Multi-level affiliate management provides flexibility in how you reward growth within your program. You might reward affiliates for direct sales through their network, or for bringing quality partners into your program. Some examples include a large content network bringing in their established network of smaller bloggers, or a franchise structure where regional partners have their own associates. Whatever your approach, Refersion's built-in tools make it easy to manage and scale these relationships.
Note: Multi-Level Affiliate Management (MLM) features are only available on the Scale plan. Contact us to learn more.
Managing Multi-Level Affiliate Relationships
How parent and child connections work
Every affiliate can be assigned exactly one parent affiliate. A parent affiliate can have any number of children (sub-affiliates), and children can themselves have their own sub-affiliates, forming a chain.
An affiliate's direct parent is their Level 1, that parent's own parent is Level 2, and so on up the chain. Levels matter when you reward parents for their network's sales. See How to Set Up a Multi-Level Conversion Structure for details.
Connecting an affiliate to a parent
Rewards only apply to affiliates who are linked to a parent, so connect your affiliates first. There are two ways to do it.
Option 1: Link an affiliate manually
Go to your affiliate list and click the affiliate you'd like to link to a parent.
In the details tab that appears, open the Actions menu at the bottom of the screen and click Edit Details.
Under Parent Affiliate, click the search box and search for the correct affiliate.
Select the parent and save your changes.
After saving, you can click through to the parent's profile from the sub-affiliate's details page. To remove the connection, return to edit mode. On the parent's profile, the Sub-affiliates tab lists every affiliate connected to them.
Option 2: Share a personalized link with your network
Affiliates can recruit sub-affiliates by sharing your Affiliate Registration Page link with their own referral parameter attached. Since multi-level settings are offer-specific, we recommend sharing the personalized link only with affiliates in offers that have a reward configured (see Rewarding affiliate activities below). This avoids confusion for affiliates whose offer doesn't provide a reward for downline activity.
You can automate this as a segmented email using Klaviyo or Mailchimp. Once an affiliate's data is synced to either platform, use its own automation tools (a Klaviyo flow or a Mailchimp customer journey) to send based on the affiliate's Offer ID, so only affiliates in offers with a configured reward receive the message.
Klaviyo Integration Setup
When selecting affiliate properties to sync, include the affiliate's Offer ID for segmentation, along with their Affiliate ID and Affiliate code for building the link.
Format for the link in a Klaviyo email:
https://SUBDOMAIN.refersion.com?rfsn={affiliate_id}.{affiliate_code}
Mailchimp Integration Setup
In Mailchimp, create merge fields for the affiliate's Offer ID and Referral Parameter. When mapping affiliate properties to sync, map "Offer ID" and "Referral Parameter" to their respective merge fields.
Format for the link in a Mailchimp email:
https://SUBDOMAIN.refersion.com?rfsn={your_merge_field}
Rewarding Affiliate Activities
Once your affiliates are connected, there are two ways to reward parents for their downline's activity. Both are set up per offer.
Signup Bonuses: A one-time reward for a parent affiliate when they recruit another affiliate. You can also grant a one-time reward once the recruited affiliate reaches a set number of approved conversions.
Multiple Level Conversions: An ongoing commission paid to each parent affiliate up the chain, at the level you set on that parent's own offer, every time a sub-affiliate generates an approved conversion.
What's Next?
Head to How to Set Up Signup Bonuses for Affiliates to get started with rewarding affiliates for recruiting or activating new sub-affiliates.
For an ongoing commission structure that pays out every time your network makes a sale, see How to Set Up a Multi-Level Conversion Structure.
Once your relationships and rewards are set up, see How Do I Track Multi-Level Affiliate Activity? to learn how to monitor conversions and view your network's structure.