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Create Template Terms

Template Terms are the legal framework for your relationship with your partners. They define all of your terms—like payout rates—and partners can then sign-up for your program, or you can send your terms to them directly via impact.com. When a partner signs-up for your program or accepts the terms you sent them, your template terms become a legally-binding contract between you and that partner.

Note

This article serves as a simplified guide for creating new template terms, along with helpful descriptions for most things you'll encounter during the creation process. If you have a specific use case or need additional help with creating template terms, reach out to your CSM or contact support.

Create a template term

  1. From the left navigation menu, select Contracts → Template Terms.

  2. In the upper right corner, select Create Template Terms.

  3. Refer to the descriptions below for help with completing each line item in this step:

    Name

    • Enter a descriptive name for your template terms that partners will see.

    Label

    • [Optional] Add internal labels to your template terms that make it easier to search for later. Partners will not see these labels.

    Template

    • Select [Toggle on] Use terms from an existing Template Term, select your terms from the dropdown, then select Populate terms if you want to populate your new template terms with previous template terms.

      If you already have existing template terms created, we highly recommend using this option to save time. It's very useful for creating modified copies of existing terms for specific partners, among many other uses.

    Currency

    • Use the dropdown to select the currency that you want to pay out in for this template term.

  4. Select your event type and configure its settings—refer to the Event Type settings section of this article for help.

  5. Select custom terms to add to your template term—refer to the Custom Terms settings section of this article for help.

  6. If needed, configure advanced settings for your template term—refer to the Advanced settings section of this article for help.

  7. Save your template terms and send them to partners.

Event Type settings

Note

If you (or one of your account users) has setup contract rules, some of the options below may be locked to a global setting.

Use the dropdown to select the Event Type that you want to payout for. Note that this is sometimes referred to as an Action Tracker (the legacy term).

Event type reference table

Table 1. 

Type

Description

Default Payout

This is the default payout if no payout groups, adjustments, restrictions, or performance bonuses apply to the action:

Percentage payout per order or per item sale amount pays the partner a percentage of the sale—either of the whole order, or on a per-item basis.

Fixed payout per order or per item pays the partner a fixed payout for the order amount or for the item(s) in an action.

This is the payout that partners will see at the top of your template term.

Payout Groups

Select  [Toggle on] Set up customized payout groups to configure Payout Groups, which can apply a different payout rate if certain conditions are met.

When an order (or item sale) is tracked, impact.com goes down the list of payout groups line-by-line until it finds one that applies—only one payout group can apply at a time. Customized payout groups work best when they’re mutually exclusive, so if payout groups have overlapping conditions, place the more specific payout group criteria (e.g., "Customer Status is New & Order Total ≥ $200") at the top, and the more common criteria (e.g., "Order Total ≥ $200") near the bottom.

Payout groups will apply their changes at the same level as the default payout. For example, if you set the default payout at the order level and have a payout group where Item SKU is 8432195, anytime that SKU appears in an order, the entire order will be affected. See the payout group's Payout column to see exactly how the order's or item's payout will change if the group is applied.

Commas in your payout group criteria will not combine the two criteria (Item Category is ACME.Roadrunning will be interpreted as Item Category is ACME OR Roadrunning). You can get around this by placing quotation marks around your rule containing a comma (Item Category is "ACME,Roadrunning").

impact.com supports .csv and .xls (or .xlsx) files to import your Payout Groups. You can also export your created Payout Groups to a .csv (or .xls/xlsx) file using the export button.

If impact.com cannot find a payout group applicable to the action, the default payout will apply.

Payout Adjustments

Select   [Toggle on] Adjust payouts based on specific conditions to configure Payout Adjustments, which can adjust the payout rate if certain conditions are met.

These are individual, customizable statements that can adjust the payout for the action based on very specific conditions. If an action meets the requirements for multiple payout adjustments, those adjustments will all apply to the current payout on the adjusted amount. 

Example

Payout adjustments happen after payout groups are run. If you have a $100 sale and the payout group matches at 2% (a $2 payout) the payout adjustment (50%) will apply then, making the payout $3. If two further adjustments of +50% and +100% were applied, they would apply on the adjusted amount. So in this case the $3 plus 50% ($1.50) = $4.50 plus 100% ($4.50) = $9 which will be the final payout amount

Payout Adjustments apply to all of the rules within a Payout Group simultaneously. If you're uncertain about how these work, reach out to your CSM ( or contact support).

Performance Bonus

Select [Toggle on] Pay a bonus based on partners performance to add a performance bonus to your template terms that incentivizes partners to reach certain goals or meet specific conditions for increased based payouts, or additional bonus payouts.

Review the guide to performance bonuses to learn more.

