Reassigning an Affiliate's Linked CRM Contact

Reassigning an affiliate's linked contact record is a process used to correct the connection between an affiliate and a specific contact in your CRM. This is typically necessary when duplicate contact records exist for the same person, which can cause issues with attribution, commission tracking, and automated workflows. Reassignment updates the link without deleting any data or merging contact profiles.

Key Benefits of Reassignment

Understanding the advantages of this process helps teams resolve conflicts efficiently.

• Data Accuracy: Aligns the affiliate with the correct contact profile, ensuring all activity history and details are associated with the right person.
• Attribution Integrity: Guarantees that future lead tracking and attribution credits are assigned to the intended contact record.
• Workflow Continuity: Prevents automations from stalling or being misdirected by ensuring they act upon the correct contact.
• Minimal Disruption: Offers a targeted solution to fix a broken link without the broader impact of a full contact merge.
• Reduced Support Load: Minimizes the need for manual corrections and confusion in reports caused by incorrect linkages.

Prerequisites: Roles and Access

Before you begin, confirm you have the necessary permissions to avoid access errors. You must have the ability to view and manage both the Affiliate Manager and Contacts within the specific sub-account (Location) you are working in. If your agency manages multiple Locations, ensure you have selected the correct one.

Data Impact: What Changes After Reassignment

It's important to know what updates immediately and what historical data remains unchanged.

• Reporting and Tracking: Future metrics and reports will reflect the new linkage. Some historical report visuals may not recalculate; check each report individually.
• Commissions: New commissions generated after the reassignment will be tied to the newly linked contact. Commissions that were already calculated and paid typically remain with the original record.
• Automations and Workflows: Any active automations that reference the affiliate's contact will now run against the newly linked profile.
• Affiliate Portal: The affiliate will see performance data based on the current linkage moving forward. The display of historical data within the portal may vary depending on the specific report or widget.

When to Reassign vs. Merge vs. Move Customers

Different actions solve different problems. Use this guide to choose the right one.

• Reassign Affiliate's Linked Contact: Use this when the affiliate is incorrectly linked to a duplicate or wrong contact record. This action changes which contact the affiliate points to for future attribution. It is performed within the Affiliate Manager on the affiliate's profile.
• Merge Contacts: Use this when you have two or more separate contact records for the same person that you want to consolidate into a single, unified profile. This is not easily reversible and is performed within the Contacts section.
• Move Customers: Use this when you need to change which affiliate a specific customer is assigned to, for campaign or relationship reasons. This changes the customer-affiliate assignment and can be performed in the Affiliate Manager's customer management area.

Edge Cases and Limitations

Be aware of these constraints to plan your approach effectively.

• Duplicate Emails: Reassignment is most straightforward when the contacts involved share the same email address.
• Different Emails or Phone-Only Duplicates: If the contacts have different emails but represent the same person, a contact merge might be a better solution to unify their history.
• Recently Merged Contacts: If you have recently merged contacts, verify the final, surviving record before performing a reassignment to avoid linking to an archived profile.
• Bulk Changes: Bulk reassignment is not supported; you must handle affiliates individually.
• Rollback: There is no automatic undo feature. To reverse a reassignment, you must perform the process again to link the affiliate to a different contact.
• Permissions: If you cannot see the reassignment option, double-check that you are in the correct Location and have the required user role permissions.

Prevention Tips

Proactive measures can help prevent the need for reassignments in the future.

• Deduplication Preferences: Configure your CRM's settings for handling duplicate contacts to minimize their creation.
• Workflow Safeguards: When using automations that add contacts to the Affiliate Manager, ensure the trigger logic correctly identifies the primary contact record using rules like email normalization.
• Imports: When importing affiliate data, carefully resolve any conflicts (e.g., by merging or skipping duplicates) and then validate the affiliate linkages afterwards.

How to Reassign an Affiliate's Linked Contact

Follow these steps to complete the reassignment process.

1. Navigate to the correct Location within your CRM.
2. Click on Marketing in the left-hand navigation menu.
3. Select Affiliate Manager from the top bar. This will open a list of your affiliates and related campaigns.
4. Locate and click on the specific affiliate whose contact link you need to change.
5. Within the affiliate's profile, find and select the option to reassign the linked CRM contact.
6. A dialog will appear, allowing you to search for and select the correct contact record from your CRM.
7. After selecting the appropriate contact, confirm the reassignment to update the link.