Opportunities Ahead: New Ambassador Program & Important Terms of Use Changes

[Heather]

Hi Creators,

First and foremost, we want to express our sincere gratitude for your valuable feedback and insights. We truly appreciate the time you’ve taken to submit your questions and feedback through our form regarding the updates to our Terms of Use, which are effective today, April 1st. We’ve carefully reviewed each of your questions and, based on your feedback, have put together a comprehensive Creator FAQ and Ambassador FAQ to help clarify the changes and provide more detail. 

As we all know, the world around us is constantly evolving. Marketing costs are rising, and competition for Customer attention is higher than ever. In order to keep up with these changes and continue thriving together, we too must adapt and grow. We understand that change can be challenging, but it's essential for us to stay dynamic and align with the ever-evolving landscape.

For almost 20 years, we’ve been proud to be a marketplace where Creators from all walks of life can sell their Content, and many have even built a sustainable income doing what they love. Creators are the heart and soul of our platform, and we truly appreciate the partnership we’ve built with all of you. 

With the launch of our new Ambassador Program, we want to ensure that Creators who actively promote their Products and drive traffic are properly rewarded. The new program simplifies the Earnings model, ensures a fairer fee distribution, and aligns financial incentives with Creators’ success. Whether you’re actively promoting your Content or allowing us to handle it, we’re here to support your growth. 

We’re hopeful about the new opportunities this opens up for you as a Creator. This update means you’ll have the chance to earn what we would pay those “other guys”—and we hope you see it as a way to grow your Earnings in meaningful ways. 

To keep the discussion and questions for us organized, please reply below and we ask you to continue to submit your questions to the form. We also opened an “Ambassador Program” board for Creators to discuss specific topics together. 

Once again, thank you for your continued contributions to our community. We can’t wait to see what the future holds as we continue to evolve together in our marketplace.

Warmly,

The Zazzle Team

UPDATE - 4/2/25

Hi Creators,

We’ve heard some common questions that we’d like to address and clarify. We've added these questions to our FAQ and will be addressing more questions soon. 

1. Why does it seem like the Excess Royalty is taken out twice for the Self-Promotion?
2. Why am I being charged a Marketing Royalty Fee for Self-Promotion Sales?
3. Why in some cases did I make more money in the Promoter 2.0 Program? 

Q: Why does it seem like the Excess Royalty is taken out twice for the Self-Promotion example below? 

Example 1: Self-Promotion Link (own Product) in Clothing & Shoes with Your Royalty Rate set at 12% 

• Product Price (= Net Referral Sales for this example): $100
• Your Royalty Rate: 12% → $12 Gross Royalty
• Excess Royalty Fee: → 5% of $12 = $0.60
  (applies because Your Royalty Rate is above 10%. The fee is 5% of your Gross Royalty) 
• Marketing Royalty Fee: → 35% of $12 = $4.20
  (applies to all Referred Sales. For Clothing & Shoes, it's 35% of your Gross Royalty) 
• Royalty: → $7.20
  (after deduction of Royalty Fees)
• Referral Commission for a Referred Sale via a Self-Promotion Link
• Department Rate: → 35% of Net Referral Sales
  (Clothing & Shoes)
• Self-Promotion Earnings Goal: → 35% of $100 is a $35 Goal.
  (from this $35 goal, you’ve already earned $7.20 in Net Royalties and the $0.60 Excess Royalty Fee applies)
• Referral Commission from Self-Promotion Link: → $35 - $7.20 - $0.60 = $27.20
• Your Earnings = $34.40
  ($7.20 paid via Royalty, $27.20 paid via Referral Commission).
• Note: Because Your Royalty Rate was above 10%, the Excess Royalty Fee slightly reduced the total Earnings you could have received from the Referred Sale via a Self-Promotion Link.

A: If you look at Example 1, the Self-Promotion Earnings Goal is $35, and the Excess Royalty Fee is $0.60. Your Earnings are $34.40 ($35 - $0.60). So while we need to deduct the Excess Royalty Fee from the Gross Royalties to help calculate the Royalty - which we then use to calculate the Referral Commission by deducting it from the Self-Promotion Earnings Goal - it is more to do the math to figure out the amounts you’ve earned rather than actually being taken out twice.

Q: Why am I being charged a Marketing Royalty Fee for Self-Promotion Sales?

A: The Marketing Royalty Fee applies whenever a sale is referred, whether by you, another Ambassador, or Zazzle. This structure helps our systems run smoothly across all types of Referrals.  So in order to make sure your Earnings hit the Self-Promotion Earnings Goal (which is based on the Department Rate), we calculate your Referral Commission to make up the difference between the Self-Promotion Earnings Goal and your Royalty.  The math can be a little bit complicated, but the end result is the same - your Earnings for that sale do not change.

Q: Why in some cases did I make more money in the Promoter 2.0 Program? 

A: Promoter 2.0 was originally a "beta" program, and we're now expanding it to all Creators. The Ambassador Program is designed to serve a wider population of Creators, while reflecting current marketing costs, so while there were situations where former Promoters benefitted more, this new program is designed to benefit the whole Ambassador community more overall.

[nikkileigh]

No the math does not math. It is for a digital download item. Do you sell digital downloads? If so you know how much we should ge making and I made $5.44

[Ricaso]

Well there goes my little bit of hope that the math would work out. 

On downloads the rf was 15% previously and was worth while having downloads as an option. Not sure it is now. 

[nikkileigh]

yea its 4% now which is wild. Zazzle needs to fix this!

[tsikona]

I made 26% for the self referral, I thought the minimum was 35% (

[tsikona]

After reading examples, I understand how it is calculated. (totally with royalty and referral I have earned over 35%) 

[Joel]

Oh boy. You know it's (far too) complex when there are pages full of explanations, FAQs, exemples and people are still confused. And I am all confused. Royalties, gross fees, excess fees, marketing fees, per department rates, primary content, secondary digital content on physical products from a 3rd party referral fee, cross-linking... Any PhDs in economics around? 😅

- So now removing the RF ID makes us more money per referral. I don't get it. How would the system know? Affiliate marketing has always been working with referral IDs. Right, if I declare my site in the API it will be known, but what about social media links? How do you know I'm advertising my own product there, and not some random visitor who just shared my product link on Pinterest? Will he get me 50% rate if his aunt orders my product?

- If someone now click your direct no-ID link you get 35-50% on your own products, nothing on other people's products. If it still has the ID, you get 15% for both your products and other people's products. Okay. But then with other people's products everywhere on the page, which one is the deal?

And since we're here, some additional comments on the overall creator experience:

- I think the "inactivity fee" is unfair, as mentioned above. There is already a minimum payment threshold. Why so harsh?

- The "international" sales still don't pay any referral commission since we have no way to redirect people to their closest "foreign" Zazzle site. Since they are just translated sites and the business still takes places in the US, how is that fair?

- Are we going to get an affiliate center that tells us more about linkovers history than just how many clicks on some link somewhere? This is the poorest "analytics report" I have ever seen online in the 21st century. Less than this is, well... nothing. 🤔

- When there is a refund, a reason would also be appreciated, was there an issue with the design, the order, the delivery... well, ANY info would be welcome to help reduce refund rates in the future. We are helpless here, too.

Thank you for your attention. 

[AirTwin]

Someone in one of the larger threads on the new terms mentioned linkovers, I haven't been able to find their post again. I have not looked at linkover since sometime in 2018? Well I clicked on the tab after reading the Ambassadors Tab main info.

What happened? I have a very large spike in linkover count starting April 1. It would be great to know why and where the links are from, who it's connected to - a platform or site.

[MissPaperFarm]

I noticed that as well! That data is useless, unless we are able to know which link it’s referring to 🤷🏼‍♀️

[MidnightZazzler]

I noticed that too!  Suddenly we are marketing geniuses overnight!
Something amazing happened to my linkovers on April 1. I went from 2-5 to over 600???

[MissPaperFarm]

Wait…hold up, rewind…what is the "inactivity fee"?? 

