If you are really a beginner in the world of affiliate marketing, then the two-tier system may be unheard of to you. For people experienced in affiliate marketing, this simply means more money in their pocket. A two-tier affiliate program allows you as an affiliate to recruit others below you. Each time the people or sub-affiliates below you move up to earn a commission, you get a commission as well.
How Two-Tier Systems Work
Here, the first tier functions as a regular affiliate program does. The difference is that there’s another tier or levels of subaffiliates below, and the original affiliate gets commission on the sales generated by these additional tiers. Though theoretically an affiliate program can have unlimited numbers of tiers, in practice, such is not the case. The more levels present, the more webmasters who join the program not to sell their products but to profit off of others’ efforts.
Two-Tier vs. Multi-Level Marketing
Two-tier affiliate programs are similar to Multi-Level Marketing (MLM). When you join an affiliate program, you are considered the first tier, and those you refer the second tier. More tiers constitute MLM. However, the effectiveness of MLM has faded over the years as affiliates can now easily move from one of many programs to another.
Choosing the Right Affiliate Merchant
Another mistake is to totally rely on your second tier doing all the work. So to utilize the power of a two-tier affiliate program, it’s best to choose your affiliate merchant wisely. Go for merchants with good, high-quality products, reasonable commissions, real-time tracking, proven advertisement tools, and good affiliate relationships. Added to that, choose merchants that have high conversion rates.
Dealing with Merchants Who Are Easy to Get Along With
Use online merchants who have user-friendly websites for you to access your stats easily, which includes the visits and sales. These are very strong tools in marketing, which the merchant may give you for free in order to help you in selling his or her products effectively.
How to Avoid Affiliate Programs That Are Pretty Bad
Promotion of lousy affiliate programs is a sheer waste of time and energy and hurts your reputation. Your visitors may relate the quality of the product or service you are reselling with that of your affiliate program. It is, therefore, credible affiliate programs that promote trust with your visitors for further strong relations and attracts more sub-affiliates.
Beware of Misleading Programs
Be wary of any program that focuses more on signing up affiliates than on selling their products. Such programs will usually pay low first-tier but high second-tier commissions. This is because they want you to keep recruiting new people into their program so that they earn off your efforts instead of the products being sold.
How to Choose Between Single and Two-Tier Programs
While designing your affiliate program, come to a decision about whether to go for a single-tier or a two-tier model. Though both of them have their own merits, here are the merits of a two-tier model:
Pros of Two-Tier Programs
- More Profit: Get extra sales from customers referred by your second tier.
- Larger Reach: Extend your circle of customers for your products and services.
- Steady Income: Build lifetime loyalty with customers coming through affiliates and sub-affiliates.
- Sub-Affiliate Promotion: an army of sub-affiliates reselling and promoting your products to their audience.
Conclusion
The two-tier affiliate program has been very successful and is still a good option both for new affiliates and affiliate program managers. You will know that you are successfully applying the two-tier affiliate program to your advantage once you get paid through your sites and from other tiers of people you attract.
