions because of costs.

But with bonuses, you have more flexibility.

You can set a commission rate that fits well within your budget and then use bonus offers to attract top talent. It’s also a way to avoid having to lower commissions. Instead, you can only offer bonuses in a period that fits with your budget.

3. Stay competitive with your offer

Along with giving flexibility to your commission structure, bonuses are a great way to stay competitive.

Simply put, bonuses can be an attractive offer to affiliates. Having this additional perk to your program will help you stand out among your competitors.

Next to that, this allows you to stay current with industry trends and your competitor’s offers. You have room to grow without exceeding your budget — especially since it’s more than likely only a few affiliates will reach the bonus goal. So if a competitor suddenly raises their rates, you can offer a bonus that is comparable but does not add dramatic costs.

4. Boost conversions

Whether it be drawing attention to a new product launch or having extra incentives during slow sales periods, bonus commissions can help give that extra boost to reach specific sales goals.

For example, a travel company could use bonus commissions in the winter off-season when bookings are lower. The bonus commission will encourage affiliates to be more active and promote more frequently, helping the travel company gain high-quality referrals in a time that is slower in traffic and conversions.

Here are some more instances where bonus commissions could be useful:

• New product or features launches
• Seasonal and holiday sales
• Decreased sales periods
• End of the fiscal quarter or year

Get Started

Bonus commissions are part of Tapfiliate’s Pro Plan. You can easily upgrade your existing plan, or you can sign up for a free 14-day trial to begin using this feature.

For more on setting up bonus commissions, you can check out our support docs.

Jessica Rangel

Spending my days writing marketing content, cycling around canals in Amsterdam, and attempting to master the Dutch language.