A two-tier affiliate program is an affiliate program structure that affiliates can earn a commission on their conversions as well as conversions of webmasters they refer to their programs. When you have a two or more tier program the first tier of commission is the same in a regular affiliate program. The only change is that when you have one or more tiers the marketers are allowed to earn some money as well. Their money is generated by the sales of the people they actually recommended to the program. In other words, if you have an affiliate program and you recommend or refer the same program to another webmaster and they put it on their site and they start to generate sales then you get a commission off of their sale.

When you sign up for a two tier affiliate program be very careful to read the small print to find out exactly how the percentage is calculated by a straight percentage or a percentage or percentages. Affiliate programs can have more than 2 tiers but there are limitations. When the tiers are added the program with draw in more webmasters who want to profit from other people's work rather than doing any of the work themselves.

But you have to be careful because if you recruit a webmaster or two and word gets out and other webmasters join in and more people are taking a bite of your commission and sooner or later there is nothing left and either you are making so little money that it really isn't worth it. But if you still want to get into a two-tier program then here are 3 things you should look for. The first thing is that you want an affiliate that will have a great product and or service, the second thing you want is a great commission and you want a site that has a high conversion rate.

The ultimate goal is to get the best commissions and you want to get a lifetime commission / residual income by customers who keep coming back to your site. With some great programs not only will you get a piece of the one sale from your returning customers but you will also get a piece of every subsequent purchase made by that customer. How can you beat that? But it doesn't come easy and you truly have to work for what you want.