Marketing referral fee

[LauraLacina]

Can someone explain to me the Marketing referral fee? it seems to be on all my sales. My royalty is 10% so after the marketing referral fee, it drops by 50%? I guess I am trying to figure out what that is used for? Why is it taken out? 

[Sara_H]

@LauraLacina  3rd party sales now come with a Marketing Referral Fee depending on which department the product is in. 

https://help.zazzle.com/hc/en-us/articles/30810357489175-Ambassador-Referral-Commissions-Creator-Roy...

If it's down by 50% my guess is that your product is in the wedding dept

[LauraLacina]

So, another question is, if the marketing referral fee is applied, only when Zazzle markets that particular product? I looked at Google Analytics for that particular product, and it only had 7 views, so I paid half of my royalty for 30 cents in Google Ads? I really don't understand?

[Sara_H]

@LauraLacina  Marketing referral fees are applied on every referred sale as per the new terms and conditions. It's just how it is. Doesn't matter how many views a product has. 

https://www.zazzle.com/terms/user_agreement and https://www.zazzle.com/terms/ambassadors_agreement

[Windy]

To counteract this new fee, which Zazzle says is required in order to promote our products on the internet, a lot of us are jacking up our royalty percentages. 

[LauraLacina]

Doesn't that require an extra cost as well? If you up your royalty, do you get charged with the excessive royalty fee?

[Windy]

Sure. Ten percent on a greeting card I am looking at right now, would bring estimated earnings of  25 cents. When I raise the royalty to 23 percent, I do get slapped with an excess royalty fee of three cents. but the estimated earnings I get are 64 cents. 

I am not afraid of a three cent excess royalty fee when in the end I have more than twice as much  money in my pocket.  

[tamirazdesigns]

I have my royalties above 10%.  Always have.  But it's ridiculous we get charged an Excess Fee now if it's above that small percentage amount!  Some years back a new fee was imposed on designers for any items set at 15% royalty or above which was bad enough, plus other fees at that time.

Check if you have any Self sales also, to see what that says regarding the new Marketing Royalty Fee amount deducted from earnings!

Regarding the new "Marketing Royalty Fee" that's a separate fee:

I don't understand, why are we designers now being charged a "Marketing Royalty Fee" when we promoted our sold items ourselves?  

As an example, in looking at my sold items since 4/1/2025, for the items that says Referral Type as Self-Promotion Link:  On one of them I was charged a "Marketing Royalty Fee" of $3.47.  And on another one I was charged a "Marketing Royalty Fee" of $8.16.  Yes, that's in addition of the Excess Royalty Fee.

Why is Zazzle "deducting" our earnings even more by imposing that new "Marketing Royalty Fee" from designers from our own "sold" items that we promoted ourselves and that says Referral Type as Self-Promotion Link?   Don't understand this. 

[Sara_H]

@tamirazdesigns  If you hover over the Marketing Royalty Fee in the new transaction report, it says it's applied to all Referred Sales. Then it goes on to explain that the amount is included in the Referral Commission you earn

Self referrals are all about "goals" which means whatever your product's royalty is, the earnings goal is capped at whatever x department %

It's like robbing peter to pay paul - even though it's been deducted from one pot (your royalty) - it's given back to you in the other (your self referral commission) so each amount adds up to the total "earnings goal" (in theory) 

I think

edited to try and make sense of it (I think I failed lol)

[tamirazdesigns]

Thanks for trying to make sense of this mess!  It's all so very convoluted and crazy now!I 

So for my Referral Type as Self-Promotion Link sold items:

I see the Excess Royalty Fee amount (though a minus symbol in both sections) deducted from the Royalty section, and then added back in to the Referral Commission section.  But do not see how the Marketing Royalty Fee deducted from the Royalty section is added back into the Referral Commission section, instead only the Total from the Royalty Fee section is added into the bottom Referral Commission section (that doesn't include the Marketing Royalty Fee that was deducted).  Oh my head hurts after going round and round with the calculator.  But maybe that was part of the convoluted plan.

Looks like they need to put this back and forth crazy math (deduct and add back in the amounts and percentages) from both sections into a clearer format! 

You're right about Peter & Paul! 😂

[whimsywhim]

I have found that the marketing fee is at least 40% on many different products.  50% is the average.  It is quite egregious.