[AirTwin]

It was $2 (off from your payout) if you don't upload anything for 15 months. I don't know what it is now.

[Deb]

Is that per store or per account? 

[J-D-I]

@Heather @James 

About the link, please check if it is possible to change the slug text to the store name, similar to what the team has done for the collection link (using the collection name instead of the collection slug), in both HTML and BBCode. In the current HTML and BBCode, the slug text of some stores appears incomplete and does not fully reflect the store name when shared. Also, the slug text of some stores may not align with the current store name because they have changed their name as part of a concept or niche shift. Thank you.

by <a href="https://www.zazzle.com/store/store_slug" rel="nofollow">store_slug</a>

by [url=https://www.zazzle.com/store/store_slug]store_slug[/url]

[Anne]

I can't find anywhere all the numbers about royalty and marketing fees any more in the new agreement. Can we please have a link from our account to the agreement, including all new rates and percentages?

In this link I don't see the breakdown of all numbers: https://www.zazzle.com/terms/updated_user_agreement
Where is all that information (I was able to find it earlier, but not anymore)? And why can I only access the user agreement from a thread that is hidden from the regular forum?

[Sara_H]

@Anne 

Is this what you're after https://help.zazzle.com/hc/en-us/articles/360037785973-Zazzle-Ambassador-and-Creator-Royalties-and-R...

[Anne]

Thank you for being such an angel, @Sara_H 

[Anne-Marie]

Hi. Where can we find a list (or something) that shows to which product category applies a certain referral percentage to from all these 35%-50% ? (so that we don't have to calculate for ourselves every time we have a 3rd party sale).

For example, I just sold a foam board, and my math says the referral took something between 45% and 50% of the sale.

It would be nice not to calculate for each 3rd party sale individually how much the referral percentage is depending of the product type that we sell.

For this sale my net earning is around 6% 🙂

[Anne]

I am seeing a message now on the sales reports:
"Improvements coming soon! We're enhancing your Earnings reports following our updated Terms of Use."
So maybe your question will be answered there soon.

[James]

You can see a list of the rate, here. 

[Pasindu]

Hi there,

Regarding the royalty fee rate, when the royalty rate is 10% or more, does the royalty fees apply? Does 10% get included?

[Ricaso]

10% doesn't attract the 5% fee, but 10.01% and above does. 

[Jolanda]

In my account in the 'ambassador center' I read the following warning

'IMPORTANT If you share URLs with Your Ambassador ID (i.e. ?rf=xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) in the Link, it will be counted as a Cross-Promotion Link and you'll only be eligible for a 15% Referral Commission on the sale.'

So does this mean that every product I have added my referral code to in the past will be treated as a cross promotion link and not a referral link??

[MissPaperFarm]

According to that warning, yes 🫣 I had to go back and change the links on over 100 links I have out in various places online. If you have shared the links directly from the product page with the share tool than it’s automatically been changed for us apparently, but if there are places you manually posted the share link, then it would have to be manually updated 😳  

[artCWRW]

Thanks so much for that reminder!  While I don't have anything like 100 links to change I do need to change the ones I do have on my various websites!  Would have missed that if you hadn't posted this.

[Elaine]

Maybe I’m missing something, but I received a self referral at 34%. I thought it was 35-50%?

[tsikona]

this is my self referral 26% ( I was in a promoter program)

[colorblends]

I received one today for a tie with 32% which is confusing to me. My royalty is set at 13.5%, and the referral for accessories is set at 40%. 

I made a sale few hours later with a "third party" and my earning were half of what I would usually make. exact 50% was deducted for marketing fee i suppose. 

I don't understand one thing though. if the marketing fee is increased to 50% why ain't the source of referral mentioned. bcoz If i am cross promoting other designer products, I am still getting 15% that means Zazzle gets to keep 35% off of most of those sales and charging the creator for my efforts and still paying me the same.

This is very unfortunate.  

[YesItsRoy]

---

@colorblends wrote:

I don't understand one thing though. if the marketing fee is increased to 50% why ain't the source of referral mentioned. bcoz If i am cross promoting other designer products, I am still getting 15% that means Zazzle gets to keep 35% off of most of those sales and charging the creator for my efforts and still paying me the same.

