Methods and systems for electronic affiliate compensation

A computer-implemented method for an affiliate to earn compensation from a merchant for traffic to a merchant Web site that originates from an affiliate Web site, a computer, on behalf of the affiliate, performing the steps of:

• accessing the merchant Web site;
• providing the merchant Web site with sales and marketing information requested by the merchant Web site to enable the merchant to define a profile of the affiliate;
• reviewing, after having provided die merchant with the requested sales and marketing information, a plurality of different compensation plans exposed to the affiliate at the merchant Web site, each of the exposed plurality of different compensation plans being tailored to the affiliate based upon the sales and marketing information provided by the affiliate to the merchant and the defined profile and selecting at least one of the plurality of compensation plans, each of the compensation plans having a link to the merchant Web site associated therewith, the selecting step being separate and distinct from the sales and marketing information providing step;
• providing at least one link to the merchant Web site on the affiliate Web site, the provided at least one link being associated with the selected at least one of die plurality of compensation plans, and
• receiving compensation from the merchant according to die selected at least one of the plurality of compensation plans, each of the plurality of compensation plans determining the compensation due to the affiliate at least in part according to measured traffic of at least one of new customers, returning customers and click-throughs to the merchant Web site that originates from the at least one link on the affiliate Web site.

A computer system configured for determining a compensation due an affiliate from a merchant for traffic to a merchant Web site that originates from an affiliate Web site, comprising:

• at least one processor;
• at least one data storage device;
• a plurality of processes spawned by said at least one processor, the processes including processing logic for:
• defining, by the merchant, a plurality of different compensation plans, each of the plurality of compensation plans determining the compensation due to the affiliate at least in part according to measured traffic of at least one of new customers, returning customers and click-throughs to the merchant Web site from the affiliate Web site;
• receiving an application from a potential affiliate, the received application including sales and marketing information of the potential affiliate;
• evaluating the received application and defining a profile of the potential affiliate based upon the sales and marketing information in the received application;
• selecting which of the plurality of different compensation plans to expose to the potential affiliate based upon the defined profile of the potential affiliate, the selected ones of the plurality of compensation plans being fewer in number than the defined plurality of different compensation plans;
• exposing the selected ones of the plurality of compensation plans to the potential affiliate, the exposed compensation plans being tailored to at least one of the potential affiliate and a product or service offered by the merchant, as determined based upon the defined profile and the evaluation of the sales and marketing information in the received application;
• accepting a selection by the potential affiliate of at least one of the exposed compensation plans, the potential affiliate then becoming an affiliate, the accepting step being separate and distinct from the application receiving step, and
• measuring traffic to the merchant Web site that originates from the affiliate Web site and applying the measured traffic to the at least one compensation plan selected by the affiliate to determine the compensation due to the affiliate.