The advantage of two tier affiliate programs

To those who are not familiar with affiliate marketing, two-tier could be a new term to you but to those who are involved in this kind of money-making experience; it could mean a stream of income. Two-tier is an enticing feature of a particular affiliate program wherein, affiliates are allowed to sign-up additional affiliates below them. So that when the sub-affiliates otherwise known as second tier affiliates, earns a commission, the affiliate above receives a commission too. In two-tier system, the first tier of commission is just like in the usual affiliate program. The sole difference is that it has an additional tier/s or sub-affiliates, whereby marketers also gain a commission once the people that the additional tiers referred to the program generate sales. Theoretically, affiliate programs can have multi-tier program with infinite number of tiers, however, there are practical limitations. As tiers increase, the affiliate program draws more webmasters who are mostly interested in gaining profit from other’s work and effort. Two-Tier affiliate program is also recognized as Multi-Level Marketing. When you sign-up for an affiliate program, you are identified as the first tier and the person that you have recruited or encouraged to sign up is the second tier. If there are additional tiers, then the system can now be regarded as multi-level marketing (MLM). But today, MLM isn’t as effective and successful as it was several years ago. It is because at present, affiliates can freely select from thousands of affiliate programs and they can quickly switch from one program to another. You could probably go wrong if you’re thinking that you can depend on your second tier to do the job for you. So if you want to use two-tier affiliate program to your advantage and generate more income by encouraging sub-affiliates to sign-up below you, make sure that you carefully choose your affiliate merchant. Pick those merchants who generate stable stream of high quality products, give high or just commissions, offers real time tracking, furnishes you with a proven and tested advertising arsenal and treat their affiliates very well. You can also sign-up for the merchant who gives high visitors-to-sales conversion rate. It is also advisable if you engage yourself with a web merchant that has a user-friendly website which you can access anytime so that you can monitor your statistics including visits and sales. And if possible, choose the one with powerful marketing tools which you can use in promoting their products. You’re just wasting much of your time and effort and worse, damaging your integrity once you promote poor affiliate program because your visitor will surely presume that the product or service you are reselling must be dreadful too. That’s the reason why it is important to pick first-rate affiliate programs. Through these, you can not only build up a good relationship with your visitor, but also, you can easily get more tiers to sign-up under you. You should also be cautious of some affiliate programs that give more importance on the profits to be earned in taking on other affiliates than on the income from sales, because you’ll just eventually find out that someone has already close those sales without informing you. Usually, this kind of affiliate program offers a very low first-tier payment but a sky-scraping second-tier commission. If you want to start an affiliate program of your own, you surely have to decide whether it will be a single tier or two-tier affiliate program. Who am I to say which of these two programs are better? But let me tell you the benefits you could get out of two-tier affiliate program. First, your profit will increase due to increased sales from the customers that your second tier has referred. Second, you have a much broader customer base to which you can sell your products and services. Then, you gain more and stable income because the customers referred by your affiliate and sub-affiliates could probably develop a lifetime loyalty on your site and your products. Plus, you have an army of sub-affiliates who will promote and resell your products and services to their visitors and subscribers. Two-tier program has been a proven winner and should be the number one choice for the budding affiliates as well as for the affiliate program managers. When you start gaining profits from your site as well as your tiers, this is now the right time to say that you have used two-tier affiliate program to your advantage.

