Becoming a Merchant on ShareASale

A few weeks ago I wrote a review of ShareASale that focused largely on becoming an affiliate and promoting their offers.  I did mention a little bit about becoming a merchant with them but there is much more to tell.  Deciding on which network you are going to become a merchant with requires more than just a quick blurb so I am writing this follow up.  If you would like to read the original review, you can click here.

In the interest of full disclosure, let me tell you where I am coming from (in case you are new to this blog).  Over the years, I have managed my own affiliate network (LeadCrunch.com used to be a CPA network) and I have managed affiliate programs on Direct Track, Kowabunga’s MyAffiliateProgram, Click Bank, and ShareASale.  I have been involved with programs on Commission Junction but I was never the active lead manager of any programs, they were mostly companies I was doing some consulting work for who also happened to have a Commission Junction affiliate program running.

The only network I am currently managing any active programs on as a merchant is ShareASale.  For my money, it is the best network for small - medium sized businesses, particularly if you are in the B to C market.  They do an excellent job with B to B programs as well but I would guess that B to C offers get the lions share of the traffic from ShareASale affiliates.  If you are looking to become a merchant with one of the major affiliate networks, I would suggesting adding ShareASale to your short list.

What is the quality level of the affiliates?

ShareASale does a pretty good job of pre-screening affiliates who apply to be in their network, however, I have found that like any other network, the bad still gets in with the good.  The good news is, you can be certain that before an affiliate applies to your program, ShareASale as a network has already done an initial review of the affiliate before they could apply to your program.  However, I don’t suggest you open your program to anyone that applies.  What we do is auto-approve affiliates from the USA and have all others set to be reviewed before they can participate.  Their are other options and this policy is nothing against our International affiliates, it’s just simply that affiliate fraud is more likely to occur from affiliates in other countries.

Affiliate Tools

One of the things to look for in any affiliate network is the tools they provide you to market your program.  In order to have a successful affiliate program, you, the merchant, has to provide your affiliates with a good selection of ads and tools to market your site and your products.  If the affiliate network you are going to list your program on doesn’t offer you the tools you need to deliver to those affiliates, your affiliate program isn’t going to be very successful.  ShareASale does an excellent job on delivering in this area.  As a ShareASale Merchant you can offer your affiliates: text links for both site and email, banner ads of any size, forms, product data feeds (you control who has access), custom widgets, dynamic HTML creatives, coupons, gift cards and even video.

How Much Does it Cost

They charge a network access fee of  $550 to get signed up with them, that is a very reasonable cost to have access to the huge affiliate base that they have built up.  If you compare them to the other choices at this level, $550 is a pretty small amount.  The initial minimum deposit to activate an affiliate program for any merchant is $100.  That deposit is what they will use to pay your affiliates.  You will need to pay the network access fee and the initial deposit when you sign up so be prepared to pay $650 to get started.  After that, ShareASale charges 20% of the payout rate.  So, if you are a merchant and you are running a pay per sale program for your store and you are offering your affiliates a 10% commission, you would be paying ShareASale an additional 2% of that sale (20% of 10%) for a total of 12% per sale.

In Conclusion

If you are looking to open up an affiliate program and become your own merchant, ShareASale is more than worth your time.  It’s what we recommend as a first choice for most of our clients.  Commission Junction is larger and presents themselves a little better but the cost are so much higher.  In our experience, Commission Junction usually doesn’t out-perform ShareASale enough to justify the increased cost.  Certainly, their are companies that do better on CJ and companies that make sense to go to CJ but they tend to be the larger companies with established brands that are able to stand out from the masses a bit more and absorb the cost.

Find out more about becoming a merchant at ShareASale by clicking here.