A forced matrix is a system where there is a limit to the number of referrals any affiliate can refer. It makes sense to use this feature only in case you have defined multiple tier commissions. If you have just a single tier commission defined, it makes no sense to create a structure of your affiliates.
Why should I push my affiliates into Matrix ?
Main point is, that you want to keep in your affiliate program not just few best performing affiliates, but all the affiliates who ever registered. Best way how to keep all the affiliates motivated is to give them periodically commissions and notify them about each commission they receive. The more active affiliates you will have, the more of them will try to promote you. You can consider also number of back links to your site, which will just grow. Newbie affiliates can see in Forced Matrix advantage to stay with you, because they can earn commissions even if they will not be so successful in recruiting of new sub affiliates at the very beginning. Forced Matrix is also kind of a solidarity of better performing affiliates with newbies in hope, that their sub affiliates will stay motivated and will improve in the future (and in fact earn commissions also for performing affiliate, which referred him).How it works in Post Affiliate Pro ?
You can activate the Forced Matrix feature in merchant panel at Configuration > Features.After activation and reload of application you will see at Configuration -> Affiliate signup a new section called Forced Matrix:
Matrix width - defines number of sub affiliates allowed for every affiliate. Leaving this value Unlimited will in fact deactivate the Forced Matrix rules, because new sub affiliates will be always assigned to the particular referrer. If you want to profit from the Forced Matrix functionality, set this field to a positive number higher then 0. Example: If you define, that an affiliate can have at most 3 sub affiliates, it will mean, that on first level he will have at most 3 sub affiliates, on second level at most 9, on third level at most 27, on fourth at most 81 sub affiliates and so on.
Matrix height - defines maximum number of affiliate levels filled by forced matrix rules before you send new affiliates to spill over to other affiliate. Unlimited number of levels will mean, that the tree of affiliates will grow and there will be no spillover ever.
Send spillover to
- actual sponsor - affiliate will be assigned to current referrer (in such case will be width of tree increased for current affiliate by one and in next spillovers the tree building follows the existing rules). This type of spillover is for your better performing affiliates the best option. You recompense them of their effort with right to increase the width of their affiliate tree.
- no sponsor - affiliate will be saved without any parent affiliate
- chosen affiliate - send all spillovers to a predefined affiliate (if you selected this option, field next to this option will become mandatory and should contain the username (email) of the predefined affiliate)
When will be Forced Matrix rule applied ?
Forced Matrix is applied just during registration of new affiliates. If you have any existing affiliates already in your installation, their structure will not change.Example - Building affiliate tree
Following image shows, how is Post Affiliate Pro building the tree of sub affiliates in case there is a 2x2 forced matrix defined.In our example John is the referrer of all his sub affiliates (Mary, Igor, Eva, ... etc) and the image shows how they are added to this affiliate tree. Mary was referred as the first affiliate, so she was added as the first direct sub affiliate of John. Next was Igor, who was added still as a direct subaffiliate of John. Eva was the first affiliate who was not assigned to John directly, but because the width of John's tree had been full, she was added as a sub affiliate of Mary. Next was Max, who was added again as a sub affiliate of Mary, because John's tree had been full. Aron was added to Igor's tree because Mary had a full direct-subaffiliate tree already. Last was Neil, who was also assigned to Igor. In this way a full affiliate tree was built by a 2x2 forced matrix. On next affiliates referred by John there will be some spillover settings applied explained later.
Example - Spillover
Imagine, that we have a full 2x2 matrix and a new affiliate (Mike) will be referred by John. The following image shows the exact scenario. Below we will try to show you what will happen for each setting of spillover .Example - Spillover assign to Actual sponsor
In case you defined, that the spillover affiliate should be assigned to the actual sponsor, Mike from our example will be assigned to John, because John is his sponsor who referred him. If we continue in this example with next affiliates referred by John, we will see, that before adding the next direct affiliate to John, first Mike's tree will be filled. Joe was not added to John's tree, but to Mike's, because Mike had no sub affiliates yet. In similar way was Bill added to Mike's tree. If there is another affiliate referred by John, he will be assigned as John's direct subaffiliate.This is the most effective way of building a Forced Matrix tree, because more performing affiliates are still motivated to refer new affiliates even if their forced matrix is full.
Example - Spillover assign to no sponsor
In our example Mike was referred by John, but John's tree was full already. If you chose, that new spillover affiliate should have no sponsor, it means, that Mike will be registered as an affiliate without any parent affiliate. This is shown in the following image:IMPORTANT: In case John's tree is full already, this option will not motivate him to recruit next affiliates, because he will have no commissions from Mike's sales.
Example - Spillover assign to chosen affiliate
In case John's tree is already full and you chose, that all new spillover affiliates are assigned to the chosen affiliate (e.g. I selected in my example affiliate named Boss), Mike will not be assigned to John, but Boss. Following image also shows how we build tree of Boss even if all his sub affiliates are referred by John.Deleting the affiliate
When deleting an affiliate, you have two options to decide what will be done with children of the deleted affiliate:
- do not move child affiliates
- move child affiliates to parent of deleted affiliate
Here is a sample image:
Option one: Aron and Neil, the children of deleted parent Igor, remain without parent. John have now only one child - Mary and all his sub-affiliates are Mary, Eva and Max.
Option two: Aron and Neil (and all their subaffiliates), the children of deleted parent Igor, become children of John (the parent of deleted Igor). Now, John's direct subaffiliates are Mary, Aron and Neil.
Forced Matrix and Performance Rewards
After you have both Forced Matrix and Performance Rewards activated you will have access to new action in Performance Rewards section called "add bonus commission to original referrer for every sale". This action lets you add some bonus commission to the original parent affiliate who actually referred the affiliate to your system, so not to the parent which was assigned to the affiliate based on Forced Matrix feature.