E-commerce & sales
Commission on revenue that actually settles
Placed orders are a vanity metric in markets where a third of them never get delivered. We build CPS campaigns around delivered, non-returned revenue.
Overview
E-commerce affiliate marketing on Performetra
E-commerce campaigns on Performetra pay commission on delivered, non-returned revenue — not on checkout events. In cash-on-delivery markets like India and the Gulf, where 25–40% of placed orders can fail at the doorstep, that single structural choice is the difference between a CPS that grows profit and one that quietly transfers margin to RTO.
The programme runs on your order data: a postback carries order ID, value and status, reversals flow through automatically inside a window matched to your logistics cycle, and delivered-order rate is reported per publisher so the partner mix optimises itself toward intent. The full argument is in our article on why COD breaks standard affiliate CPS; brands wanting their own partner programme should read managed affiliate programmes.
At a glance
- Billable event
- Delivered order (survives delivery + return window)
- Pricing
- CPS % · flat CPS · new-customer CPA · tiered
- COD handling
- Reversal window matched to your logistics cycle
- Platforms
- Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, marketplaces, custom
- Partner mix
- Content, comparison, review, coupon, cashback, creators
- Reconciliation
- Monthly, against your order database
The approach
The COD problem, handled at the payout
In India and much of the Gulf, cash-on-delivery keeps conversion rates high and margins fragile. Paying commission on placed orders transfers that fragility straight into your acquisition cost. Paying on delivered orders puts it back where it belongs.
- Delivered-order payouts. Commission is calculated on orders that survive delivery and the return window, not on checkout events.
- Reversal windows that match logistics. The clawback period is set to your actual delivery and returns cycle, and written into the offer terms.
- Partner mix by intent. Content, comparison and review partners weighted up; placements that inflate order counts weighted down.
- Order-database reconciliation. Monthly matching against your own order data, with credits applied automatically.
Pricing models
- CPS %
- A percentage of net order value, tiered by category where margins differ.
- Flat CPS
- A fixed fee per confirmed order, simpler for single-price or subscription products.
- New-customer CPA
- A higher payout for first-time buyers and a lower one for repeat, so partners chase acquisition rather than intercepting existing customers.
- Tiered
- Commission that rises with monthly delivered revenue, to reward partners who build rather than spike.
What we need
To quote you a payout, we need five things
None of them take long to gather, and having them ready is the difference between a quote today and a quote next week.
- Product feed or catalogue access, ideally with stock and price updates
- A conversion postback carrying order ID, order value and status
- Your returns and cancellation cycle length
- Commission rules by category, and whether repeat customers are excluded
- Coupon policy — which codes partners may use, and which are off-limits
Guardrails
- Coupon discipline
- Only codes you issue for the programme. Leaking site-wide codes to coupon sites is prohibited and enforced.
- Brand bidding ban
- Monitored with automated SERP checks in your priority geos and enforced by removal plus payout reversal.
- Last-click clarity
- The attribution rule is stated in the offer terms, so partners know what they are competing for.
- Adjustment transparency
- Every clawback line shows the order ID and the reason, and can be disputed.
E-commerce & sales — questions
CPS — cost per sale — is a model where partners earn a commission, percentage or flat, on each confirmed order their traffic produces. On Performetra the confirmation point is delivery rather than checkout, so returns, cancellations and COD failures never earn commission.
The payout attaches to delivered orders: the postback fires at checkout with status pending, updates to approved or rejected once delivery or RTO is confirmed, and commission is calculated on approved orders at the end of the reversal window. RTO stops being your acquisition cost.
Shopify, WooCommerce and Magento via plugin or webhook, custom stacks via a single server-to-server postback carrying order ID, value and status, and marketplaces on flat per-order pricing where order-value data is limited. Integration detail is on the technology page.
A share of contribution margin, not revenue. Take average order value, subtract COGS, shipping, gateway fees and returns provisioning, and set commission from what remains — typically 25–50% of contribution margin for single-purchase products. Our pricing guide walks the arithmetic.
Yes, deliberately and with rules: unique codes per partner, no site-wide code leakage, and a lower payout for repeat customers so coupon traffic earns acquisition money only when it acquires. Content and comparison partners are weighted up because their orders deliver at higher rates.
Yes — a higher commission on prepaid orders usually costs less than the RTO it avoids. Many brands find the maths works even at double the prepaid rate, and the postback’s payment-method field makes it a configuration, not a project.
Both. Marketplace campaigns are usually priced flat per order because order value data is limited; own-site campaigns run on revenue share with full order data.
A separate, lower payout for repeat customers, exclusion rules on your own retention channels, and a new-customer flag in the postback. If you cannot pass the flag, we price the whole programme more conservatively and say so up front.
Only where you allow it, and never on brand terms. Generic-term search partners can be genuinely additive; that decision is yours and it is written into the offer.
Tiered commission by category is standard. We map the commission to your contribution margin, not to your revenue, so scale does not quietly destroy profitability.
Explore the silo
Other Performetra solutions
Most advertisers combine two or three of these — a lower-funnel network buy plus a reach or creator layer, measured in one place.
App growth
Installs are easy to buy and easy to fake.
Lead generation
A lead is only worth what the sales floor can do with it.
Programmatic media
Programmatic goes wrong when the buying team is measured on delivery and the marketing team is measured on cost per acquisition.
Influencer & creators
Reach is not a result.
Affiliate network
Most affiliate programmes are launched and then left.
All solutions
The six campaign types compared, with a decision guide for which model prices your outcome best.
Next step
Price this campaign properly.
Send the conversion event, the geos and the volume. You get a written payout, an expected volume band and the guardrails that come with it.