Emad Ibrahim

I just launched a hosted microblogging platform (aka twitter clone) at www.yonklyapp.com and right now I am looking into different ways to market it.

One approach to my marketing strategy is to use an affiliate program.  We have all seen affiliate programs for everything from selling t-shirts to selling domains.  The question I struggled with is "how much do I pay my affiliates?"  I want it to be fair, competitive and also motivational enough to encourage the affiliates to market it.

I found out that 37 Signals pays 5% to their affiliates that sounds way too low.  What would be a good percentage?  15%? 25%?  The plan I came up with is a tiered approach which gradually increases your percentage from 10% to 50% – you can read more about it at http://www.yonklyapp.com/affiliates.aspx and maybe even signup to be an affiliate.  The best part is that it is recurring. 

So if you bring in a 100 customers, you will earn:

$200/month on the first 20
$400/month on the next 20
$600/month on the next 20
$800/month on the next 20
$1000/month on the last 20

That’s a total of $3000 EVERY MONTH.  Isn’t that pretty damn good?  Or not?  I would love to hear your opinions.