How publisher payouts work

From click to payout

Every payout starts with a person clicking your ad or link and ending up on a Summit lander. Here is the path that lead takes:

1. 01

   The click arrives

   A person clicks your ad or link and lands on a Summit lander through your tracking link. The tracking link ties the visit to your account and to any sub IDs you added.

2. 02

   The form is submitted

   The person completes the form on the Summit lander. Consent is captured there, and a consent certificate is attached to the lead.

3. 03

   Buyers are pinged

   The lead is offered to our buyer network by real-time ping/post. Buyers whose filters match the lead can bid on it.

4. 04

   The lead sells or does not

   A lead is sold when a buyer purchases it. If no buyer purchases it, the lead is unsold.

5. 05

   Rev share is credited

   For each sold lead, you earn rev share. Your payout follows what that lead sold for.

6. 06

   Returns are settled

   If a buyer returns a sold lead under the agreed return terms, that lead's payout is deducted.

For a closer look at the ping, the bid and the post, read ping post explained.

Unsold leads

Leads that no buyer purchases are not paid. A lead can go unsold for reasons that have nothing to do with effort. In ping/post markets generally, common reasons include:

• No buyer with matching filters was bidding in that state at that moment.
• The person's situation did not match what buyers in that offer are looking for.
• The contact details looked wrong or incomplete.
• The same person had already submitted a request recently.

Because unsold leads are not paid, judge your campaigns on sold leads, not on lead count. A campaign that produces fewer leads with a higher share sold can earn more than one that produces many leads that do not sell. See how to increase your sold rate.

Reporting

Leads are reported by tracking link. Each tracking link ties leads back to your account, and the sub IDs you add break those results down by campaign, ad set, ad or page. Ask during onboarding how reporting is delivered to you.

• Use a separate tracking link or sub ID for each offer, so car accident and truck accident results do not mix.
• Add sub IDs for campaign, ad set and ad. Short, readable codes are easier to match later.
• Keep a sheet that maps each sub ID to the campaign it belongs to.
• Compare sources and states on sold leads and returns, not on clicks alone.

This page covers tracking links and sub IDs only. Ask during onboarding which other tracking options apply to your account. For setup help, read tracking links and sub IDs explained and reading your publisher reports.

A worked example

Say you run a car accident campaign on Meta across a small group of states. You give each ad its own sub ID, and every ad points to the car accident lander through your tracking link.

1. People click your ads and complete the form on the Summit lander. Consent is captured on each lead.
2. Each lead is offered to buyers by ping/post. Some leads sell. Others find no buyer and stay unsold.
3. You earn rev share on each sold lead, based on what that lead sold for. The unsold leads are not paid.
4. Later, a buyer returns one of the sold leads under the agreed return terms because the phone number did not work. That lead's payout is deducted.
5. In your report by tracking link and sub ID, you see that one ad produced most of the sold leads, while another produced many leads that went unsold.
6. You move budget toward the ad that sells and rewrite the other one to describe the situation more clearly.

The example shows why the useful questions are which ads sell and which ads get returned, not which ads produce the most form fills.