For our last post, I answered a few questions about affiliate programs by explaining what exactly affiliates are and how they work. Now that we’ve looked at the basics, it’s time to go more in-depth and explain what it means when you sign up to be an affiliate for Blogger Babes.
Making Money
To recap, affiliate programs give affiliates personalized links to display on their blogs and promote products, services, etc. Affiliates get a percentage of the sales made from clicks through that link (this is called commission). So if you’re a Blogger Babes affiliate and someone clicks through to our eGuides from your referral, you’ll earn some money.
For most programs, the affiliate links only last for certain periods of time. Amazon, for example, puts 24-hour browser cookies tagging affiliates. Once that link’s been live for 24-hours, it expires and you won’t be getting any commission tomorrow. Other not-so-generous affiliate programs limit 30, 60, or 90-day cookies.
But I’ve been a professional blogger since 2005 with a great bulk of income as an affiliate of multiple programs. So! In our Blogger Babes affiliate program, you’ll be getting “lifetime” commission. That means I will always reward you for anything any customer you send to me makes a purchase—in 24-hours, 30-days later, 90-days later, or even 365-days later and beyond.
Unless the program is discontinued, you could be making money through your affiliate link years down the line.
But wait—it gets better.
Browser Cookies vs. Email-tracking Sales
Another thing many programs do that I’m not fond of is only use browser-cookies to track affiliate sales. With 2014 data showing that the majority of online sales are now made with mobile devices (like smartphones, tablets, ereaders, etc), this means that often, affiliates are cut out of the equation and the product owner scores 100% of the sales, even through affiliates’ referrals.
So the Blogger Babes affiliate program circumvents this: Our shopping cart is a membership site based on email addresses, and every single sale is tracked by your email address. For us, it doesn’t matter if someone buys on their mobile device or their computer—as an affiliate, you’ll stills get the appropriate commission.
And what’s that appropriate commission?
One-Tier vs Two-Tiers
Either 50% or 5%, depending on your tier.
The two-tier format isn’t as popular as it used to be, but it’s coming back, and all cutting-edge, extra-generous affiliate programs will keep it for you. Naturally, Blogger Babes is on that short list. 
Here’s how the two-tier affiliate program works and benefits you:
- Say you refer your friend Jane to buy our products. You’ll get 50% commission on the first-tier for as long as she continues being a paid member and/or buying our products.
- Jane is the owner of a Blogger Network with tons of traffic. When people use Jane’s affiliate link, Jane will get 50% commission from all her sales… and you’ll get 5% commission off her sales, too.
Typically, affiliates and product owners are savvy and prioritize working directly with Blogger Network owners and bloggers with huge traffic. So Jane in the scenario above would most likely be given free review copies to encourage her to become an affiliate. In a one-tier system, you personally would not want to refer someone like Jane, because you know she won’t buy anything—her followers will.
But to encourage you to make that critical introduction with Jane, we’ll reward you 5% two tiers below you. If Jane makes a sale to Sue, to Laila, to Annie, or anyone else, you’ll receive some commission for every sale. And since Jane is the owner of a huge network, she’ll make a lot of them.
A typical situation under the one-tier system is that Jane would know other Blogger Network owners like Paige or Laine, but she would not introduce Paige or Laine to our program because she would not get any commission from that introduction. Unless, of course, Jane is super selfless and wouldn’t mind referring Paige or Laine without any reward.
But I think Jane deserves that reward. 
How to Pick the Right Shopping Cart/Affiliate Program
Now that you understand what an affiliate program is, how it works, and our specifics, do you wonder how all of this can be done? Are you interested in investing in starting your own infoproduct empire?
There are a plethora of shopping carts and affiliate management programs out there, but after ten years of trying them out, I can wholeheartedly recommend and promote only AMember!
(And, yes–that’s my affiliate link above: http://ponnsabra.com/amember). [More on how to mask your affiliate links with a redirected link and why in an upcoming post.]
Since 2009, I’ve loved AMember so much that I personally and professionally own three separate licenses for my three separate businesses. Most bloggers and online business owners only need one license, but I have three brands, so I made three partnerships:
- Products I produce myself are a part of the Ponn International brand under PonnSabra.com,
- Since 2012, my daughters have had their own in-product line and license under BrookeAndYara.com,
- And, of course, Blogger Babes, my partnership with Heidi Nazarudin, has its own license on BloggerBabes.com.
AMember allows all the best services, commission bases, email-tracking, one and two-tier, etc., that I’ve detailed above and earlier. It’s also highly cost-effective: purchase a single license one time and you’re set, plus you can opt-in for annual tech support.
The explanation for affiliate programs could’ve boiled down to a quick real estate analogy a post ago and a recommendation to research on your own, but I hope I’ve encouraged you to consider my honest recommendation, both for affiliate programs and AMemmber–and not just because it’s an affiliate link and I get a cut of the sale!
Need AMember Assistance?
If you’re interested in looking into this further and don’t want to go through the hassle of installing, configuring, and designing a matching AMember shopping cart to your ecommerce site, my fourteen-year-old designer/developer has helped three AMember store owners develop their sites, in addition to maintaining the three licenses we own.
There are only 4 other AMember “specialists” we know in the industry who offer this service, and all 4 helped train my daughter. All of them can attest to her area of expertise–there’s only 1 of the 4 whom she has not outgrown in terms of the coding/programming side of AMember. She’s coded and customized more than the other 3, her own coaches and teachers…okay, enough of my “proud mommy” cap.
But, no really–my developer actually worked with AMember developers to create a premium plugin, so customers can purchase with Bitcoin. Yeah, we’re Bitcoiners too!
So how about it? You know about our affiliate program, but are you interested in starting your own? Tell us all about it below!
The post A More In-Depth Look into the Blogger Babes Affiliate Program appeared first on Blogger Babes.