Affiliate Tier

Segmenting partners into service and terms levels — VIP, key, standard, long-tail — matching attention and terms to value.

Tiering allocates scarce resources: top accounts get dedicated managers, custom deals and event invitations; the long tail gets automation, self-service and standard terms.

Design notes

Tier on value and potential, not just current volume — a fast-growing site in a launch market outranks a flat legacy account at equal FTDs. Make promotion criteria and their benefits explicit enough that ambitious partners aim for them (tiering doubles as an incentive system), and re-tier quarterly on data rather than annually on inertia. The failure mode is tiers as status decoration; they should change what partners actually receive.