Every Buzzbassador account starts with one default program. As your program grows, you may want to add more tiers to segment members and reward them differently based on their audience, performance, content output, or relationship with your brand. This article walks through what you can vary across tiers, how merchants typically segment members, and a few example structures you can adapt.
What you can vary across tiers
A program tier is more than just a commission rate; in Buzzbassador, every section of a program is independently configurable. That means tiers can differ on:
Reward type and rate: commission percentages, flat-amount commission, store credit instead of cash, gift cards instead of cash, free product, or no reward at all. Tiers can offer the same reward type at different rates, or completely different reward types.
Referral codes: whether the tier has referral codes (and at what discount rate). One tier might give a 10% off referral code, another a 20% off code, and another no code at all.
Affiliate links: whether the tier has affiliate links and which type (BuzzLinks for unleakable tracking, UTM Affiliate Links for cookie-based tracking, or Referral Code Links for auto-applied codes). Different tiers can use different link types based on what fits each segment best.
Discount codes: whether the tier has a shared brand discount code (separate from each member's referral code) for member purchases.
Personal benefits: things like personal-use discounts on your store, separate from what the member's audience receives.
This flexibility means you can build tiers for very different purposes (a gifting-only tier alongside a paid-commission tier alongside a customer-referrer tier) inside the same program structure.
[ LINK: How To Configure Your Program Settings ]
[ LINK: How To Run Programs With Rewards Other Than Commission ]
Common ways to segment members into tiers
Merchants typically segment members along one or more of these dimensions.
1. Audience size
Tier members based on the size of their social media following. This is the most common approach for creator and influencer programs:
Nano-influencers (under 10,000 followers)
Micro-influencers (10,000 to 100,000 followers)
Macro-influencers (100,000 to 1 million followers)
Mega-influencers (over 1 million followers)
A typical structure gives nano- and micro-influencers a starter tier (lower commission, full set of perks), with macro- and mega-influencers in higher tiers with negotiated rates and additional benefits.
2. Tenure, engagement, and loyalty
Reward members who have been around longer or who are consistently engaged with your brand. Questions to ask when designing this kind of tier:
Is the member actively engaged in your program?
How long have they been part of your program?
Are they easy to communicate and collaborate with?
Do they make personal purchases from your store?
Have they grown their social presence since joining?
A common pattern: a "starting tier" for new members, and an "elite tier" members get promoted into after a certain tenure or activity threshold.
3. Sales performance
Reward top performers with higher commission rates, better discounts, or unique perks. Performance-based tiers create natural incentive structures because members are motivated to drive more sales to unlock better tiers.
A simple performance-based structure:
Tier | Threshold | Member commission | Audience discount |
Gold | Under 15 sales/month | 5% | 5% |
Diamond | 15 to 45 sales/month | 10% | 10% |
Platinum | 45+ sales/month | 20% | 15% |
Members move between tiers based on their performance, either manually (you promote them when they hit thresholds) or as part of a structured promotion cadence you communicate up front.
4. Content creation activity
Reward members based on how much content they post about your brand, separate from how much they sell. This works especially well for content-driven brands where audience reach and brand awareness matter as much as direct attribution.
Tier | Monthly content goal | Member commission |
Brand Advocates | At least 5 posts and 1 video review | 10% |
Trendsetters | At least 15 posts and 5 video reviews | 30% |
Buzzbassador's Social Listening feature can help you track member content automatically, and Post on Social Campaigns let you set deliverables and rewards for content milestones inside the platform.
[ LINK: How To Run a Post on Social Campaign ]
[ LINK: How does Social Listening work? ]
Example tier structures
Here are a few common patterns merchants use, beyond simple performance ladders.
Gifting tier plus commission tier
A new-creator or smaller-audience tier with rewards turned off (members get free product through your separate gifting workflow), and a higher-performing creator tier with full commission. New members start in the gifting tier and graduate to the commission tier once they prove out.
Customer-referrer tier plus creator tier
A simple discount-code-only tier for VIP customers who refer friends (no commission, just sharing a referral code), and a full creator tier for paid creators or affiliates with audiences. The two tiers serve very different audiences but share the same Buzzbassador account.
BuzzLinks-only tier for high-leak-risk segments
A tier that uses BuzzLinks (the unleakable affiliate link type) instead of referral codes, for segments where coupon leaking is a known risk (large-audience creators whose codes get scraped by Honey or RetailMeNot, for example). Members in this tier promote via their BuzzLink instead of a code.
Tracking-only tier for partners and employees
A tier with rewards disabled and no codes, used solely for tracking attribution from internal employees, brand partners, or PR placements. Useful for measuring contribution without paying commission.
Auto-routing applicants to the right tier
If you have multiple tiers, you can use Buzzbassador's multi-forms feature to route applicants directly into the right tier based on which form they submitted. Create separate application forms for each segment (a creator form, a customer form, a gifting form, and so on), set each form's Route To program, and applicants will be automatically segmented at application time.
[ LINK: How To Create Multiple Application Forms and Route Them to Programs ]
Notes:
Members can be moved between tiers at any time, so do not feel locked into your initial structure.
Many merchants iterate on their tier setup over the first few months as they learn what segments their member base actually falls into.
The Members page makes it easy to bulk-move members between programs as your strategy evolves.
[ LINK: How To Configure Your Program Settings ]
[ LINK: How do I create multiple programs for my members? ]