Two-tier Affiliate Programs

There is more than one way to make money online using affiliate tracking links on your website. This article discusses ways to earn money using two-tier affiliate programs to promote businesses on your web site or blog and earn higher commissions in doing so.

One of the ways that you can make money on your blog or web site is to engage in an affiliate program. An affiliate program is one in which you earn a commission for items sold through your site. Normally, you put a badge or text link or some other advertisement on your web site. When visitors to your site or blog click through the ad to the site and make a purchase, you receive some of the money from that purchase. This can be either a percentage of the sale, or a flat fee for each sale made. Most affiliate programs, though, offer a percentage of the sale.

Affiliate programs can be a way to begin earning a little more money for your web site. It doesn't require you to actually sell anything, and you do not have to worry about order fulfillment. However, there are some issues, since someone may click through, and decide not to buy immediately, but go directly to the site another day. You won't earn any commissions on such sales, even though the customer first became interested because of your web site.

Boosting your earnings: two-tier affiliate programs

If you are looking for even more earnings, you can sometimes boost your revenues with participation in two-tier affiliate programs. In these types of programs, you often try to get others to sign up for the program, as well as getting conversions from the products and services sold through your web site. You actually earn money when the people you sign up get their own conversions.

The way it works is this: You sign up for an affiliate program. You sell a few items. You refer some other people to sign up for the affiliate program, using a special ID or specially generated link designed to identify who referred the person. Your referrals sell products and services. You earn revenue from two sources:

1. Your direct sales
2. The sales made by those you referred to the affiliate program

Normally, though, tier-two affiliate programs offer lower commissions to you on sales made by those you have referred. You might get a 10% commission on your own sales, but only 5% on the sale of people you refer. It is important to note, though, the terminology used when reading about two-tier affiliate programs. The main terms are:

Revenue generated by referrals: Means that you get a portion of everything that your referrals bring in. This is a total of the revenues brought in, and can boost our earnings by quite a bit – without you having to do a whole lot.

Earnings generated by referrals: Most two-tier affiliate programs will give you a percentage of the earnings made by your referrals. This means that instead of getting a straight percentage of what the referrals bring in, you get a percentage of a percentage, since you only get a portion of their earnings. So if the referral generates $500 in revenue, and gets to keep 10%, your referral will keep $50. You on the other hand, are only getting 5% of the earnings, so you will only get $2.50 from this particular sale.

Make sure you understand how the affiliate system works before you get too excited about referring people. Even with small earnings from two-tier affiliate programs, though, it can start to add up as long as your referrals continue to sell. And don't forget that you are still also getting the earnings from the sales directly through your own web site.

Any affiliate program can be a good way to generate a little income from your web site or blog. Just make sure that you are working with a reputable affiliate program, and that you understand how your two-tier affiliate program participation works.

Related Article: Choosing Affiliate Programs >>