Most "Get Paid To" sites encourage
members to publicize the site via specially
coded banners, buttons and text links. The
member then receives a proportion of the
recruited members' earnings if they join via the link.
The site referral levels are
expressed as percentages of each recruited
member's earnings (paid by you, the site
owner, not by the referred member).
Therefore, if the
referral levels are set at 10%, 5%, 4%, 3%, 2%
and 1%, affiliates will earn:
10% of their direct
referral earnings (i.e. 10% of their first
recruit's earnings),
5% of their
indirect referral level earnings, (i.e. 5% of
whatever the first recruited member's referral
earns),
4% of their 3rd
level referral earnings,
3% of their 4th
level referral earnings,
2% of their 5th
level referral earnings,
1% of their 6th
level earnings.
Got that? Don't worry
if it takes a few passes to sink into your brain
– it’s one of those things that computers
are better at understanding than we mere mortals
are!
If you have the
inclination you can change the referral levels
to whatever you want, but you must be realistic.
The fashion now seems to be for just two or
three higher referral levels, rather than
several smaller ones. Take a look at some
reputable sites and see what they are offering
if in doubt.
Account Upgrades
Cash Crusader allows you
to give the members upgraded referral levels,
which typically last for 12 months, in
exchange for cash from their account. Possible upgrades might include:
Bronze: 1 x free
referral and no Turing numbers, no minimum
payout.
Silver: 2 x free
referrals, no Turing numbers, and 30 days free
top banner exposures, no minimum payout.
Gold: 3 x free
referrals, no Turing numbers, and 60 days
free top banner exposures, no minimum payout.
(Turing numbers are an
anti-cheat device that we will deal with in the
next section).
It is not a good idea to offer lifetime
upgrades for a fixed fee (for example $20),
because the continuous cashing-out by upgraded
members will be a constant drain on site funds in
future years.
Free Referrals
The "free referrals"
are sometimes a cause for confusion amongst
members, so I will attempt to explain the
process as clearly as I can (you might need
to take stiff drink at this juncture!).
The phrase "1 x free
referral" does not refer to a single referred
member, but it is in fact a referral "ratio".
Imagine that a person
(let's call him Joe) becomes a member, without
having clicked on a special referral link (he
just typed in the site address). Because the
software cannot detect a special referral code
in the site address that Joe typed in, it randomly selects an upgraded member
from its database, and assigns Joe as
a referral in that member's downline (see Glossary
for a definition).
The lucky selected
member will now earn 10% of whatever Joe earns,
until his or her upgraded membership runs out.
Referral Ratios
The rate at which
upgraded members are assigned new recruits as
referrals is determined by their account's
referral ratios. Normal free accounts have a free
referral ratio of 0:0, that is, no free
referrals. Got that? Good.
If a member upgrades to Bronze,
they will be randomly assigned new referrals
continuously, until the upgrade expires, at a
referral ratio of 1:0.
Similarly, Silver
members will get the same benefits, but they
will get a higher ratio of free referred
members, in this case the referral ratio is 2:0.
The Gold
affiliate has the highest referral ratio of 3:0,
so they will get even more continuous free
referrals than members at the other two levels.
Note that the names
Bronze, Silver and Gold are purely arbitrary,
you can in fact name your referral levels
anything that you want, at any
referral ratio you choose (within reason -
you would soon go out of business if you offered
members a 10:0 ratio for $10 a year!).
