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 select plans. Contact us to learn more.
Managing Multi-Level Affiliate Relationships
How parent and child connections work
Every affiliate can be assigned 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. Refersion prevents an affiliate from being assigned as its own ancestor, so circular relationships can't happen.
Linking an affiliate to a parent
From the affiliate's list page, click on the row of the affiliate you'd like to link to their parent. From the details tab that appears, click on Edit Details from the Actions menu at the bottom of the screen. Click the search box under the Parent Affiliate section to begin searching for the correct affiliate. Once selected, save your changes.
After saving, you'll be able to click through to the parent affiliate's profile at any time from the sub-affiliate's details page. You can return to edit mode to remove the connection. On the parent's affiliate profile, the Sub-affiliates tab lists every affiliate that is connected to them.
Sharing personalized links with your network
Affiliates can recruit sub-affiliates by sharing your Affiliate Registration Page link with their own referral parameter attached. Since multi-level affiliate management settings are offer-specific, we recommend sharing the personalized link only with affiliates in offers that have a reward configured as it 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, 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
There are two ways to reward affiliates for the activity of their downline:
Signup Bonuses: This is a one-time reward you can provide to an affiliate when they recruit another affiliate. A one-time reward may also be granted once the recruited affiliate reaches a specific number of approved conversions.
Multiple Level Conversions: This is an ongoing commission that can be granted to the parent affiliate every time a sub-affiliate generates approved conversions.
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.