Payout Restrictions

Select [Toggle on] Specify items which wont generate a payout to add payout restrictions to your template terms. Use the dropdowns to create the conditions that will restrict payouts.

Use the [Add] to add additional conditions for a single restriction (i.e., both conditions must be met for the restriction to apply).

Select [Add] Add another restriction to add a new payout restriction, separate from your first one.

Limits

Select [Toggle on] Specify limits on payable items to add payout limits to your template terms.

Use the dropdowns to create the conditions that will limit actions or payouts—for example, if you don't want to pay partners for more than X amount actions within your locking period, or you want to cap your payouts to $Y for a locking period.

Payout Scheduling

Use the fields and dropdowns to set your payout scheduling period, which is when partners will receive their payouts from your account wallet. This setting is very important, and is tied to your account funding! Refer to our Guide to Finance for Brands for common funding strategies and the associated payout scheduling settings to use.

Action Locking

Use the fields and dropdowns to set your action locking period. This setting is very important, and is tied to your account funding! Refer to our Guide to Finance for Brands for common funding strategies and the associated action locking settings to use.

Credit Policy

For most advertisers, this option is set to Last Click, meaning the partner that drove the last click to a completed action receives the credit (and payout). Some enterprise clients may have extra options—reach out to your CSM directly for help with configuring this option for your use case(s).

Referral Window

This sets the window of time that a partner can still receive credit for an action.

For example, if a partner drove a click to your web store and the customer doesn't purchase anything yet, the referral window starts. If the customer returns to your site within the referral window and purchases something (i.e., completes an action or "converts"), the partner will receive credit for driving that action.


Custom Terms settings

Use the dropdown to select your Custom Terms. Refer to the Create Custom & Special Terms article for help with creating these.

Advanced settings

Warning

impact.com strongly recommends discussing with your CSM (or contacting support) before changing these settings.

Select show advanced settings to view and configure advanced settings.

Table 2. 

Change Notice Period

If you change anything in your template term, impact.com recommends giving notice to your partners. This setting determines the number of days that partners have to review your changes before they go into effect.

Reversal Policy

If you decide to reverse an action, this setting determines how much of the payout you can receive. impact.com's recommended default is Advertiser Returns 100% max monthly returns, so you can recover 100% of your payout in the event of an order return, cancellation, or fraud.

Action Limit

Using this feature limits the total amount of actions a Partner can generate on this Template Term. Once a Partner hits the action cap limit, any additional actions will be labeled as over cap.

Spend Limit

Using this feature limits the total amount of money a Partner can earn on this Template Term. Once a Partner hits the spending limit, any additional earnings will be labeled as over cap.

Spend limits do not automatically reset when modifying a contract. To reset spend limits when modifying a contract, select [Toggle on] next to Spend Limits, enter the spend limit you want for this new contract, then select [Unchecked box]Reset accrued actions for all partners.

Minimum Earnings

Setting a guaranteed minimum gives Partners data they can weigh against their marketing costs, and determine if they can earn an adequate return on your campaign.

Flat Fees

A one-time or recurring fixed payout to a partner that can be up to $1,000,000. Flat fees are paid at the same time as commissions for other event types on the same contract.

In cases where there are multiple event types in the contract, flat fees will follow the schedule that results in the latest payout date. Flat fees are prorated if a contract begins or ends within a given month.

Tracking Pixel

The tracking pixel is used by the Partner to get real-time updates into their systems. The tracking pixel is fired after the conversion is logged in the impact.com system and does not affect the loading of the conversion page.


Save template terms

Select Save to save your template term for now, or select Save and Send to Partners to save your template terms and go straight to selecting the partners that should receive these terms.

Send to partners

  • Media Partners

    Use the search field to find partners that you want to send your template terms to. Alternatively, use the dropdown to manually create a bulk list or use the option to upload a CSV file with partner info. Any email addresses you include without a Partner ID will receive a link to create an account with impact.com so they can view your template terms.

  • Contract Dates

    select the start date of these template terms and choose whether it’s ongoing or temporary. If the contract is temporary, you can select whether or not to include a fallback to another template term, or to the current template term that the partners are active on prior to accepting your new terms.

  • Approval Options

    Choose whether these template terms (and resulting contract) will:

    Replace: these template terms will automatically take effect and override any existing contract the partner may have with you.

    Propose: the partner will remain on their existing contract with you and have the option to approve, reject, or counter your new template terms, depending on the options you select.

    [Optional] If you already have ads prepared and uploaded to impact.com, select [Toggle on] Send an ad with this proposal for faster media partner integration, then select Lookup to find the ad(s) you want to send.

  • Comments

    [Optional] You can use this field to add comments for your partners to see when they review your template terms.

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