What is Shareasale?
Shareasale is a popular affiliate marketing program with two decades of experience in sales and advertising. The company is reputable and well-reviewed, and affiliate sign-up is free. Affiliates have access to more than 4,800 merchants across multiple markets and niche industries, making it easy to find the right fit for your website.
Reviews of Shareasale online are generally favorable. While there is a learning curve that comes with the placement and context of affiliate marketing leads, Shareasale is considered to be a reliable source of online affiliate income.
How Does ShareaSale.com Work?
Shareasale has created a complex operation that works to the advantage of publishers and merchants.
For Merchants
Shareasale is actively educating businesses on the power of affiliate marketing. For merchants, affiliate marketing is the only method that enables them to pay only for performance, which is huge! Other marketing methods require payment for other metrics like:
- Clicks
- Impressions
- Ad placement
- By product
- Or, Simply a flat rate
In comparison, affiliate marketing enables merchants to pull together a digital sales force, increase visibility, and only pay for leads or sales.
Shareasale helps merchants accomplish this pay-for-performance method because they have advanced tracking technology that helps to record where a customer was sent from (calls or web links), and credit the referrer as a result. Merchants are able to choose what percentage or fixed amount they want to give the affiliate in exchange for them referring a lead or sale. Then, after the affiliate has referred the lead or sale, Shareasale will calculate the commissions consistent to what was decided, bill the merchant, and make sure affiliates are paid accurately.
For Publishers
On the other side, Shareasale is also contributing to the growing library of online resources about website monetization. As a result, more people are learning how to use affiliate marketing to monetize their websites and add income streams to their businesses.
For publishers, they are typically bloggers, publishing companies, and existing businesses who create content and build communities. To monetize the traffic they’ve built around their niche, they can add affiliate marketing, and get paid for referring their audience to products and services.
As an example, an accounting company can become a publisher and get paid for referring customers to accounting software. Shareasale has several programs to choose from like Freshbooks where the accounting company could be paid $5 for leads and $55 per sale. Do you see how that could add up?
Publishers who sign up for Shareasale can scroll thru the directory of merchants enrolled, look at the terms of service, and apply for affiliate programs. Once approved, the affiliates are given marketing materials like website banners, tracking links, and even tracking phone numbers (if you apply for them).
How to make money with ShareASale?
I figured it would be a good idea to share some of my affiliate marketing experience, especially because I’ve probably scared you off with the disadvantages of ShareASale (read: high Payment threshold).
So here are 3 key things I’ve learned from working with ShareASale that I wish I knew when I first got started:
Tip 1: Stick to a single affiliate program
Don’t get shiny object syndrome and sign up to every other affiliate program. ShareASale’s got a solid network that can make you a ton of affiliate income (think: thousands of dollars a week).
Tip 2: Market products you actually use or care about
Most beginner affiliate marketers are often flashed by massive commissions, but they don’t realize the amount of work involved in marketing that particular product (think: ancient medicine).
Instead, market products you actually use and/or are passionate about as the marketing for it will be that much stronger. Remember, the consumers of 2020 are skeptics and can smell bullshit marketing from a mile away.
Tip 3: Be patient as fuck
As mentioned, affiliate marketing is a lucrative business, but it takes a lot of time to build (think: several months). In my case, it took me about 3 months before I made a single penny,
But now, I make several hundred dollars a week. Bottom line? You’re going to spend a lot of time on something that won’t show you any real results for a long time, so you better be patient as fuck to keep up the hustle.
Pros
- Sign-up and approval for ShareASale is way, way easier than with most other networks
- They’re now part of Awin, so the extra investment means longevity
- Their merchant portfolio is very diverse, with lots of under-the-radar programs
- Finding the exact affiliate program you want (EPC, payout, etc.) is incredibly easy
- They offer pay-per-call functionality as well as two-tier programs
- You get some very cool additional tools for publishers e.g. product banner creator
Cons
- The homepage/affiliate dashboard manages to be both minimalist and messy at the same time
- Their customer service interface looks like it was created by a teenager. In 1998.
ShareASale Payouts (Terms and Options)
Once you have been approved by a merchant to sign up for their program, you will receive a unique link which can be placed on your website. You will receive commissions based on the offer format you have chosen. It may be pay per click, pay per sale or pay per lead. Depending on what your arrangement is with a particular merchant, you will be paid a commission.
The payment will come through shareasale.com. You will be paid on the 20th of every month, provided you have accumulated a minimum account balance of $50 or more in the previous months’ transactions. The money that has been credited to your account does not accrue any interest. You can opt to receive your money via cheque or through Payoneer.
In case, however, if there is a VOID by a merchant or to put it simply if a merchant fails to make a payment or changes the terms of payment, ShareASale may recover the corresponding commission of that sale from you if it has been previously credited. In case your account balance is below the void balance, it will be deducted from your future earnings. A merchant may VOID a transaction in case there is evidence of fraud, in case the merchandise has been returned, in case the transaction has been duplicated, etc.
Note that commission will be deducted from your account automatically. ShareASale will never ask you to send money to the company.
Conclusion
It’s clear that ShareASale is one of the best affiliate networks you could work with, even with all its issues. They offer a variety of merchants and have thousands of them exclusive to their site. What’s more, you can customize URLs and choose the best merchants with their PowerRank feature. However, you run the risk of not getting paid if your link doesn’t do that well. And If your site doesn’t get the most traffic, your account will be deleted. So, keep this in mind.
