Payments management

The AlterCPA platform has a very flexible system for setting payments for leads. You can set payments either the simple way, by GEO, or with precision down to the company, user, GEO and traffic type. Because of this flexibility, setting up payments is an extremely complex part of the system. Please study this guide carefully and thoughtfully to avoid mistakes.

Payments are managed from the “Payments” section of the selected offer. This section displays a sequential list of payments, applied from top to bottom.

The first item in this list must always be the default payment. It will be used whenever none of the payments below it in the list match. This payment must have every trigger-condition field left empty (or at its default), including GEO. To repeat: the first payment in the list must not have a source, a recipient or a country list selected — these fields must be left at their defaults. This is mandatory.

If you need to set payments that differ from the default one (for example, for other GEOs), add a new payment. It must go below the default payment in the list. The trigger conditions for such a payment are chosen freely, depending on your requirements. Accordingly, if you need to set even more specific payments, they should be placed even lower in the list.

Important! If the offer’s GEO list has a dozen countries in it, that doesn’t mean you need to set up a separate payment for each of them! If the payment is the same across countries, set up only one — the default payment, with no conditions. If some countries need a different payment, add payments only for those; the rest will use the default payment.

Editing payments

When editing a payment, you can set the following trigger conditions:

Source determines exactly who the lead came from. By default, a payment applies to any affiliate or agency. You can restrict it to agencies only, to VIP affiliates only, to referrals of VIP affiliates only, or to a specific agency, a specific VIP affiliate, or referrals of a specific VIP affiliate. You can also set an affiliate filter below.
Recipient determines who the lead was passed to. The recipient can be either a company or a call center.
Mobile devices can also be factored into a payment. To have the payment apply to any device, leave this field set to “not considered”. To pick up only mobile or only desktop traffic, select the corresponding option.
Restricted traffic can also be factored in separately. Whether traffic counts as restricted is determined by the landing page’s own logic. When it sends a lead, a landing page can add a “junk-traffic” tag for any reason of its own. This works the same way as mobile traffic.
GEO determines exactly which countries this payment applies to. An empty field means the payment applies to any country. The list of countries is given as comma-separated ISO codes.
Affiliates let you tie a payment to a specific affiliate, either in the system or on the agency’s side. An affiliate’s ID in the system is given as a number; an agency affiliate’s ID is given as XX-YY, where XX is the agency’s ID and YY is the affiliate’s ID.

The payment amount is given in the network’s default currency, or in the currency chosen in that payment’s own settings. Payment amounts can be set for both the debit and the credit side of the account. If the corresponding checkbox is checked, the specified payments are used — including zero amounts.

Debit payments determine the amount that will be deducted from the advertiser’s account. It always adds to the affiliate network’s balance.
Credit payments determine the amount that will be credited to the affiliate’s, agency’s or call center’s account. It always subtracts from the affiliate network’s balance.
Referral payment is used in the referral program. It sets the amount that will be paid out to the user who referred the payment’s recipient (an affiliate or an agency). It always subtracts from the affiliate network’s balance and is deducted from the affiliate network’s commission, without affecting the debit and credit payments.

The main payments can be set using the following method:

The base part of the payment amount is always paid out, regardless of how many items are in the order.
The upsell amount is charged for each additional unit of the main product sold.
The cross-sell amount is charged for each unit of an additional product sold.
The limit lets you set the maximum quantity of goods for which an additional upsell or cross-sell is charged.
A percentage payment lets you specify a percentage of the final order amount.

For example, if you use a base payment of 500 rubles and an upsell of 100 rubles for up to 3 items, the payment will be 500, 600, 700 and 700 for 1, 2, 3 and 4 units of the product in the order, respectively.

General payment fields such as “Name” and visibility to affiliates aren’t used by the system’s main template. You can set them for your own convenience and, if you wish, use them in your own customizations of the system.

How payments are calculated

Payments are calculated using the following algorithm:

The first payment is taken as the base. It must have no trigger conditions, and the amounts specified in it are taken as the income and expense.
All subsequent payments are analyzed in turn. If the order matches a payment’s conditions, the previously applied payment is replaced by the new one.
If, when it is triggered, the payment has the “Do not process other conditions” checkbox selected, the analysis stops there.
Otherwise, every payment is tried against the order in sequence. Whichever one matched last is the one used.

Payments to call centers

When using your own call center, you can charge the advertiser an additional fee for processing its lead. To do this, add a new payment, select a call center (any one, or a specific one) in the “Recipient” field, check the “Credit payments” box, and enter there the amount that should go to the call center’s account. If necessary, you can also change the amount deducted from the advertiser. Important! You must specify not the amount paid out to the call center alone, but the full amount deducted from the advertiser — that is, affiliate payment + network commission + call center payment!

Manual payments

Some offers can receive their payment amount via the API, in the wm parameter. In that case, it’s useful to set a system commission and a referral payment. If no commission is set, the debit and credit payments match the value passed in the wm parameter. Manual payments support three configuration parameters:

Amount sets a fixed numeric commission value. It’s best suited to cases where the commission is fixed regardless of the wm value. It’s given in the same currency as the expected wm. If you enter a positive number, the debit side gets the amount equal to wm, and the credit side gets that amount reduced by the number you entered. If you enter a negative number, the credit side gets the amount equal to wm, and the debit side gets that amount increased by the number you entered. This behaves exactly like the API’s pd parameter.
Percentage sets a proportional commission value. It’s best suited to cases where the affiliate always gets, say, half the commission. It’s given as a number from -100 to 100. Positive and negative values behave exactly as with “Amount” — a positive value reduces the affiliate’s amount, a negative value increases the advertiser’s amount. This behaves exactly like the API’s pp parameter.
Referral sets the percentage that goes toward the referral payment. It’s always a positive number from 0 to 100. The percentage is calculated from the amount credited to the affiliate’s account (the credit amount).

When manual payments are used, regular payments are ignored. We still recommend setting regular payments, so the offer list visually shows the expected amount.

Examples of setting up payments

Example 1. The offer runs in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, with a payment of 600 rubles everywhere.

In the offer settings, set the GEO list to ru,ua,kz.

In the payment settings, add a single payment with no conditions and an amount of 600 rubles.

Example 2. Same as above, but the payment for Kazakhstan is set to 550 rubles.

Repeat the steps from example 1.

Add a payment whose trigger conditions specify GEO kz and an amount of 550 rubles. Set it as the second one in the list.

Example 3. The offer runs in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus. The payment is 550 rubles. Russia and Ukraine have a higher payment of 600 rubles.

In the offer settings, set the GEO list to ru,ua,kz,by.

Add a payment with no conditions and an amount of 550 rubles.

Add a second payment in the list, with trigger conditions specifying GEO ru,ua and an amount of 600 rubles.

Example 4. Mobile traffic for the offer is paid at 550 rubles, desktop traffic at 600 rubles.

Add a default payment of 600 rubles.

Add a second payment in the list, with trigger conditions specifying mobile traffic only, and an amount of 550 rubles.

Complex example. Traffic for the offer is split between two companies. One works directly, the other uses its own call center. The affiliate payment is 500 rubles. The call-center payment for processing an order is 50 rubles. The affiliate network’s commission is 100 rubles.

Add a default payment. In it, set the debit amount to 600 rubles (500+100). Set the credit amount to 500 rubles.

Add a second payment. In it, set the trigger condition “Recipient” to “Call center”. Set the debit amount to 650 rubles (500 to the affiliate + 50 to the call center + 100 network commission). Set the credit amount to 50 rubles, which goes to the call center.