Setting up Referral Commissions

Overview

Roster's Referral Commissions feature is an excellent way to show appreciation. Thank your advocates for driving word-of-mouth sales to your store by reward with paid commissions.

Roster automatically calculates referral commissions based on referred orders originating from your advocates' referral links and shareable discount codes. Your team has complete control over which referrals are approved or rejected and when payments are sent.

The first thing you will want to do is determine which program(s) will be eligible for referral commissions. Examples of programs that often have commissions include Influencer Programs, Affiliate Programs, and VIP Programs (these are typically an elevated tier of Ambassadors who are eligible for more perks.)

To configure referral commissions, navigate to Programs > Program Settings > Referrals.

The commission structure is comprised of the Commission Type and the Commission Value. Select whether commissions will be calculated as a Percentage of Sale (e.g. 10%) or a Fixed Amount (e.g. $25) per referral.

Percentage of Sale is the most commonly used option for brands. The order's subtotal (after discounts but before taxes and shipping) is used to calculate the commission amount. For example, if a referred order's subtotal was $100 and the Commission Value amount was set to 10%, then the referral reward would be $10.

Fixed Amount is most commonly used by brands that have a relatively small number of products and are priced such that offering a fixed amount per order will result in the best experience for both the brand and the advocate. For example, if the Commission Value amount was set to $25, then the referral reward would be $25, regardless of the amount of the referred order.

The payment methods you select will determine from which options advocates in the program will be able to choose as their preferred payment method. Most brands provide advocates with the option of receiving payments through either PayPal or Venmo.

PayPal is a great option to select whether or not you plan to use Roster's integration with PayPal Payouts. If you integrate with Roster, you will be able to pay advocates without logging in separately into PayPal. If you are unable to use Roster's PayPal integration, you can still collect PayPal and Venmo info from advocates and use PayPal's web interface to send advocate payouts.

It is possible to send Venmo payments to advocates through the PayPal Payouts integration. When selected, advocates can select Venmo as their preferred payment method and receive payments directly to their Venmo accounts. Your brand does not need a Venmo account to use this payment method.

Once you configure the program's referral settings, you can enable commissions, which will trigger Roster to start creating commissions for referred orders driven by advocates in the program. You can disable commissions at any time without impacting previously created referral commissions.