How should I structure compensation and tracking for affiliate referrals?

There's a lot to consider. For a lead generation deal to be fair to both parties though, a fee for *qualified* leads needs to be in place whether the lead converts or not. Notice there's a big distinction between "qualified" and "quality."

If someone sends you 50 *qualified* leads and you only convert 1 or less, the problem might be with the conversion part and the lead producer shouldn't be held responsible for that.

What you should do is test out 2 or 3 lead generation methods. 1 of them being the other speech pathologist, measure out the conversion rates and then establish a base price. Then monitor the quality of the leads. 45-90 days is a good time-frame to make judgments, comparisons and adjustments.

But what is not equitable to the referring party is to say I will only pay you if your lead converts, because without knowing all the components of the process, the same leads that didn't convert with you might convert really well for a competing business.

A fixed price with a bonus structure would be good to make sure the receiving party is going a good job at actually converting the lead and for the referring party to be incentivized to send leads.

Hello Vince
As you commented is totally normal and fair that you stablish a compensation structure and furtherore that you can track his/her performance in order to pay.
As a rule of thumb the compensation structure is variable and is frequent that you pay for an action, in this case i.e. you can pay for referrals. Of course, its going to be very important that you can also establish the quality of this referral and also a quantity of money for each,
I will be more than happy to dupport you if you have more questions about or if you want my help.
Regards
Zuli

I would use an existing service like JVZoo. They already have the platform and structure and you don't have to reinvent the wheel. There are Wordpress plugins that will help with affiliate tracking as well, but I don't trust them as much (which is simply my opinion, not a fact about their validity).

I do believe this specific idea you've described for referrals is a good one, because of the reasons I discuss in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ9OLCZ1KRc

I can totally help you with this (btw, I am Clarity's #1 ranked affiliate marketing expert). Got time for a quick call?