ShareASale Affiliate Program: Ultimate Affiliates & Merchants Guide

I have been asked many times why I prefer ShareASale affiliate program.  I think ShareASale affiliate program is one of the best options out there. Many bloggers rely only on Google Adsense or other ad networks to earn income from their blogs. Except for Google Adsense, all ad networks pay the only penny to you and keep maximum share. That’s why I insist on using affiliate marketing for every blogger. Affiliate marketing pays you more commission. If you have not started affiliate marketing yet, read why you should start affiliate marketing today. I hope you are familiar with what is an affiliate marketing & how it works. I will not explain this as part of this article.

Now coming to the main point, why I prefer ShareASale Affiliate Program. Other bloggers might have a different opinion about ShareASale affiliate program and they might be using other Affiliate programs. I will love to know your opinion too 😀

Also Read: How To Use Infolinks To Earn Money

Caution: This article is going to be a very long article :p I am breaking this article into the following topics and will try to brief everything about the ShareASale affiliate program that you should know.

1. What is ShareASale Affiliate Program?
2. Network Breakdown of ShareASale Affiliate Program
3. How To Sign Up For ShareASale Affiliate Program?
4. How to Find Merchants to Promote On your Blog?
5. What Kind of ShareASale Merchants Should You Promote On Your Blog?
6. How to get Affiliate Links/Banners to Put on your Blog?
7. How does a ShareASale affiliate link work?
8. How To Promote Affiliate Products to Get Maximum Sales?
9. Payment Threshold and Paying Methods of ShareASale Affiliate Program
10. Why is ShareASale Affiliate Program Best?

Also Read: 10 Best Two-Tier Affiliate Programs For You

1. What is ShareASale Affiliate Program?

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ShareASale was founded by Brian Litleton 15 years back. Thus, it is not a new affiliate program. ShareASale, part of Awin, works as an intermediate between Merchants and Affiliates. There are more than 2500+ merchants who offer a product or service and want to spread the word by paying bloggers to review and promote them through ShareASale. On the other hand, there are thousands of ShareASale affiliates who are promoting merchants’ products and earning commissions through it. Affiliates write about and review products and get paid if their readers click on the links (affiliate link) and buy the product or service.

Here, affiliates send requests to Merchants to join their program. Though your ShareASale account provides all the details to merchants that they need to know, there is also an option to write a personalized request Affiliates provide certain information e.g. Blog URL, Blog Niche, affiliate blog, or other information on why they want to promote their products. On the basis of this, ShareASale merchants choose to approve or reject the affiliates’ requests. In the later section, you will learn how to use ShareASale.

Also Read: 10+ Best Paying Affiliate Programs in ShareASale To Join

2. Network Breakdown of ShareASale Affiliate Program

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ShareASale mainly provides two types of promotions. Only selling the products is not the way to get rewarded. Different affiliate programs can use different payment terms such as:

Pay per Lead: In this, the advertiser pays you (terms affiliate) based on the conversion of leads, such as a file or software download, completion of a sign-up form for a newsletter, trial offer sign-up, or other desired action. If a customer follows an affiliate link to the advertiser’s site and completes the required action in accordance with the affiliate agreement, the affiliate is paid. This PPL is also known as CPA (Cost Per Action). Here is CPA Marketing Guide For Beginners

Pay per Sale: In this, the advertiser pays the affiliate based on the conversion of sales. If a customer follows an affiliate link to the advertiser’s site and makes a purchase in accordance with the affiliate agreement, the affiliate is paid. Affiliates can earn a higher commission through pay-per-sale affiliate programs, however, these types of programs usually have the lowest conversion rate.

Also Read: Adversal CPM ad Network Reviews – Best Alternative to Google Adsense

3. How To Sign Up For ShareASale Affiliate Program?

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Signing up for ShareASale Affiliate Program is free and very easy. ShareASale sign up requirements are very minimal. Just follow steps –

• Go to ShareASale
• Choose if you want to join ShareASale as an Affiliate (to earn commission by promoting products) or Merchant (to sell/promote your products).
• Click on ‘Affiliate Sign Up’ to join as an affiliate and ‘Merchant Join Here’ to join as a Merchant.

• Complete the Sign Up Form.
• Wait for 1-2 days to get a confirmation mail from regarding ShareASale login.

4. How to Find ShareASale Merchants to Promote On your Blog?

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Once you have joined ShareASale affiliate program successfully, the next step is to find the merchants for your blog. Follow the below steps –

• Go to ShareASale page and log in.
• Hover your mouse over “Merchants” and click “Search for Merchants” as shown below:

• Enter the name of the merchant you are looking for, and click “Search”.
• Alternatively, you can use ‘Advance Search’ option (as shown below) or browse merchant through categories.

• Once you have found the merchant, click “Join Program”.
• Now, wait for the email notifying you of your approval.
• Once you got approval, you are good to go.

5. What Kind of Merchants Should You Promote On Your Blog?

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Affiliate Marketing is all about choosing merchants (or products to be more specific) wisely. Choose the merchants or products that come under your niche. For instance, I am writing articles on Blogging or WordPress and I am an affiliate for Premium WordPress Themes and hosting companies. You can browse by category to see all merchants related to your topics or niche. When you find a company you recognize, you can see the general payout for a sale, plus read the details of the affiliate program. The name of the company is on the left. Underneath will be a link to JOIN PROGRAM. Since I have already joined the StudioPress by Copyblogger Media you will be seeing ‘ENROLLED IN PROGRAM’ rather than ‘JOIN PROGRAM’.

