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.
Make Money Online Fast
Affiliate Program Marketing
Friday, January 15, 2010
The 10 Most Important Things a Webmaster Needs to Know When Picking a Retail Merchant Affiliate Program
I write a lot about what I look for in an affiliate when managing programs for various merchants. It always amazes me how many signups I get from sites with no affinity to my sites and also who never ask me a question about the performance of my merchant’s site. If you don’t know some of these basic facts about an affiliate program you are going to place advertising for on your site, then you are really not doing your job well.
So here are the 10 most important things you need to know about a retail merchant’s site:
1. Make sure the site is the site professionally designed. First impressions are important. Nothing will turn off the visitors you refer to a site than to have them see an ugly site on the end of a link you have asked them to go to. You lose credibility with your visitor, something you never want to do.
2. Make sure the ecommerce shopping cart is easy to use. We still have lots of clunky shopping carts in the marketplace. These hinder conversions and mean you won’t do well with the offer. How do you tell? Go buy something and see if you think it’s easy to use. You’ve seen more than most people, use your experience.
3. Make sure your site has a close affinity to the merchant site. Don’t sign up for an affiliate program just because they have a large payout. If your site is all about “cats and dogs” and you refer someone to a residential lending site, what do you think your chances of conversion are? Low, low, low… so don’t do it. Refer visitors to sites that match your site in content and voice. You’ll get higher conversions making up for someone else’s supposedly higher payout.
4. Check to see if they are selling any brand name products. Having brand names does make it easier to sell online. Having a branded category name is even easier. Does that mean you have to have a brand name to be successful… no. It just makes it easier.
5. Ask them what the conversion rate of visitors to sales is. Depending on the conversion rate and the average sale price I can give the retailer a pretty good idea if he is going to be successful in attracting affiliates. A 1% conversion rate can be good depending on what you sell, and I have some customers that run at 4% as well. Likewise, an affiliate must look at the affiliate conversion rate to determine which program will do the best for him. How do you find out… ask. Good affiliate managers will tell you and you will learn which ones to trust very quickly.
6. Ask them what the average price per sale is on the site. Low priced items are not affiliate favorites as they have to drive lots of traffic to earn any money. A retailer with at least a $60 average sale is a bare minimum. Many times it may be a packaging issue, but if the retailer hasn’t figured it out by the time you show up… don’t expect them to get them to package their products correctly.
7. Check if they are selling a unique product. This goes to the competition. When I hear the phrase: “Well… there’s really nothing quite like it on the Internet”, you should I know that the merchant has not done any online research. There is competition in virtually every segment of every product type on the web. Sometimes unique is good, sometimes it is a little too “niche-y”. If your site has affinity to a niche product you should be fine, if not don’t stretch too much out of your comfort zone.
8. Make sure the merchant is able to offer a competitively priced retail product. He doesn’t have to be the cheapest for sure. But if the competition is less expensive and they don’t have a value proposition to support the pricing model, you will have trouble getting sales.
9. Similar to #7: Make sure the merchant isn’t allowing others to sell the same product less expensively than you are able to sell if for. Some retailers are actually the manufacturer, so he may have lots of margin in his products. This is okay as long as he doesn’t offer favored deals to other affiliates.
10. Work with merchants who offer an aggressive affiliate payout. I’ve got this last because if any of the first parts are not in order, high payouts won’t do you any good. Also, brand names many times prescribe low payouts to affiliates, since they are… so well known. You might be better off with an aggressive competitor that really values you.
11. Bonus Answer: Find Affiliate Managers you trust. Find affiliate managers that promptly answer your questions and respond to your needs… such as getting you paid promptly. Building these relationships will enable you to more quickly determine if the program fits you.
And now once you are loaded with all of this data, your site will have appropriate highly converting product links from good retail merchants with management in place to make your life easier.
Make Money Online Fast
Affiliate Program Marketing
So here are the 10 most important things you need to know about a retail merchant’s site:
1. Make sure the site is the site professionally designed. First impressions are important. Nothing will turn off the visitors you refer to a site than to have them see an ugly site on the end of a link you have asked them to go to. You lose credibility with your visitor, something you never want to do.
2. Make sure the ecommerce shopping cart is easy to use. We still have lots of clunky shopping carts in the marketplace. These hinder conversions and mean you won’t do well with the offer. How do you tell? Go buy something and see if you think it’s easy to use. You’ve seen more than most people, use your experience.
3. Make sure your site has a close affinity to the merchant site. Don’t sign up for an affiliate program just because they have a large payout. If your site is all about “cats and dogs” and you refer someone to a residential lending site, what do you think your chances of conversion are? Low, low, low… so don’t do it. Refer visitors to sites that match your site in content and voice. You’ll get higher conversions making up for someone else’s supposedly higher payout.
4. Check to see if they are selling any brand name products. Having brand names does make it easier to sell online. Having a branded category name is even easier. Does that mean you have to have a brand name to be successful… no. It just makes it easier.
5. Ask them what the conversion rate of visitors to sales is. Depending on the conversion rate and the average sale price I can give the retailer a pretty good idea if he is going to be successful in attracting affiliates. A 1% conversion rate can be good depending on what you sell, and I have some customers that run at 4% as well. Likewise, an affiliate must look at the affiliate conversion rate to determine which program will do the best for him. How do you find out… ask. Good affiliate managers will tell you and you will learn which ones to trust very quickly.
6. Ask them what the average price per sale is on the site. Low priced items are not affiliate favorites as they have to drive lots of traffic to earn any money. A retailer with at least a $60 average sale is a bare minimum. Many times it may be a packaging issue, but if the retailer hasn’t figured it out by the time you show up… don’t expect them to get them to package their products correctly.
