Multi-level Marketing
Available from Professional plan
Last updated
Available from Professional plan
Last updated
The basis of Multi-level marketing is demonstrated through an image of a pyramid, where each affiliate invites another to be his/her downline level in the affiliate network system. The more participants get invited, the more products or services could approach their targeted market.
The earnings of ambassadors in the pyramid network are derived from two main sources. The first (and possibly the main) income is from the commission paid for completed promotion activities that they brought. It can be in form of referral orders, shares, or other types of engagement made by customers. The second one comes from the network commission, which bases on purchases brought by their downline distributors.
By setting up a commission network, the people in MLM would not only try to sell products/services directly to end-user consumers but also are incentivized to invite more affiliates to be their downline distributors.
For example:
John signed up as an affiliate, and then he invited Michelle. Michelle invited Victor, and Victor invited David.
If David brings a referral order with the total amount of $100 and the commission percentage set to the affiliate program is 5%, then David (Original affiliate) will get the commission of 5% x $100 = $5.00. Other affiliates who are at higher levels will receive network commission as below:
Commission level 1 (Victor who invites David) gets 5%.
Commission level 2 (Michelle who invites Victor) gets 4%.
Commission level 3 (John who invites Michelle) gets 2%.
a. If you set network commission to be calculated on Program commission:
The upline's commissions will be calculated based on the commission amount that David earned.
b. If you set network commission to be calculated on Total sales:
The upline's commissions will be calculated based on the total sales of the referral.
Each option has its own benefit.
With the Program commission option, the merchant can optimize the commission amount that needs to be sent out to affiliates.
With the Total sales option, the commission that needs to be paid will be higher. On the other hand, the upline will be encouraged to recruit more people to their team because they know they will earn so much more. Obviously, with more affiliates, the merchant will get more sales.
Note: If the upline MLM's program is deactivated, they cannot earn the network commission for their downline affiliates.
To activate the Multi-level marketing, go to Outreach > Affiliate recruitment > Multi-level marketing > select the program and Activate MLM. You can turn on/off and configure the MLM rule for each program separately.
Next, select the program that you want to put the invited affiliates in Program for invited affiliates to join.
Lastly, you can add a recruitment bonus for your affiliates as an encouragement with the Recruitment Bonus option. The bonus will be added as a new referral when the newly recruited affiliate is approved.
Note: When a new program is created, its MLM status will be off by default. In case you want to turn on MLM for that program, please go to Multi-level settings and set up your preferred rules.
Once the MLM feature is turned on in a program, the affiliates in the program will have the network link available in the account.
If one affiliate successfully invites another through his network link (shown on the Affiliate's Dashboard), that affiliate will get a recruitment bonus which is recorded as a referral in the Affiliate referrals page.
Each active affiliate has a network link to invite others (after the MLM feature is activated), which can be found right on their affiliate account's dashboard:
If other participants click this link and register as new affiliates, they will be considered as the downline distributor with one level lower than the one who owns the link.
The performance of the downline affiliates will be updated on the merchant’s backend and the upline affiliate’s backend.
Merchants can manually connect one affiliate to another on themerchant account. Go to Affiliates > cick on an affiliate name > Network tab > Set upline affiliate.
Enter the upline affiliate name/email and click Set.
One affiliate can have only one upline affiliate. Also, you cannot set an existing downline affiliate to be an upline affiliate.
You can have a visual look at the affiliates' relationship in the MLM network by clicking See MLM tree.
In the See MLM tree page, you will see the Affiliate tree section where you can view an affiliate's uplines and downlines on a visual board.
Search for and select an affiliate, then click View affiliate tree.
The visual board then opens to show you the uplines and downlines (if any) of the selected affiliate.
If the selected affiliate has multiple uplines, all upline levels will be fully displayed.
If the selected affiliate has multiple downline levels, only level 1's downlines are shown by default while the remaining will be hidden in the Plus button. You can click on it to open the next levels one by one.
Besides, in the See MLM tree page, you will see the Network list which shows all upline affiliates with their tree. Any affiliate that has downline(s) will get a Plus icon so you can click on it to see them. Here's an example:
You can also view an affiliate's MLM tree via the visual board by clicking on the icon in the Action column.
In case a referral order is made thanks to an ambassador in the MLM network, the order commission for that original affiliate and network commission for the upline affiliate will be displayed in the Referral section.
There would be a small note with “+” below the original affiliate commission, which is the network commission amount, the merchant can see its details by clicking the eye icon in the Network column, and commissions for related affiliates will be displayed including their level.
In Payments, figures are listed by affiliates' total commissions, so you can click Review referrals to observe their detailed incomes including the direct order commission (Referral) and network commission (Network) to evaluate their performance.
Payments are made manually so after you send the payments to your affiliates, click Mark as paid to let the affiliates know.
Multi-level marketing (MLM), known as network marketing is a popular and promising method to grow a business at a great pace using abundant affiliates. MLM allows each affiliate to invite and recruit others into the network, thus, your business could reach more potential customers through diverse channels and promotion activities.
With , each affiliate can invite or recruit unlimited distributors and their network commission will be calculated on either program commission (commission of the affiliate who directly brought the order) or total sale of the order with the percentage set by the merchant.
We recommend you activate the feature so any invited affiliate can start their work right after requesting to join without waiting for your review.
Each affiliate can also keep track of his/her commission amount. They can see their downline distributor's performance and their network commission in the Network tab on the to see whether their team is bringing them any interest.
