I need all commissions to go to one specific affiliate

but have it rotate through each affiliate, one at a time

[mmmwowmmm]

I run a website where several different writers contribute articles. The website also sells widgets. I'd like to pay each writer a commission on the widget sales - but only the writer whose article is being featured at the time.

For example, if Jack's article is being featured from 05/01 thru 05/04, then a commission for every sale occurring during that time will go to Jack. Then Jill's article is featured from 05/05/09 thru 05/08/09, and all commissions during that time will go to Jill, etc.

I realize that this is different from how most people use affiliate programs. Does anyone know of an elegant solution for this?

I suppose I could just use a regular affiliate program, like shareasale or something, and then replace all the links from the article pages to the widget shop with the current writer's affiliate code... but that sounds like a big mess.

Anyone know of a better solution?

[LifeinAsia]

A lot of affiliate programs allow you to add extra tracking to the URL that you use to click to them so you tack on extra code for your own internal tracking. Not all of them can handle it, so you'll have to work it out on a case-by-case basis.

How many writers do you have? If it's just a few (less than a dozen), some programs will give you multiple IDs, but combine all the commissions together into 1 check.

[mmmwowmmm]

Thanks, LifeinAsia. Both of those ideas sound promising, especially the multiple ID thing. I'll start contacting affiliate tracking services and see what they have for me.

Thanks