This is a handy tool we don’t see many customers taking advantage of. There are several ways in which to use this feature. We actually use this feature as a bonus for our higher producing affiliates. Affiliates who have consistently delivered sales over a set period of time are rewarded with a higher payout level. We also create different payout levels for vendors we have partnership agreements with. Other higher payout scenarios we’ve seen from our customers include “paid” members of their website, compensation for a top listing within a directory, google adwords marketing and creating a top level “tiered” sales force for regional managers, etc.
Remember, payout levels don’t necessarily have to be higher than lower levels. Each level can be set to anything you want. So you could actually have default accounts being set to a higher rate then adjusting accounts down in payout levels if needed.
To pay different affiliates different commission rates, simply create multiple payout levels in your admin center on the Commission Settings > Payout Levels page. As new affiliates join, they will default into payout level 1. Now you can either manually edit the account to move them to a different payout level or you can use the performance rewards feature and iDevAffiliate will auto-increment affiliate accounts UP a payout level based on the criteria you define.