7. Check if they are selling a unique product. This goes to the competition. When I hear the phrase: “Well… there’s really nothing quite like it on the Internet”, you should I know that the merchant has not done any online research. There is competition in virtually every segment of every product type on the web. Sometimes unique is good, sometimes it is a little too “niche-y”. If your site has affinity to a niche product you should be fine, if not don’t stretch too much out of your comfort zone.
8. Make sure the merchant is able to offer a competitively priced retail product. He doesn’t have to be the cheapest for sure. But if the competition is less expensive and they don’t have a value proposition to support the pricing model, you will have trouble getting sales.
9. Similar to #7: Make sure the merchant isn’t allowing others to sell the same product less expensively than you are able to sell if for. Some retailers are actually the manufacturer, so he may have lots of margin in his products. This is okay as long as he doesn’t offer favored deals to other affiliates.
10. Work with merchants who offer an aggressive affiliate payout. I’ve got this last because if any of the first parts are not in order, high payouts won’t do you any good. Also, brand names many times prescribe low payouts to affiliates, since they are… so well known. You might be better off with an aggressive competitor that really values you.
11. Bonus Answer: Find Affiliate Managers you trust. Find affiliate managers that promptly answer your questions and respond to your needs… such as getting you paid promptly. Building these relationships will enable you to more quickly determine if the program fits you.
And now once you are loaded with all of this data, your site will have appropriate highly converting product links from good retail merchants with management in place to make your life easier.
Make Money Online Fast
Affiliate Program Marketing
Ten Independent Affiliate Programs You Should Consider
Not all of the good affiliate programs go through the big boys. As you can imagine, there are advantages and disadvantages to using someone like Linkshare or Commission Junction to run your program. The major disadvantages seem to be cost (expect to drop ten grand for setup and network access fees, and a 30% commission on what you make from the program) and the fact that your program will be lost among thousands of others.
So many companies have decided to manage their own affiliate programs, using specialized software and with their own promotional plans (30% buys a lot of Adsense). I surfed the ten most popular independent affiliate program directories, and I’ve listed ten of the more promising programs.
Disclaimer: I do not necessarily recommend or endorse any program here. All I know is that I reviewed the listing, visited the website and decided that it was genuine (rather than a bunch of ads or links and/or a Clickbank or other program’s front site).
Affiliate Classroom
www.affiliateclassroom.com
A step by step training program to help you easily launch and grow your own affiliate internet business (I signed up for this one).
Balance Ayurvedic
www.balanceayurvedic.com
An Ayurvedic (natural and herbal) remedies website with a 20% lifetime commission on all sales.
Internet Marketing Center
www.marketingtips.com
Resource center for Internet Marketing. The free stuff is good too.
$1 Newspaper Ads
www.clickslink.com/shop/newspaper_ads.html
Advertise in the classified section of newspapers for as little as $1 each. (Through Clickbank) I thought this one was kind of cool.
Funny T-Shirts
www.funny-tshirts.biz
There’s some funny stuff here, and $4 per sale for you.
Information Packaging
www.info-pack.com
Some really cool and unique software for webmasters.
BettingBots
www.bettingbots.com
Here’s a unique site for people with gambling-related content — a directory of betting automation software.
Tradepub.com
www.tradepub.com
Pay per lead for free trade publication subscriptions - good for industry-specific sites
4 Team
www.4team.biz
Microsoft Outlook tools
Testiment Business Marketing
www.testiment.com
$5 per lead for Internet Marketing consulting
There are plenty of good programs out there that aren't connected to a big affiliate network, and plenty of directories to find them.
Here's a good Google tip: type in the word or phrase that describes the affilate program keyword, then include +affiliate. For example, if you're looking for a dog toys affiliate you would search dog toys +affiliate. You should get back a bunch of programs.
Happy hunting.
Make Money Online Fast
Affiliate Program Marketing
So many companies have decided to manage their own affiliate programs, using specialized software and with their own promotional plans (30% buys a lot of Adsense). I surfed the ten most popular independent affiliate program directories, and I’ve listed ten of the more promising programs.
Disclaimer: I do not necessarily recommend or endorse any program here. All I know is that I reviewed the listing, visited the website and decided that it was genuine (rather than a bunch of ads or links and/or a Clickbank or other program’s front site).
Affiliate Classroom
www.affiliateclassroom.com
A step by step training program to help you easily launch and grow your own affiliate internet business (I signed up for this one).
Balance Ayurvedic
www.balanceayurvedic.com
An Ayurvedic (natural and herbal) remedies website with a 20% lifetime commission on all sales.
Internet Marketing Center
www.marketingtips.com
Resource center for Internet Marketing. The free stuff is good too.
$1 Newspaper Ads
www.clickslink.com/shop/newspaper_ads.html
Advertise in the classified section of newspapers for as little as $1 each. (Through Clickbank) I thought this one was kind of cool.
Funny T-Shirts
www.funny-tshirts.biz
There’s some funny stuff here, and $4 per sale for you.
Information Packaging
www.info-pack.com
Some really cool and unique software for webmasters.
BettingBots
www.bettingbots.com
Here’s a unique site for people with gambling-related content — a directory of betting automation software.
Tradepub.com
www.tradepub.com
Pay per lead for free trade publication subscriptions - good for industry-specific sites
4 Team
www.4team.biz
Microsoft Outlook tools
Testiment Business Marketing
www.testiment.com
$5 per lead for Internet Marketing consulting
There are plenty of good programs out there that aren't connected to a big affiliate network, and plenty of directories to find them.
Here's a good Google tip: type in the word or phrase that describes the affilate program keyword, then include +affiliate. For example, if you're looking for a dog toys affiliate you would search dog toys +affiliate. You should get back a bunch of programs.
Happy hunting.
Make Money Online Fast
Affiliate Program Marketing
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