Seeking Help Need help understanding EPC vs average commission

[megacannon]

I got some explanations from others in my Support thread, but my question was different than what was assumed.

I'm looking into a merchant on ShareASale, Colorado Craft Beef, which has an 30 day EPC of about $600, the average commission is about $20, and they have a 30% conversion rate.

I believe this means that, for every click on my affiliate link, I should expect to earn an average $600 per click. But that doesn't add up with the average commission (it also seems too good to be true). If I send them 100 clicks, and they have a 30% conversion, I should expect 30 sales * $20 which does add up to the $600. But, what the heck is "earnings per click" if it's not the amount of money earned per click which would be $60k? Is it actually per 100 clicks?

EDIT: Yes, it was having "avg." in the title that prevented me from posting.

 

[Graybeard]

I believe this means that, for every click on my affiliate link,

No it doesn't. What in means it that is the average EPC of the population of all affiliates, both good and the worst, globally (in aggregate).

Your 'clicks' may be worth considerably more or less depending on the quality of your traffic.

That EPC is only relevant to the traffic delivered.

• IF I send 1000 referrals and the EPC is $0.10
• I may theoretically make $100 IN TOTAL for all 1000 referrals
• IF: that traffic if the traffic is average as compared to the global affiliate referral quality.

 

[megacannon]

I'm still pretty confused.

On it's own, I think I understand EPC. I get that it's the average amongst all of the affiliates, so my results will vary. Average commission makes sense too (dollar value of all commissions/number of orders). But, when combined, the numbers don't add up. If I were to get 1000 referrals to Colorado Craft Beef, knowing they have an average commission of $20, the maximum theoretical amount I could make (assuming a shocking 100% of my referrals buy something) would be 1000 x $20 = $20,000.

But, if I calculate my potentials earnings with the EPC (let's assume I have a site that gets an EPC close to the global average), that would be 1000 click x $600 = $600,000 . These numbers just don't seem realistic. So, I'm clearly missing something.

 

[megacannon]

Ah, that would explain it. I checked their listing on ShareASale and it says this (emphasis added):

We offer a flat 8% commission on new customer sales generated from affiliate leads.

So, I think I'll just reach out to them and ask what the heck the numbers mean. They also seem to vary wildly because now the 30 day EPC is up to nearly $900 and the 7-day EPC is nearly $2,000.

 

[Graybeard]

Is there a commisionable upsell long term also?

I sold an initial sale of $10 -$100 with an average customer lifetime value of $148 (in CPA commission to me --proven by my own sales values data) (c.2005) I converted about 1:60 average (IIRC).
The first sale netted me $3 to $30 (30%)
$14 was the average *first sale*commission
14/60 = EPC $0.23 (First Sale)


However: my long term EPC was $2.26 but my traffic was mainly branded organic traffic (the best traffic --other than Google ads at the top of page 1 --I was on page one most of the time #5 - #7 usually for many years)

The global conversion rate for that program was 1 for 370 to 500 So I was the exception rather that the typical global average.