Six tips for successful affiliates marketing

Affiliate marketing has become increasingly popular in recent years. Affiliate programs offer merchants the opportunity to employ vast armies of sales people who only get paid for the results they achieve. Many beginners to affiliate marketing can also enjoy the fact that they can start an internet business even if they only have a shoestring budget. Just about every affiliate program I have been involved with and researched comes complete with a website all ready set up to take orders. They even come with sales letters and ads that you can use. The rewards for affiliates are high also, and the skilled affiliate marketer can earn many thousands of dollars a month. This win-win situation has led to an explosion in the number of affiliate programs that are available to the would-be marketer. With this increase of opportunities has come many questions; how do you go about choosing the right opportunity for you? What qualities should you look for in a program and which gives you a good chance of making a sustainable income? Below are some tips that will help you to evaluate merchants and their programs, and help you to avoid wasting time and money. 1. How Much Commission Does The Merchant Pay? This may seem obvious, but it is very important that you know how much you can expect to earn from a sale. There is no point in spending time and money promoting a product that doesn't pay well. You could end up spending more on marketing than you are likely to make on sales. It is probably best to stick with marketing products with a high commission value, unless you have found a niche market where you can sell vast quantities of product, and make substantial commissions on your volume of sales. I recommend sticking with programs that offer at least a 50% commission. Anything less and you’ll be spending more on advertising than what you’ll make 2. How Much Traffic is the Merchant's Website Getting? Try to discover the amount of traffic the merchant's website is already receiving. Alexa could be a useful tool for doing this research. If the website is ranked in the top 100,000, the merchant is getting a good volume of traffic, and there may already be too many affiliates. If it is ranked below 500,000 it is either no good or it could just be a golden opportunity to make some real money! Always research a merchant's product if their website has a low traffic ranking. It may be a good idea to buy the product yourself if you can afford to. Otherwise you could do a search to find out if there are any adverse comments about it on the internet. If all is well and the product is good, you may have found a gold mine! 3. How Often Are Commissions Paid? Some merchants pay commissions every week; some once a month, others only pay every quarter. It is important that you know how often you can expect a pay check if you are going to have financial control over your business. Do you have the financial resources to continue to market a product if you have to wait a long time before you get paid? It would also be wise to find out the minimum commission that you have to earn before you get paid. Some affiliates don’t send your money until you accumulate a certain amount. What I like are the affiliates that pay as soon as a sale is made. They are the only programs I promote and recommend. I don’t like to wait for my money. 4. Does The Company Use Tracking Cookies? Many customers do not buy on their first visit to a merchant's website. It is important therefore that the merchant uses cookies on their site, so that you get credit if the customer returns and buys at a later date. Check out how long the cookies last. The longer the cookies lasts; the better the chance of getting paid! I also like to cloak the URL of my affiliates. This way the link is changed and you are certain that you won’t lose your commissions. 5. Does The Merchant Pay On Subsequent Sales? The best time to learn about affiliate marketing is before you're in the thick of things. Wise readers will keep reading to earn some valuable affiliate marketing experience while it's still free. Some merchants will only pay commission on sales that come through customers visiting their site via a direct link from your site. They pay you nothing for any subsequent purchases that the customer makes if they visit the merchants site directly. It is important that you get paid no matter what route the customer returns by if you are to build a sustainable business. 6. What Promotional Resources Does The Merchant Offer? Look at the type and quality of the promotional material that they provide for there affiliates Do they provide articles or content that you can use to promote them on your site or free guides, special offers or samples? If the promotional resources are good it is likely that the merchant will provide good support for their affiliates. I also like to write my own ads for the affiliates I promote. Sometimes you will get a better response using your own ads. If the affiliate program you are marketing has been around a long time, it’s likely all the ads that come with the program have been seen over and over again. Fresh ads will have your reader think it’s a new product. Affiliate marketing can be a very lucrative business and an excellent starting point for anyone new to internet marketing. Finding the right merchant can be a tricky business. The best advice is to do your own research. Use the above questions as an aid to finding a merchant that enables you to reach your financial goals. You never know - You could strike gold! About the author: Ed Rizzo's website dpdmarketing reveals his inside secrets and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 a month . To find out more about affiliate marketing check out his DPD Marketing website dpdmarketing/onlinebusinessresources. htm

Poker affiliate programs profitable promotion tactics for generating commissions

For Website owners new to the concept of affiliate schemes, it is a simple transaction. In exchange for advertising on your site leading to sales or new customers, companies are willing to pay you for the privilege. Just a small advertisement on a site can lead to a substantial amount of money in your bank account. Numerous online industries are willing to pay handsomely for new customers simply because there is so much to be made in return. One of the biggest new online industries is the poker business. Here companies are willing to relinquish up to 35% of the profits made by players during their lifetime on the site, in order to attract new business. The knock on benefits of gaining new customers are so huge that losing a small percentage means very little to a huge poker site. But for an affiliate this 'small' percentage can soon turn out to be a hugely lucrative earner. To attract clientele to poker sites affiliates are given a range of tools and advertising paraphernalia to choose from. With most websites banners tend to be the most popular choice. Large poker sites will often supply new affiliates with a wide range of banners. These advertising pieces may vary in style, content, color and in the tone in which they are presented. The choice is often an important step because some colours and motifs may be unsuitable for certain sites. The decision is always down to the Website owner, but if there are problems companies are usually more than happy to re-offer some of the other designs as a form of replacement. Other options include word embedded links. As the name suggests these are words that can be clicked on in order to reach the designated poker Website. Ordinarily websites will simply write the name of the associated poker room in the bulk of the text and highlight it in a different colour to mark it out as a link rather than a standard piece of text. This form of link is far less intrusive than the huge banners, but it is also far easier to miss so it is possible that less likely will follow the link. Websites may also supply an affiliate with other advertising tools and management programs. Based on the idea that in order for a business to succeed it must reach a large enough audience, this is possibly not too much of a surprise. The marketing tools will not only help bring people to your site, but because you are an affiliate it will also help the poker site generate more free publicity for themselves. But when it is a case of you scratch my back I scratch yours, there are no real losers. The affiliate profits from having an extra income, whilst the poker site has itself extra custom and/or exposure. It truly is one of the clearest entrepreneurial win win situations on the Internet today.