Removing unproductive incentives from a commission plan

Identify the behaviour an affiliate incentive rewards, the orders it affects and what has already been promised to publishers before removing it. Check the reward rules against the incentive’s intended job and compare the affected cohort’s approved outcomes with its full cost. Write a prospective replacement and give the notice required by the applicable terms before it takes effect; weak aggregate returns alone do not justify changing commission already earned under the terms in force.

Identify the payment and its intended job

List each temporary uplift, bonus, voucher-linked payment and partner-specific rate. State the action each was meant to encourage, such as a first live placement, an approved acquisition or a selected-product sale. Record its dates, eligible partners, payout base and any separate placement fee.

For a defined order cohort, compare approved outcomes with the full cost. Join affiliate transactions to store orders and account for discounts, refunds, product and fulfilment costs, commission, relevant platform charges and fixed payments, using a consistent GST basis. A sale credited under a programme rule is not automatically a sale caused by the incentive.

Judge the reward against the action it was meant to encourage, not a programme-wide average. Consider whether the approved outcomes and contribution justify the incentive’s full cost, while treating credited orders as evidence rather than proof of causation.

Check the reward and the rule

Awin Classic commission groups include a mandatory Default group. Awin Access allows up to three groups including Default; Accelerate and Advanced allow more groups and conditions.

Awin Commission Groups can vary rates by product category, customer type, device type and other tracking conditions. The documentation says partners receive the Default rate unless assigned a specific Publisher Commission Rate, so check both the group rule and any partner-specific rate before changing the Default rate.

The Awin Commission Group Performance report shows commission-group performance and sales trends, with filters including period, Transaction Date or Validation Date, and transaction status such as Pending or All. It is available only to Accelerate and Advanced customers, so check access before relying on it for the review.

The Awin Transactions report is available on Awin Classic. Find it under Reports > Performance > Transactions, then export as CSV or Excel; its listed fields include publisher_id, sale_amount, commission, date and commission_status, which can help identify the affected partners, amounts and transaction status.

Awin’s Terms and conditions describes programme T&Cs as the agreement between advertisers and partners, covering how the programme operates and how partners may promote the brand. The page says these terms moved to the new Awin platform on 15 July and are no longer available on Awin Classic.

Key data sources for commission plan reviews

Write a prospective replacement

State the qualifying event, eligible items or customer group, payout base, amount, exclusions and effective date in terms a publisher can calculate. Decide how orders recorded before the change, pending approvals and agreed placements are handled under the applicable terms.

For example, if an uplift was intended to secure a first live placement, check whether its reward rule actually depends on that placement or pays on another event, such as a sale. If the rule misses its intended job, write a future rule around a qualifying event that can be verified under the agreement and tracking setup.

Confirm each partner’s notice obligation in the applicable programme terms and agreement, including any partner-specific placement commitment, before setting the effective date. Do not assume one notice period applies to every partner or schedule removal before the required notice has been given.

Before the new rule begins, plan checks for an eligible order, excluded order, mixed basket, missing customer status and refund. Compare expected payouts under old and new terms with a provider-supported test.

Review the next defined cohort for approved outcomes, contribution and publisher response. If an incentive bought a useful placement but paid too broadly, a narrower agreement may be more useful than ending the relationship.