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Affiliate marketing is when a party agrees to market a certain product or service that another party is selling. It makes a lot of money and is a very good business venture if done the right way. A two-tier affiliate program, on the other hand, is a kind of affiliate program model that makes it possible for an affiliate to earn money on whatever it is their doing PLUS also earning money on any webmasters they are able to redirect to the affiliate program that they have. Thus, it is like your usual affiliate marketing with some add-ons tossed at the side, and that is the commission one gets from webmasters that are referred to the program.

As for the issue of commission, it also follows the usual. However, since it has add-ons, the same also goes for the commission. Every person that goes to the referred program is also counted and is converted to money. How much each visit costs would depend on the affiliate program that you have. it could be a straight percentage or a percent or the percentage earned.

This venture sounds great, right, because it is like doubling up your income, making you earn twice than the usual, or even more! You earn with your sales, you earn for any people who get to sign up and you also earn when these people also start to make their own money. It becomes a networking scheme where people just try to sign up other people and nobody tries to make a sell. This is where the problem comes in. In the long run, more and more people will copy what you did and no money will come pouring in since nobody is making a sell because everybody is busy trying to make people sign up. And once they sign up they usually go on three paths. First, which is very uncommon, they convert into sales. Second, which is most likely to happen is they do nothing. Or third, which is difficult for your part, they just notice a new two-tier program and just totally forget about what you offered them.

So what are you to do? Choose the people whom you would do the two-tier program on. Choose those who have high positions in the online world and can get marketers with big opt-in lists. Now, the thing that you need to worry about doing the trick to these people is the competition is very high. You are not the only one marketing to them to join an affiliate program. Sometimes, they get tens of invitation for a single affiliate program alone. What you should do is forget about the program and just market the product alone. And, if they do get the product, just see the two-tier commission as an added spice to the business.

Animals have their own unique mechanisms that tell other animals that the latter are dangerous. These early warning mechanisms help other animals not to go near or even get in the way with these dangerous animals.

The same goes for affiliate programs. There are signs that you could use to help you not choose the wrong affiliate programs. These are just some of them:

If the affiliate program does not want to be known then there is something fishy about that. An affiliate program in the absence of any contact information should tell you that they do not be bothered or they are hiding something. They do not want to be bothered because they know there will be complaints and the extent of these complaints are not easy to handle that is why they do not bother to include their contact information.

Yes, in affiliate marketing, commission is the end all and be all of the ball game. However, scammers could also this idea to lure people into doing affiliate marketing without being compensated properly or not be compensated at all. An example of this is using a very high commission to make people want to do the affiliate program. Always remember that business is nor charity and if there is an affiliate program that tells you that you will be having much money that is more than what the sale is, then there is something wrong there. Do the math and see if you are the owner of that business if you would also be offering the same.
Relationships are built on communication, even affiliate and affiliate program relationships. If they do not answer to any form of communication you tried to engage them to, say an unanswered email for example, then do not get that affiliate program. Chances are when things get messy and all, you won’t be seeing much help from them.

The last one which is the hardest sign to take would be to receive checks that your bank returns.  After all your effort to be the affiliate, then you receive a check from the company that, instead of money, would be returned to you as it is. There might be some room for error but if you couple this incident with zero communication then you might have just experienced your first scam in affiliate marketing.