Posts Tagged ‘programs’

Use Two Tier Affiliate Programs to Your Advantage

To those who aren’t familiar with affiliate marketing, two-tier may be a new term to you but to those who are involved in this type of money-making opportunity; it could mean a new 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 also.

In the two-tier affiliate 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 programs with a 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 the others work and effort.

Two-Tier affiliate programs are also recognized as Multi-Level Marketing. When you sign-up for a affiliate program, you are identified as the first tier and the person that you have recruited or encouraged to sign up is in 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.

Affiliate Programs! Which One’s Do I Choose?

Ask some questions first before you decide join a affiliate program. Do some research on the program that you may be interested in joining. Get some answers as they will be one of the deciding point’s of what you’ll can achieve later on.

Will it cost any money to join? Most affiliate programs that are being offered today are totally free of charge. Don’t join those that may charge you money upfront before joining.

Find out when they issue you the commission checks? Most all program’s are different. Some issue checks once a month, every quarter, bi monthly,etc. Select one that is suited to the payment time of your choice. A lot of affiliate programs sett a minimum earned amount that a affiliate must earn or exceed before they will issue you a check.

What’s the click per sale ratio? The average number of clicks on a banner or text link that it takes to get a sale based on all other affiliate statistics. This factor is really important because this can tell you how much traffic you must get before you will be able to earn a commission from a sale.

How are the referrals from a affiliate website tracked and for how long do the cookies remain active in the system? You need confidence in the program having enough to track the people you refer to them from your website. This is the only way you are able to get credit for the sale. The period of time that these people stay with the system is also important. This is on account that some visitors don’t buy the product initially but will maybe return later to make a purchase. Know if you still get credit for the customer sale if it’s made some months later from the day they clicked on your banner or link.

What are the type’s of affiliate stats that are available? Your choice of a affiliate program should be one that is capable of offering you detailed stats. They should be made available online so you can check your stats anytime you want to check them. Constantly checking on your stats is important so you know how many impressions, hits and sales are being generated from your website. Impressions are the amount of times that the banner or text link got viewed by a visitor of your website. A hit is when a visitor click’s on your banner or text links.

Besides getting paid commission’s for a sale,Does the affiliate program also pay for hits and impressions? It’s very important that impressions and hits are also paid to you, as this can add to the money you’ll get from the sales of the product. This is extremely important if the affiliate program you are in offers low product sale’s commission.

Who is the retailer? Find out with whom you are going to do business with to help know if it’s a solid company with good business ethic’s. Know the products that they’re selling and the average amount they are getting. The more that you know about the retailer that is offering you the affiliate program, the easier it will be for you to know if that affiliate program is good for you and your website.

Is this affiliate a one tier or two tier affiliate program? A single tier program pays you only for the business you yourself have generated. A two tier program pays you for the business, plus it also pays you a commission on the sales generated by any other affiliate you sponsor in your affiliate program. Some two-tier programs even pay a small fees on each new affiliate that you sponsor. Like a recruitment fee.

Lastly, what is the amount of commission that you get paid? 5% – 30% is generally the commission paid by most of the affiliate programs. .01% – .05% is the general amount paid for each click. If you find a program that also pays for the impressions, the amount paid isn’t usually very much at all. As you can see from the figures above, you’ll now understand why average sales amount and hit to sale ratio is so important.

These are just a few of the general questions that need to be answered before you join a affiliate program. You should be familiar with the important aspects of your chosen affiliate program before incorporating them with your website. Ask your affiliate program owners these questions. They can help you to select the best affiliate program for your website from the 1,000′s of affiliate program’s available.

What is a Day in the Life of a Affiliate Marketer like?

Getting into the affiliate marketing business isn’t hard now that the internet is at your disposal. It’s whole lot easier now than compared to the old days when people had to use the telephones and other form’s of mediums of information just to get the latest updates about the way their program was doing.

So with the internet at hand, and assuming that the affiliate is going to work from his/her home, a day in his or her life would sound something very much like this..

Getting up out of bed and after having their breakfast, they turn on their computer to check out the new developments of their network. As far as the affiliate marketer is concerned there might be things to update and statistics to keep track of.

There site design has to be revised and updated often. The affiliate marketer knows that a well-designed site can help increase sign ups from their visitors. It can also boost the affiliate’s conversion rates.

Now that this is done, it’s time to submit their affiliate program’s to directories that have lists of affiliate programs. These directories are good ways to attract people into joining your affiliate program.

Now it’s time to check the sales you are getting from your affiliates link’s. There are phone orders and mails to check. See if they’re are new clients that have been checking your affiliate products out. Noting down their contact information that might be a viable source for you in the future.

There are lots of resources and advertising you have to sort out. Such as ads, banners, button ads and review recommendations because the affiliate marketer knows that this is one way of ensuring they get more sales. The more you can be seen the more sale’s you will get.

The affiliate marketer always remembers to answers questions they receive from their visitors and possibly customers. This has to be done in a timely manner. Nothing turn’s off a potential customer more than not getting a reply to their email.

The affiliate marketer has to work effectively and efficiently, question’s need to be paid attention to. Nobody wants to be ignored and customers are not always the most patient of people. Answer their question’s as quickly as possible.

In the process of getting all the necessities done, the affiliate marketer is logged on to a chat room/forum where he/she can interact with other affiliates and possibly those those in the same program. This is where they can discuss things and possibly learn more way’s on how to best promote their affiliate products.

There are a lot of things to learn and it is a continuous ongoing process. Sharing tips and advice is a good way of showing support for one another. There may also be others wanting to join the affiliate program and might be enticed by the discussion that is going on.

The marketer still has time to write out recommendations to those who want credible sources for products being promoted. There is also time for you to post some comments on how to be a successful affiliate marketer on a site where there are lots of people interested in affiliate marketing.
Two objectives get done at the same time. The marketer gets to promote their affiliate product as well as the program they are in. Who knows, someone may be inclined to join as your sub affiliate.

Ok, so this may not be all that’s done in a day for a affiliate marketer. But this gives you an idea of how a affiliate marketer, a truly dedicated one anyway, spends most of their marketing day.