How will referring new affiliates to an affiliate program can generate me money in the future? That’s where a 2 layer Affiliate Programs works like magic!

Affiliates are getting cleverer everyday. So these days, affiliates know the difference between the various types of traffic they can get paid for. There are so many of definitions though – CPM, CPC, CPA, CPL, CPD and many more.

CPM is impressions, when the publisher (the website owner) gets paid each time a banner is displayed.

CPC is clicks, where the publisher (or email marketer and other marketers) gets paid every time a banner or text link is clicked by the visitor.

The other method of getting paid are grouped together under the term performance marketing – and this is where the term affiliate is most commonly used as well.

An affiliate is a marketer who sends visitors to another site using a variety of methods (such as displaying banners and text links on their own blogs or websites, paid for sponsored listings on search engines, email marketing and many other kinds of methods) and gets paid when an action happens. This action can be a lead (CPL stands for Cost per Lead), a Sale (CPS stands for Cost per Sale), a download (CPD stands for Cost per download) and many other variations.

There are few in the Internet industry refer to performance based marketing as CPA (cost per acquisition), although the term is also sometimes used for specific types of campaigns such as leads or sales.

After we’ve got over the tough part and the rest is easy to understand.

The affiliate gets paid for sending visitors to a specific landing page where an action happens – a lead, a sale, a download or some other sort of action that the advertiser requires. For example, a few advertisers are looking to build up their databases, so they pay for each opt in email address they receive, others require leads from certain locations, so they pay for zip codes, and then try to convince the visitors after they fill in their zip code, so that they will fill in a more detailed lead form.

The normal denominator is that the affiliate gets paid when an action happens.

A 2 Tier affiliate program is simply searching new marketers to sign up under you to do EXACTLY what you are doing – sending visitors to different offers and getting paid when the visitors perform some sort of action. So why would you want other marketers to sign up under you to promote the same offers? Easy – you get paid a percentage of the amount the affiliate you refer gets paid? Sounds complicated?

Don’t worry; it’s not hard to understand. As an example, say James promotes 5 variations of offers on a single affiliate network. He gets paid for every lead, sale, email and zip code he generates from these different offers. James now tells George about the Network and gets George to sign up using a banner or text link that has James’s referral code built into it. George now signs up to the Affiliate Network under James and starts promoting various offers and advertisers from the Affiliate Network. These offers DON’T have to be the same offers that James is promoting. George can promote ANY of the offers on the Affiliate Network.

And this is the best part…

For any amounts that George gets paid, James receives a percentage of the amount over and above what George gets paid. So if George gets paid $1000 in Month 1, and the 2 Tier Affiliate program is paying 5%, then James would receive $50 just for referring Mark.

But it gets even better…

Some 2 Tier Affiliate Networks pay residual or LIFETIME commissions. So John wouldn’t get a referral commission just for a month or a year – he receives it FOR ALL TIME.

If George becomes a super affiliate and starts generating HUGE commissions every month, James can just sit back and collect the checks as he referred him.

There are several important things to know when finding affiliates to sign up under you on 2 Tier Affiliate Programs:

Is the affiliate program or affiliate network credible, has proper tracking so your referrals are correctly tracked, has good campaigns and offers for the affiliates to promote so they actually do make money, and do they pay as what they said? Assuming that the affiliate program or network is good, what percentage do they pay you on amounts that your referrals get paid? All programs vary so compare different programs to see what the industry standard is.

How long do you continue receiving referral commissions for? Some pay for a month, some for the lifetime, and of course there are many variations in between.

So do your own research and search for a 2 Tier program that can generate you long term money in the future for the work you’re doing today.