Second Tier Internet Affiliate Marketing Programs Explained

How will refering new Internet affiliates to an Internet affiliate marketing program make me money in the future? Thats where a second tier Internet affiliate marketing program works like magic!

Internet Affiliates are getting cleverer by the day. So these days, Internet affiliates know the difference between the different types of website traffic they can get paid for. There are a lot of definitions though – CPM, CPC, CPA, CPL, CPD and many more.
 
CPM is impressions, when the publisher (the website owner) gets paid every time a banner is shown.

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

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

An Internet affiliate is a marketer who sends visitors to another website using a variety of techniques (such as placing banners or text links on their own website, buying sponsored listings on search engines, email marketing and many other different techniques) 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.

Some in the Internet marketing 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.

Now that we have got over the hard part, the rest is easy to understand.

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

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

A Second Tier Internet affiliate marketing program is simply finding new Internet 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 Internet marketers to sign up under you to promote the same offers? Simple – you get paid a percentage of the amount the Internet affiliate you refer gets paid? Sounds complicated?

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

And this is the best part…

For any amounts that Michel gets paid, Alex receives a percentage of the amount over and above what Michel gets paid. So if Michel gets paid $1000 in Month 1, and the second tier Internet affiliate marketing program is paying 5%, then Alex would receive $50 just for referring Michel.

But it gets even better…

Some second tier affiliate marketing networks pay LIFETIME commissions. So Alex would not get a referral commission just for a month or a year – he receives it FOR ALL TIME.

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

There are 3 important things to know when finding Internet affiliates to sign up under you on second tier affiliate programs:

Is the Internet affiliate marketing program or affiliate marketing network credible, has proper tracking so your referrals are correctly tracked, has good campaigns and offers for the Internet affiliates to promote so they actually do make money, and do they pay timeously? Assuming that the Internet affiliate marketing 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 homework and find a second tier program that can make you easy money long in the future for the work you are doing today.