With a "Self-Promotion" referral, your total earnings (royalty + referral) are capped at 35, 40, 45, or 50% of total order price depending on category. So lets say the product is in the 35% category and your royalty rate for it is set to 30%. The referral portion of your earnings would then be calculated as X, where [30 + X = 35]. (so 5% referral commission)
At first glance it may seem like reducing your royalty means you'd then earn more for the referral portion.
So say your royalty was/is only 10%. [10 + X = 35]. So referral portion X would be 25% instead of the 5% above.
But in either case your total earnings are going to be roughly 35% of the order total, but with the lower royalty that order total is obviously going to be less so you earn less in total.
Under this new system, it's important to remember that there is no set % for "self-promotion" (formerly PP2) link referrals anymore. The referral portion is always going to vary depending on the royalty so that total earnings equal [roughly] the cap (or "earnings goal" as its called in the FAQs).
Furthermore, the earning caps (35, 40, 45, 50%) are only applied to "Self-Promotion" referrals. "Cross-Over" links still pay a flat 15%, and we can set a royalty as high as 50%. So in theory, you could do a 50% royalty, plus 15% referral = 65% of total order. Whereas the max you could earn if a "Self-Promotion" referral would be 35-50%. This is also why with Instant Downloads that allow us to go up to 99% royalty, the total earnings on a "Self-Promotion" referral have significantly dropped - because it's capped at 50% now. But you can promote them with a "Cross-Over" style link (includes your RF#) that pays a flat 15% and actually earn more, because the total earnings cap doesn't apply in this situation.
Every situation if different so there is no cookie-cutter answer for that. (Ha, no pun intended.) One has to look at the numbers and decide which scenario they want to gamble on.
Yeah, but the Marketing Fee applies to ANY referred sale. It's just that with a "Self-Promotion" link where you are the referrer, it doesn't really matter because your total earnings will still always be that 35-50% of order. But this earnings cap ("earnings goal" as referred to in the FAQs) only applies to Self-Promotion links. That is not a loop-hole, that is how Zazzle has structured this. So you can potentially earn more with a flat 15% Cross-Over referral + high royalty, even after the fee, then you could with a SP link that's subject to the earnings cap.
Here's an Instant Download that sells for $10 at a royalty rate of 91.5%. (Downloads are in the 50% category.)
Obviously, the most desirable situation is a ref=None sale where you're going to net 86.9% of the sale.
If it's a Cross-Over sale, your net is 56.2%.
If it's a SP sale, your net is 45.4%, $1.08 less. This because you're capped at 50% and when you add the transaction fee back in, that's exactly what it comes to - $5/50%.
Here's another example where I've raised the royalty to 94.3% to make the sale price $14.95.
In this example you're making 45.2% on a SP sale. (Which again, when you add the trans fee back in comes to 50% of the total sale.)
But with a Cross-Over sale, you're making 57.4%. $1.82 more.
This principle applies to any product, not just downloads. It's just that downloads are the only thing we can set such a high royalty on and still have the cost to customer be reasonable. For a mens tie for example, I had to go up to a 41.7% royalty for the total cross-over earnings to surpass total SP earnings. Which put the tie at $50 -yikes!!!
I am not recommending people set their royalties this high on normal products, just trying to show that in the unique situation of Instant Downloads, cross-over links are more profitable as they're not subject to the earnings cap.
THIS IS AWFUL! Can anyone, seriously anyone, give me a scenario where the initial referral click should count over the most recently clicked referral link? That is not fair in any case.
Well ...
Let's say I have put a referral link out there for my wedding invitation. Some person who's never even heard of Zazzle before follows it (and therefore picks up my referral "cookie"). They play around with the Personalize fields. Now it's in their Saved Designs. Maybe they are asking their friends/family/bridal party for feedback on it. So it sits. Maybe they even order one as a sample. They wait for that to arrive, and then they get more feedback on the actual printed product and they finally make the decision that yep, these are the invites I want. Maybe they even sit on it a little longer waiting for a sale or their next paycheck .. Meanwhile, they have been all over the internet looking at other options, probably have a Pinterest "idea board" for their wedding so have probably now clicked on whoknowshowmany other links with someone else's "cookie" in it. So when they pull the trigger and place their full real order, it could very realistically be longer than 2 weeks since they first clicked my link. Since it's my design that captured their interest and my link that brought them to Z, then I should get the ref credit for their order. It should not go to some other random person whose "cookie" they picked up later.
The fact that Z has a complicated "cookie" system different from the popular last-click attribution method is what has saved our referrals from being "stolen" by extensions like Rakuten and Honey.
The problem with last-click attribution is that it ignores the entire customer journey and credits only the final touchpoint, overlooking the impact of earlier interactions like ads, emails, or social media. This can lead to misleading insights and underinvestment in key channels that contribute to conversions..
I just sent Zazzle a follow up question about the Referral Cookies through the form, but I'll also post it here:
Follow-up Question about Referral cookies, PLEASE! If a customer CLEARS THEIR COOKIES and THEN clicks on a CLEAN LINK direct from US, will we get the self-referral, regardless of whether they had any previous cookies in the last 45 days? In other words, is that original 45 day cookie somehow tied to their ACCOUNT itself rather than their device, so that even if they clear their cookies and use a private browser, a clean link will still show up as 3rd Party?
This sounds like they have the 45 day cookies tied to the account itself, rather than the device:
