Direct Line to ShareASale CEO

ShareASale is one of my favorite networks and they continue to impress me.  They have areas they can improve one, we all know that but what is great and unique is that they know it too.  ShareASale has created a minisite that encourages affiliates and merchants to send completely anonymous suggestions/complaints to the CEO of the company, Brian Littleton.   It’s a great opportunity to help this already very successful network do an even better job for it’s affiliates and merchants.  ShareASale wrote a blog post about this, you can read the full story by clicking here or skip directly to their brand new mini feedback site.

If you are not currently working with ShareASale, there is no better time to check them out with the holidays quickly approaching.  Check them out at the links below:

• Affiliates Interested in Joining ShareASale
• Merchants Interested in Starting an Affiliate Program on ShareASale

ShareASale Closed Today for 9/11

I have been an affiliate and merchant of ShareASale for years and was surprised to see that they were closed today.  I am not sure why, they close every year on this day in remembrance of the terrorist attacks on the US in 2001.  I wonder why more companies don’t do this.  It’s an event that affected millions of people, both in the US and outside of the US.  It’s shaped how we, as a Country, dealt with the rest of the world over the last 8 years.  It was a huge tragedy that brought the entire country together.  I remember the day it happened, I was working from home, turned on the TV to watch the news and couldn’t believe what I was watching.

Will it take this day becoming a National holiday before more companies do what ShareASale did today? ShareASale should be commended for putting the remembrance of such a horrible ahead of business.

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.

ShareASale wins Best Network of the Year, Again!

ABestWeb is one of the largest, if not the largest, affiliate marketing communities on the Internet.  They have the distinct advantage of having many of the major networks and players in the industry as participating members of the community.  Many networks and programs even use ABestWeb to host their own message board within the community.

Every year they have a contest that their users participate in and vote to choose the best of the previous year in a bunch of different categories.  For the 4th year in a row, ShareASale has won the Best Network of the Year award.  You can check out all of the award winners by clicking here.  If you aren’t currently an affiliate of ShareASale, sign up today and check out their offers.

ShareASale Affiliate Network Review

ShareASale.com is an affiliate network offering both cost per sale and cost per lead offers.  Based in Chicago, they were founded by Brian Littleton and have been around since April of 2000.  During that time, they have done the most important thing any affiliate network can do, they have established trust with their affiliates and their merchants.   No matter what side of the table you are on, trusting the affiliate network you are going to be sending your traffic through should be on the top of your list of important things to consider.

They appear to be a rather small company but that does not seem to affect their service.  Anytime I have emailed them whether it was as a merchant, or as an affiliate, I have gotten an answer pretty quickly, usually the same day.  Customer service is important in any business but even more so when it’s a company that is business to provide a service that is supposed to make you or your company more money.  I think they understand that and have made communicating with their affiliates and merchants a priority.

For You Affiliates

As an affiliate network, ShareASale is an aggregator of affiliate programs.  They act as a service provider, giving you a safe list of programs you can join and market, they provide the tools and the means to track the sale or lead.  They aggregate your payments so you can promote multiple affiliate programs and get one check.   It costs you nothing to be an affiliate, ShareASale makes money by the fees that the merchants pay.

As of the date of this article, they have over 2000 merchants in their network.  They do a good job of providing transparency into how the individual merchants are performing for other affiliates and if the merchant is well funded or at risk of running out of money and having their program shut off.  The network has a very strong focus on shopping sites and with 2000 merchants they cover a very wide breadth of topics.

One of the things I am not crazy about is the way their software works.  It’s fantastic in it’s ability to to track and manage programs but I find the interface to be a little clunky and hard to navigate.  I think they could do with some improvements in that area.  I know I have had to personally help a few new affiliates with simple things like where to go to find new affiliate programs to join and get links.

If you are not already an affiliate of ShareASale, you can sign up by Clicking Here

For Potential Merchants

From a merchants standpoint, the pricing is very reasonable.  They charge a $550 network access fee and a 20% fee on top of what you pay your affiliates.  So, if you are running an offer that charges 10% of sale, you are going to pay a total of 12%, 10% for the affiliate and 2% for ShareASale.  The pricing is very reasonable when you look at how many active affiliates they have.  The marketing is virtually risk free as long as you manage it properly.  They have a huge network of affiliates that are waiting to promote your offer, a network of affiliates that has taken them over 8 years to build up.   For a more comprehensive review, check out our post on becoming a merchant on shareasale.  If you want to skip directly to their site instead, you can Click Here.