Inuvo Platform Publisher Commissions Earned Month to Date Guidance
For this month's edition of Behind the Scenes, we bring you an Inuvo Blog first-timer, our Director of User Experience, Alberto J. Simon. Alberto and the entire development team are busy streamlining the functionality of the Inuvo Platform for the best ease of use possible. The Inuvo Team takes your feedback seriously and this blog is a direct result of your feedback. If you'd like to contact Alberto, you can do so at Alberto [dot] Simon [at] inuvo [dot] com or give us your feedback and suggestions in our Feedback Forum. Here's Alberto!
We have heard your feedback and we want to help clear up any confusion by what is shown on your Dashboard in the Commissions Earned MTD (Month to Date) green box!
First, we should explain what goes into calculating the value we show in this box and why it is important to show it.
Our goal is to show you what you are earning in commissions month to date. In order to show you an accurate amount, we must take into account all account activity that has occurred during the month.
The following are used to calculate the value you see:
- Approved leads or sales transactions
- Charged-back leads or sales transactions
We combine those and show you the running total of commission you have earned month to date.
Great! So now we have shared what is used to calculate the amount displayed, but I am sure you are now asking, what does an approved lead or sales transaction refer to? What is a charged-back lead or sales transaction? And lastly, why are my pending lead or sales transactions not being taken into account?
Well, we have some answers for those questions, of course!
What does an approved lead or sales transaction refer to?
An approved lead or sales transaction is a transaction that you have generated for an advertiser and that has been approved by them. This is commission you have now earned and can expect to be paid for.
What is a charged-back lead or sales transaction?
Sometimes a transaction you generated for an advertiser may need to be reversed. This may happen for a variety of reasons, including a returned sale or a bad lead. Sometimes these occur some time after the initial approval of the lead or sales transaction and so it may take a while to reflect on your earnings.
Why are my Pending Lead or Sales transactions not being taken into account?
While we expect any pending lead or sales transaction to be approved by the advertiser, we are not able to assume that it will be and so, we choose not to include this in the Commissions Earned MTD value until it has been approved. This prevents showing a value that is misleading to you as a publisher. Once it has been approved, it will immediately be reflected in the amount shown.
So we have now explained what is used to calculate your Commissions Earned MTD value and have also explained what each of those factors mean. But you still may have some specific questions and we want to address those as well.
Why is my Commissions Earned MTD showing a negative value?
Sometimes what occurs is that due to leads or sales transactions that were approved a previous month are not charged back until the next month, you may have a scenario where due to charged-back leads or sales, your Commissions Earned MTD may be negative.
Example Scenario: Josh generated 50 sales transactions in February for a total of $500 dollars in commission for Advertiser A. They were all approved by Advertiser A in February. In March, the advertiser sees that all sales from the transactions were returned by the purchasers, and now has the need to charge back all approved sales transactions for Josh.
In the meantime, Josh has earned himself $300 dollars in commissions for March, but now logs in to find that his Commissions Earned MTD is now -$200 dollars. This is due to the fact that the charged-back sales transactions from advertiser A have caused his Commissions Earned MTD to be lowered by the amount of -$500 dollars. Since he has only earned $300 in March, his current Commissions Earned MTD are now negative.
Where can I see the details of the Sales or Leads Transactions that make up my Commissions Earned MTD value?
You have the ability to see the details of why your Commissions Earned MTD is what it is by navigating to our Reports section and clicking on Transaction Details Report as shown in this screenshot:
A.
B.
As you can see from the screenshots provided, we have a report that can help you match up your Commissions Earned MTD value to the detailed lead or sales transactions that were taken into account to calculate the amount displayed.
Keep these things in mind:
While we show statuses including approved and paid, these are virtually the same. The only difference is that nightly we change all approved lead or sales transactions to reflect that they are now payable or paid, as we use in our Platform. There is no difference in the status, and both are used in the calculation of Commissions Earned MTD.
If you wanted to match up the value shown in Commissions Earned MTD, all you would have to do is:
a. Navigate to this report, select Month To Date as your Range, Select Status Paid, leave other filters at default values, and click Run Report button.
b. On the report generated, make note of the Totals Comm Amt and 2nd Tier Comm.
c. Rerun this report select Month To Date as your Range, Select Status Approved, leave other filters at default values, and click Run Report button
d. On the report generated make note of the Totals Comm Amt and 2nd Tier Comm.
e. Rerun Report. Select Month To Date as your Range, Select Status Chargeback, leave other filters at default values, and click Run Report button
f. On the report generated, make note of the Totals Comm Amt and 2nd Tier Comm.
g. If you sum up the values from this, you will get the exact value we show you on Commissions Earned MTD
The process I need to follow to match up my Commissions Earned MTD to the details seems very confusing and more time consuming than it should be.
We hear you, and agree completely. We are currently working on streamlining this process and hope to have something easier for you to use as soon as possible.
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