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Last Click vs. Spend Allocation: Finding the Right Partner Reward Structure for Your Brand

Jan 14, 2025

Katie Spurkeland

Director of Product Marketing

The U.S. affiliate and partnership marketing industry is projected to surge to nearly $12B in spend in the coming year–growth that speaks to advertisers’ increased confidence in the channel’s effectiveness. As favorability toward partnership marketing continues to surge with double-digit annual growth forecast for the next two years, a growing number of both traditional and non-traditional partners are becoming active in the channel to monetize the sharing of their favorite brands and products with audiences. The increase in channel newcomers has sparked conversation around equitable rewards and commission attribution, with many partners unclear on the logic behind why they may (or may not) have been paid out for the referral of a sale they presumably influenced. Let’s discuss how commission is earned and rewarded in the channel.

Traditionally, affiliate and partnership marketing has been a last-click model, meaning that the final partner in the path to purchase garners the rewards triggered by the conversion. Despite advances in attribution and commissioning methodologies that enable sophisticated tracking and reward functionality, the channel is still dominated by the last-click model with 84% of advertisers relying exclusively on last-click payment models according to the IAB. Here is an example of how it works:

A consumer clicks on a partner link for a product they’re promoting, and the consumer is directed to the brand’s site to shop.
Because the brand is using an affiliate or partnership marketing provider like Partnerize, tracking tags are appended to the partner’s product link which provides the brand with insight into performance of their content–including sales.
The consumer ultimately completes their purchase, and the partner is rewarded a commission for referring the transaction.

In this example the consumer began and completed their buyer journey with the same partner. However, it is possible that a consumer may interact with multiple partners in the path to purchase. Advertisers that employ the last-click payment model would credit only the final partner in the click path for the value they provided to the outcome. Here’s an example of multiple partners in the affiliate path to purchase:

A consumer clicks on a link shared by their favorite influencer for a product they’re promoting, and the consumer is directed to the brand’s site to shop. If a purchase occurred immediately, the influencer would earn commission for the purchase. However, in this example, the consumer continues to engage with affiliate links across other influencer and content partners prior to completing their transaction.
The consumer adds the product to their cart, and is curious if there is coupon available to decrease the cost of the item. The consumer navigates away from the brand site to a coupon/savings partner, and clicks through one of the promotional codes available on the brand’s page causing the credit for the purchase to transfer to the coupon/savings partner.
Back at their cart, the consumer attempts to complete their purchase and is notified by the loyalty site that they use, via toolbar pop up, that cash or points back can be applied to their account if they activate tracking for this transaction. The consumer clicks through this prompt and completes their transaction, rewarding the loyalty partner with commission for the sale.

Here is an example of a path to purchase that contains multiple touchpoints:

In addition to supporting tracking of last-click payment models, Partnerize gives advertisers necessary payment flexibility with our suite of spend allocation tools that enable evolution beyond last-click payment models:

Enabling spend allocation tools allow advertisers to reward partners equitably for their contribution to outcomes by commissioning partners for the valuable touchpoints that occur across the affiliate path to purchase.

Learn more about how Partnerize supports advertisers in rewarding partners equitably by downloading Evolve Beyond Last Click. Or, get in touch with our team.

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Last Click vs. Spend Allocation: Finding the Right Partner Reward Structure for Your Brand

Katie Spurkeland

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