---

If the Product is $100 selling price and the department is a 50% Marketing Fee.  Designer's Royalty Rate is 10%, so the Royalty earned is $10.00.  The Referral Rate is 15% for you, so you get $15.00.

Zazzle takes 50% Marketing Fee from the Designer's ROYALTY of $10.00, so they take $5.00 from the Designer and put that toward paying you your $15.00. (Zazzle is NOT taking 50% of the SELLING PRICE and keeping it then paying you less.)

Zazzle pays the Designer $5.00 ($10.00 less the 50% Marking Fee) and Zazzle pays you $15.00.

IMO, the whole thing is ridiculously, unnecessarily complicated and unfair in many ways to Designers who put the "custom" in "custom designs," but they're not taking 50% of the selling price away from the Designer and then giving us only 15%. 🙂

[WillowSprings]

ive always had the understanding with promoting other peoples work theres a time frame on either the time frame from customers pressing the link to buying the product , or does the does the link its self have an expiry date or does that one referral link last forever? 

[SheaPrints]

This is what is says in the Ambassador FAQs
https://www.zazzle.com/assets/graphics/z5/zmisc/ambassador_program/Ambassador_Program_FAQs.pdf

Referral Tracking & Attribution
Q: How long does a Referral last after someone clicks my Referral link?
A: Referrals are tracked using cookies and other technologies lasting 45 days. If someone
purchases within 45 days after clicking your Link (and has not clicked another Referral Link since
then), you earn the Referral Commission. With the launch of the Ambassador Program, we've
extended the referral window to two weeks, meaning you'll receive credit for any qualifying sales that
happen within 14 days of someone clicking your Referral Link.This is a meaningful improvement: the
majority of Zazzle shoppers make a purchase within this extended timeframe, so your efforts are
protected for longer. After two weeks, if a customer clicks another referral link, that new link
becomes the active referral, and commission credit will be reassigned accordingly.
Q: What happens if a Customer clicks multiple Referral links before purchasing?
A: As noted earlier, the initial referral is protected for 14 days. If a customer clicks a second referral
link during that time, the original referral remains active and no changes are made. Once the 14-day
window expires, if the customer clicks a new referral link, that new referrer becomes active and the
cycle continues.
Q: What happens if a Customer clears their cookies before purchasing?
A: If a Customer deletes their cookies, Zazzle may not be able to track the Referral, and a Referral
Commission might not be awarded for that sale.

[Malissa]

It's the cookie that attaches that has the expiry date.  The links are forever.  So if someone clicks the link and gets the cookie attached it used to stick for a certain amount of time.  I can't remember how long now but it was many days- maybe 45? And maybe could not be overwritten for 7? I'm sure someone will correct that if I am wrong.  Not sure if that has changed now or not because I haven't had time to read everything in a detailed manner for the new program.

[Lea]

It's now 14 days instead of 7.

[Malissa]

Thank you Lea

[Lea]

It's the first thing I've gotten right in this whole upheaval 😂😫

[Malissa]

😂I am right there with you.  It is a lot to absorb and a lot of math to follow, and I hate math!  

[Lea]

It's the worst kind of math too - subtraction and division. From our earnings.

[mylittleeden]

😂I am not great at maths but yes even I could see this morning when I set a digital royalty to 90% that $3.40 isn't even 50% of the $8.90 the customer paid!?

[NHW]

I made a sale today where the referrer was 'none' and the customer cancelled a few minutes later. They then reordered the exact same item, but the referrer is now 'third party' and the royalty is lower. Can anyone explain that? I hope it's not a case where every cancelled non-referral sale turns into a third party sale when the customer reorders.

[Zorinda]

Sadly that’s been happening forever.  It’s even worse when you get  an order with a self referral, they cancel for whatever reason, and then it goes 3rd party. Under the Promoter 2.0 program, at 35%, that really stung.

[NHW]

I've never had that happen before - my royalty has always been the same when a customer cancels and reorders. But I've never been in the promoter program, so maybe that's why.