What Are 2 Tier Affiliate Programs?

How will refering new associates to an associates program make me money in the future? That’s where a two tier associates program works like magic! Associates are getting cleverer by the day. So these days, associates know the difference between the different types of traffic they can get paid for. There's lots of definitions though - CPM, CPC, CPA, CPL, CPD & lots of more. CPM is impressions, when the publisher (the net site owner) gets paid every time a banner is shown. CPC is clicks, where the publisher (or electronic mail marketer & other marketers) gets paid every time a banner or text link is clicked on. The other ways of getting paid are grouped together under the term performance promotion - & this is where the term affiliate is most often used as well. Some in the Web industry refer to performance based promotion as CPA (cost per acquisition), although the term is also sometimes used for specific types of campaigns such as leads or sales. An affiliate is a marketer who sends visitors to another site using a variety of methods (such as placing banners or text links on their own site, purchasing sponsored listings on search engines, electronic mail promotion & lots of other different methods) & gets paid when an action happens. This action can be a lead (CPL stands for Cost per Lead), a Sale (CPS stands for Cost per Sale), a download (CPD stands for Cost per download) & lots of other variations. The affiliate gets paid for sending visitors to a specific landing page where an action happens - either a lead, a sale, a download or some other kind of action that the advertiser requires. As an example, some advertisers are looking to build up their databases, so they pay for each opt in electronic mail address they receive, others need leads from specific locations, so they pay for zip codes, & then try persuade the visitors after they fill in their zip code, to fill in a more detailed lead form. Now that we’ve got over the hard part, the rest is simple to understand. A two Tier associates program is basically finding new marketers to sign up under you to do EXACTLY what you are doing - sending visitors to different offers & getting paid when the visitors perform some kind of action. So why would you need other marketers to sign up under you to promote the same offers? Simple - you get paid a percentage of the amount the affiliate you refer gets paid? Sounds complicated? The common denominator is that the affiliate gets paid when an action happens. Don’t worry, it’s not difficult to understand. As an example, say John promotes five different offers on a single affiliate network. They get paid for every lead, sale, electronic mail & zip code they generate from these different offers. John now tells Mark about the Network & gets Mark to sign up using a banner or text link that has John’s referral code built in to it. Mark now signs up to the Affiliate Network under John & starts promoting various offers & advertisers from the Affiliate Network. These offers DON’T must be the same offers that John is promoting. Mark can promote ANY of the offers on the Affiliate Network. & this is the best part… For any amounts that Mark gets paid, John receives a percentage of the amount over and above what Mark gets paid. So if Mark gets paid $1000 in Month one, and the two Tier Associates program is paying 5%, then John would get $50 for referring Mark. But it gets even better … Some two Tier Affiliate Networks pay LIFETIME commissions. So John wouldn’t receive a referral commission for a month or a year - they receive it FOR ALL TIME. If Mark becomes a tremendous affiliate and starts generating HUGE commissions every month, John can sit back and collect the checks as they referred him. There's three important things to know when finding associates to sign up under you on two Tier Affiliate Programs: Is the associates program or affiliate network credible, has proper tracking so your referrals are correctly tracked, has nice campaigns and offers for the associates to promote so they actually do make money, and do they pay? Assuming that the associates program or network is nice, what percentage do they pay you on amounts that your referrals get paid? All programs vary so compare different programs to see what the industry standard is. How long do you continue receiving referral commissions for? Some pay for a month, some for the lifetime, and naturally there's lots of variations in between. So do your home-work and discover a two Tier program that can make you money long in the future for the work you are doing today.