ShareASale Reviews

ShareASale Affiliate Marketing

Are you looking for an affiliate marketing network? If you do, then ShareASale is a great option. ShareASale is the solution for agencies, merchants, and affiliates. The platform provides the affiliate marketing ecosystem with a way to engage and grow together.

In our ShareASale review, we will look closely at what it has to offer. It offers services to both sides of the spectrum: merchants and affiliates. For merchants, it provides a platform where they can run their program for affiliate markets. At the time of writing, ShareASale offers 4500 merchants spread across different categories. The ShareASale affiliate program ensures that affiliate marketers get the chance to apply to any merchant program on the platform. Let’s explore this tool!

About ShareASale

ShareASale is an established affiliate platform that allows entrepreneurs, markets, and merchants to improve their sales by running their affiliate programs. With over two decades of operations, ShareASale offers a platform fine-tuned toward current marketing needs.

Awin acquired ShareASale in 2017. However, there is not much change in branding, site structure, or the operations carried out by ShareASale. As Awin deals with the international market, ShareASale users can soon expect new fresh opportunities, especially for the global market. At the time of writing, ShareASale boosted over 16550 merchants and 225,000 publishers. It also generated 182 million in 2020. In our ShareASale review, we will go deeper into what ShareASale affiliate marketing has to offer.

ShareASale is an affiliate marketing network that provides merchants to run affiliate programs. Affiliates, on the other hand, can join the program and earn commissions for qualified sales. In addition, ShareASale offers all the necessary tools required for merchants and affiliates to manage their programs.

With an excellent dashboard, fine-tuned reporting system, and perfect search options, ShareASale offers an ideal platform for businesses, affiliates, and agencies. It also provides timely payout for affiliates. In addition, with Awin acquiring ShareASale in 2017, it now has access to the broader international market. Let’s learn more about ShareASale affiliates in our ShareASale review.

How does ShareASale work?

To better understand ShareASale, we need to learn how it works. In simple words, it is an intermediary platform between merchants and affiliate marketers. To get a better idea, let’s learn what defines a merchant or an affiliate.

Merchant’s Perspective

From a merchant’s perspective, ShareASale works by providing access to the network. Therefore, merchants need to pay a one-time fee of $500 to access the ShareASale platform. Also, they need to maintain a balance of $100 to cover fees related to transactions and other promotional spending on the platform.

Before you decide to sign up for an account with ShareASale, you need to have a working product or service. Once done, you will land on the merchant dashboard, where you will find access to every merchant tool required to set up your affiliate program. You need to make sure you do the following to get the maximum benefit:

Affiliate’s Perspective

If you are an affiliate, then you can sign up for the platform for free. However, they do have some requirements when it comes to registration. For example, you need to have a site before you sign up. Also, they may not accept every application. But if you use your domain email, your chances of getting approved are way higher.

Once you are approved as an affiliate on ShareASale, you need to find the suitable merchant ShareASale affiliates program you want to promote. ShareASale offers access to more than 16000+ merchants. After you are enrolled, you need to use affiliate links and other marketing material to market the product. The merchant will pay you if a sale takes place through the referral links.

As ShareASale affiliates, you can use the report section to learn about your progress. In addition, you qualify for a payout once you reach $50 in your account.

How do you make money on ShareASale?

As an affiliate, you can make a lot of money on ShareASale. Before you join, you need to make sure that you have a website. Now, you need to follow the steps below to get signed up as an affiliate:

Next, you need to find a product in your niche that you want to promote. To do so, you need to find the following:

From here, you need to create an affiliate link and then use it to promote the product. To make money, you need to do the following:

If you do it with passion and regularity, you will earn a lot from affiliate marketing using ShareASale.

ShareASale Detailed Features

ShareASale boasts tons of features! It is a platform for merchants and affiliates. This means that it offers features for each of them.

Merchants can use ShareASale to improve their online exposure. The affiliate marketing system is a risk-free commercial model. Not only that, but it is also self-service, enterprise-ready, and agency-managed if needed. Self-service means that Merchants can manage their affiliate marketing program by themselves — from creating to managing affiliates and doing payouts. Self-service is critical for small businesses or entrepreneurs who want to launch their programs without paying for third-party services.

The key features include the following:

You also get access to different sets of tools, including:

Merchants also get a recruitment feature where they can identify the right partners for their business, including influencers, mass media publishers, and bloggers. In addition, to facilitate recruitment, you get access to the following:

Lastly, Merchants get excellent support where they get access to real experts for solving their problems.

ShareASale also provides excellent features for affiliates. It doesn’t matter if you are a content creator or a blogger; you can easily sign up for an affiliate account, considering that you have a website and meet the other requirements.

