Special Report: Affiliate Marketing

CS: How do you tier affiliates?
McAdams: Based on sales. We have four tiers based on the amount of sales they drive. We know we’ll have attrition in our top tiers, but we also want movement from our lower tiers into our top tiers. We run promotions to encourage that movement.

[We offer] different incentives for reaching sales goals. If you reach a certain goal, we’ll pay you more. We also put together a pretty comprehensive e-mail marketing campaign to help [affiliates] market to their customers or readers as well.