This is a review of the affiliate network ShareASale. It offers real-time tracking and a lot of products available for promotion. I’m using ShareASale to promote the Genesis Framework, NextScripts SNAP and ShareASale itself.
I’m writing this review in the perspective of an affiliate, but it’s also possible to sign up as a merchant and find affiliates promoting your products.
ShareASale features
ShareASale is an US-based affiliate marketing network that has been in business of over 13 years. These are the best features they offer in my opinion.
Real-time tracking
There is no need to wait for hours or even days to see if someone clicked on your affiliate links. Instead, you’ll instantly see whenever a link is clicked or a sale has been made.
Make-A-Page
You can easily create a page that features the products you are promoting. You could link to this page from your blog or another web property.
Make-A-Video
This feature allows you to convert a regular video into one that can provide additional information in a sidebar at certain points during the video.
Affiliate Aquarium
The affiliate aquarium is a private social network where you can meet and interact with other affiliates and merchants.
Affiliate API
ShareASale offers an API so your software or website can automatically fetch affiliate links or other data.
Many products available
ShareASale has thousands of merchants and following from that thousands of products that affiliates can promote. There are a lot of small and medium-sized businesses, but also big and international brands, like adidas and Reebok.
Reliable merchants
Joining ShareASale as a merchant is, in my opinion, very expensive. However, this is good for us affiliates as this keeps the quality of the merchants very high.
Unreliable businesses and not-so-serious people will most likely not be able to pay the activation fee of $550. Joining as an affiliate is entirely free!
ShareASale payment methods
You can choose to get paid by bank transfer or check. There need to be at least $50 in your account to be able to request a payout. Payments are sent on the 20th of the next month.
Support
There are links to the help center at many places in your account. You can search the knowledgebase to check if the question has previously been answered, submit a new ticket, send an email or use the telephone support to talk to an employee.
The phone support is available from Monday to Friday from 9am to 6pm CT.
How to get approved by ShareASale
To keep the quality on a high level ShareASale will review most affiliate registrations.
I was lucky and got automatically approved. To get accepted, you have to provide accurate information, enter a high qualitative website you own, enter your contact email address (preferably no free email provider, but the address of your domain, e.g. contact@yourdomain.com). Write an honest description in the promotional methods box, e.g. that you use PPC and SEO to drive traffic to your website.
How to get approved by ShareASale merchants
Some affiliate programs are set on auto-approval, but others want us to submit a short application.
Merchants will see a rating of the affiliates, but as a newcomer you will obviously be unrated.
It’s very important that the website you promote the products on is of high quality and that you fill out all information that is being asked for.