Once you are signed up, you are free to sign up for any partners and then use their materials to promote the program. The key ShareASale features offered for affiliates include:

The toolset that you get includes:

ShareASale also offers excellent payment terms. You receive consistent payments and support payments via ACH, Direct deposit, and Check.  Lastly, you get superior support from real people who can help you resolve any issue that you are having with the platform.

ShareASale Cost

ShareASale is a platform where merchants can register to reach affiliate marketers. However, joining the network as a merchant is not free, and you need to pay to enter. The good news is that there are no recurring fees associated with the merchant account. Let’s discuss the ShareASale pricing below.

As a merchant, you need to work with two payment processes. The first one is the network sign-up fee and network transaction fee.

A new merchant needs to make a one-time payment of $550 to get access to the network. To do so, the merchant needs to go through setup steps. Once done, you will get access to the network. However, the merchant also needs to make a $100 minimum deposit additionally. The additional $100 is used for other account-related activities, including qualified leads, affiliates for sales, and so on.

In short, you need to spend $650 when you start with ShareASale.

Along with the one-time network sign-up fee, you also need to pay for the network transaction fee. But what exactly is the network transaction fee? It is the fee that is generated when a qualified transaction takes place within the network. The cost is calculated based on a simple formula of 20% of the commission amount to the affiliate. You can set the commission amount, which means that the network transaction fee is not a fixed amount.

Moreover, ShareASale requires you to make at least $35 in transaction fees. If you are not able to make the said amount, then you will be charged $35. To ensure a smooth transition for the new sellers, they provide a 30-day grace period to configure their programs and run them properly.

If you are an affiliate, then your payment is based on commissions set by your merchant. To make it easy for affiliates to get payouts, they set the 20th of each month as payment day.

ShareASale Detailed Integrations

ShareASale offers extensive integrations to enable both merchants and affiliates to take good advantage of their platform. For merchants who want to integrate ShareASale into their eCommerce site, the tool has a complete guide on their site.

ShareASale supports various platforms or services, including Bigcommerce, Opencart, Shopify, Virtuemart, and Magento. In addition, if you are a seller, you can also integrate ShareASale for big eCommerce sites, including Newegg, Shopping.com, Pronto, Nextag, and so on.

You also get integration options to popular content management systems, including WordPress and Magento. You can also integrate ShareASale with Shopify as well.

For merchants, it is critical to provide the data feed to affiliates, and ShareASale ensures that merchants can do so with the help of integrations. The data feed integration ensures that affiliates can easily create product-specific links and share them via their social platform.

To start the integration process, you need to make sure that you match the prerequisites to send products to ShareASale.

The whole integration process is done through the ShareASale platform. However, in some cases, integrations need to be done via a third-party app or service. In short, you get the following integration options for ShareASale:

ShareASale Alternatives

Even though ShareASale offers an excellent affiliate platform, it is not the only one available. As a merchant or an affiliate, you still have many options to explore. Let’s discuss some of the most popular ShareASale alternatives out there:

Amazon associates offer one of the strongest affiliate programs. As Amazon is an established eCommerce platform that trades in billions of dollars, there is always something for everyone. As a merchant, you can take advantage of their big platform and make sales. Affiliates also enjoy a wide variety of product coverage and can do affiliate marketing based on their requirement. Amazon affiliates offer commissions based on product category, and affiliates can earn up to 12% commission on the product price.

If you are into digital products, then you can check out Clickbank. With over 200 million customers, it offers excellent opportunities for both merchants and affiliates. Merchants can choose to put their products on the platform and hence enjoy improved sales and growth. Affiliates, on the other hand, can earn up to 75% commission.

TradeTracker lets marketers easily create successful promotional campaigns with the available tools. It offers a quick interface and an easy way to intercept the data. Affiliates can also benefit from direct communication with advertisers, a clean dashboard, full transparency via reports, and much more!

This tool is also a great alternative to ShareASale. It offers great tracking, timely payments, and good commissions. Merchants can sign up for the platform with minimal steps. As for affiliates, they get to choose from 2,000 popular brands. Once signed up, they can use the links, coupons, and banners to promote them. The reporting feature by TradeDoubler is also excellent, as it offers transparent reports for both markets and affiliates.

There are other notable ShareASale alternatives that you can try:

ShareASale Review Conclusions

ShareASale provides the hub for connecting merchants, agencies, and affiliates. With an excellent toolset, both merchants and affiliates can benefit from what ShareASale affiliate has to offer. For merchants, it is easy to sign up and get started. The same is valid for affiliates. As a merchant, you can improve your product sales by properly setting up an affiliate marketing program. It also doesn’t require any third-party service to manage.

Moreover, you also get access to reporting, which provides insights. Payments are also regular and transparent for affiliates. Overall, in our ShareASale review, we found that this tool is an excellent platform connecting the affiliate market hub — providing tools and services that benefit everyone without trying to do anything extra.