Yeah ok, this isn’t ‘really’ a secret two tier affiliate program, but a lotta people just don’t think laterally enough to make use of the obvious.  If you have a bit of nouse though, this can be a handy little way to generate some income using a two tier affiliate program.

Firstly, head over to Affiliate Programs or Associate Programs and find a decent affiliate program that pays two tier commissions.  Altarnetively, just Google ‘affiliate programs + two tier’.

Look for sites online which are related to the subject matter of the affiliate program we selected.  For example, lets say we’re going to promote a web hosting service where we get paid 25% of the monthly membership cost for people we sign up directly for web hosting, and 10% of the monthly membership cost for every member that our sub-affiliates (second tier) sign up.  We might look at sites which provide products or services that compliment a service like web hosting (such as a site selling computers and computer components, or repairs).

Go to Alexa traffic section or Archive.org (for historical records) and find out how much traffic the sites we found in the above step are getting.  If they are getting a large volume of traffic, send an email to the manager or owner of the site (if the site doesn’t offer contact details, use WhoIs.com to find out the web site owners details).  In your email, explain to the owner that you’ve noticed their site is getting high volumes of traffic, and that you can help them make money from that traffic if they are prepared to promote the affiliate service which compliments their market (in this example, web hosting).   Explain to them that they can earn 25% of the monthly membership fee for every person they direct to the web hosting service and who becomes a member.  You don’t even need to tell them that you also make a profit from them doing so, although often honesty will be the best policy. 

In other words, have the site sign on as your sub-affiliate.  They then do all the work of directing new members to the web hosting service, they get 25% commission per member, and you get a nice 10% commission without doing anything else. 

Not bad for just sending an one email.