Customize Commission Rules with Dynamic Commissioning

Dynamic Commissioning, now officially out of Beta, allows advertisers to offer variable commissioning rates across a variety of data fields such as product category or customer status. We sat down with our Senior Product Manager, Kris Neese, to find out more about Dynamic Commissioning and its benefits.

Q: What does Dynamic Commissioning do?
A: A couple of years back, we started asking our advertisers to send us additional fields of data when they report their transactions, such as Product Brand, Customer Status, Discount Type, and Product Category. The role of Dynamic Commissioning is to allow our advertisers to create commissioning rules based on those additional fields of data they report to Rakuten Marketing. This, in turn, allows them to better control commissioning costs and offers publishers complete transparency on what they need to do to support the objectives of the brand.

Q: What are some of the new updates?
A: A lot of the work we’re doing with our dynamic offers is simply to make more data fields commissionable in our system. That number is up to 30 at this point.

We are also focusing on keeping the overall process easy, yet powerful. As an example, we will be releasing a feature that gives advertisers the ability to create combination rules. This feature will provide our finance partners with the ability to pay commissions based on a combination of the credit card a consumer applies for and a customer score determined by the bank.

Q: How does it work and how can it be used?
A: “Offers” are a vehicle that our advertisers use to extend commission terms to a publisher. Once an advertiser starts sending us any of the commissionable data fields, we allow them to start building rules into their offers using that data. For example, advertisers using Dynamic Commissioning have the ability to control their costs more effectively by creating commissioning rules that only pay out on certain products and can exclude gift card sales or sales on a product with a low profit margin.

Q: What makes Dynamic Commissioning unique?
A: Simplicity. We’ve made it very easy for an advertiser to let their publishers know what kind of sales are most important for their affiliate partnership.

Q: How can the financial services vertical use Dynamic Commissioning?
A: Dynamic Commissioning can be very useful for financial services advertisers.  For example, credit card issuers can utilize this feature to communicate to a publisher the types of customers the issuer is seeking.  Brands can easily take advantage of certain data fields such as Product Category, detailing what type of financial product the consumer wanted (i.e. which credit card they applied for: business, personal, etc.) or Customer Score* which is determined by the advertiser.

Q: How do advertisers benefit?
A: Not all sales are created equal. Including commissioning rules in an offer helps advertisers to manage their bottom line, while incentivizing publishers who can deliver specific customer segments or sell strategic brands and product categories.

Q: How do publishers benefit?
A: Our publishers get a clear picture of what their advertiser partners value the most and can receive financial incentives for delivering those customers/sales.

Interested in learning more?

Talk to your account manager about Dynamic Commissioning today!

*Customer score provides merchants and issuers the ability to pass along a value for every order.  The issuer determines how this value is derived, as it can include several factors including risk, transactor vs. revolver tendencies, and lifetime value.