As you can see the commission structure is 35%. I will be paid a 35% commission if anyone buys any of StudioPress products from my affiliate link. The cookie is set for 60 days. Now, what does that mean? Let us say a user has clicked on StudioPress through your affiliate link, the user only sees all the premium themes available but does not buy any theme. Now the cookie is stored in the user’s browser. If the same user again opens StudioPress (not necessarily from your affiliate link) and buys any theme, you will still be getting the commission. It will use the same cookie stored in your browser (for 60 days). But cookies are usually browser-specific, which means that you could click an affiliate link in the Internet Explorer browser, but it would not apply to a purchase made in the Chrome browser or Firefox browser.

The reason why I am promoting the StudioPress products is, I am also using Genesis Framework by StudioPress for my blog and I am happy with it. You will love to read the following articles-

• Why Pro Bloggers Buy Genesis Framework
• 40+ Best Genesis Child Themes

6. How to get Affiliate Links/Banners to Put on your Blog

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• Go to ShareASale and login
• Hover your mouse over “Links” and click “Get a Link/Banner”.

• You will see a list of all Merchants you have joined. I am using ‘StudioPress By CopyBlogger Media’ for the demo.

• Click on ‘Get Links’.
• You will see the ‘Text Links’, ‘Banners’ or other options as mentioned below:

• Click “Get HTML Code”.
• You will get the code to copy on your blog.

• Similarly get ‘Banners’ for your blog. You can switch to the Banners tab and follow the same.

• You can copy the code and insert it into your blog. That is your affiliate banner. Alternatively, you can also copy only the affiliate link and use your custom text.
• Great! You have successfully added affiliate link 🙂

You can also create Product showcase to showcase products in different designs to look more appealing and attract customers. You can choose different layouts, color combinations, product pop out etc. Below is the sample product showcase I created.

Alternatively, You can create Page or Gallery for your Merchant’s Products. You can customize it however you want. Isn’t it great?

Also Read: Cuelinks Review

Below are the sample gallery and page created for one of my merchant’s products.

Gallery Preview

Page Preview:

7. How does a ShareASale affiliate link work?

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The affiliate link works as mentioned below:

• An Affiliate link is clicked.
• Browser visits ShareASale.com.
• ShareASale.com installs a tracking cookie on the web browser, associating any sales at the final destination with the affiliate identified in the affiliate link
• Browser redirects to the final destination, any sales that visitor makes at the affiliate site will result in a commission to you. So simple right 🙂

8. How To Promote Affiliate Products to Get Maximum Sales?

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As mentioned earlier, choose merchant/products wisely. Promote only the products that you have used or for which you are confident about and which will help or benefit your users in some way. Your readers value your opinions and trust your content. You must convince people that the product or service is a solution to a problem. You can write a review article on your products where you can explain all the benefits of products to your readers. This will definitely help in maximizing your sales. If you’re reviewing actual products, and not just digital merchandise, it’s best to either buy it first or at least go to a store and review it. As you gain credibility with your writing, you’ll be able to make most out of it.

Below is one of the commissions I got from one sale –

Below are the highest paying affiliate programs in ShareASale that you should definitely join to earn huge commissions:

• OptinMonster Affiliate Program
• LinkTrackr Affiliate Program
• Grammarly Affiliate Program
• WP Engine Affiliate Program

9. Payment Threshold and Paying Methods of ShareASale Affiliate Program

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ShareASale makes payment via direct deposit or check. The default payment threshold is $50. Once you reach $50 you will be paid by your preferred payment method. You can check/update your payment setting by clicking Account –> Edit Settings.)

Payments are made on the 20th of every month for the previous month’s commissions. If you make $20 in one month and $30 in 2nd, you will receive $50 in the 3^rd month.

Snapshot of ShareASale Payment Proof :

10. Why is ShareASale Affiliate Program Best?

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There are many great marketplaces like Commission Junction, Clickbank, etc. that you can join. But there are different reasons why I recommend using ShareASale.

• ShareASale has a very user-friendly and easy-to-use interface.
• You can find almost any product in your niche. There are more than thousands of products available in ShareASale to promote.
• Pay Per Sale and Pay Per Lead both types of programs are available there. Few programs pay 2 Tier commission too.
• Share a Sale has downtime and history reports on the merchants.  You can see how often the Merchant has gone offline
• ShareASale offers real-time reporting.  You can see how your campaigns are performing in real-time.  Both unique and non-unique clicks and everything broke out by the merchant.
• You can find many Renowned Companies offering their services that you can promote.
• The payout threshold is very low (i.e. 50$) as compared to other affiliate programs. It is one of the best paying affiliate programs.
• ShareASale doesn’t hold you to a contract. You can leave at any time and not have to deal with any penalty etc.
• Share a Sale offers easy to create, manage, and modify widgets for your Affiliates so you can always make sure there are up to date products and best sellers showing where you want them to.
• They offer training for everyone.  ShareASale Merchants can go to webinars to learn about incentives for Affiliates, ways to motivate them, recruit them, and grow their programs.  Affiliates can learn how to grow their own companies and use the tools they didn’t know existed to make more money.

There are many other reasons why I consider the ShareASale Affiliate program as the best affiliate program. So far, I do not have any ShareASale complaints and my experience is very good. Many Pro Bloggers have also shared very good ShareASale reviews. Do share your comments on the ShareASale affiliate program review.

So what are you waiting for? Join ShareASale today.

Share your feedback if you are using the ShareASale affiliate program about your experience so far. Do comments in the section below.