Opinions on Share A Sale

[feiman]

If possible, I'd like to hear people's opinions on SAS from an affiliate perspective. How are they at payment, conversion, etc. Good experiences, bad experiences... let it fly!

Thanks,

Mike

[kodaks]

Their customer support is the pits, and they seem to promote companies that are on the verge of bankruptcy. Nothing much else to say.....

[skibum]

The big claim to fame seems to be parasite free. There are probably some good merchants in there but last time I looked through the merchant list, there were an awful lot with 0.00 EPCs for any time period.

It could spell untapped opportunities or it could mean that the sites in there just don't sell anything.

[matrix_neo]

Oh! I was thinking of joining there as a merchant now I wonder whether I should. I have a great product though. What is your advise will I get some good affiliates?

[ska_demon]

I have sent over 1000 unique visitors to shareasale merchants over the past 2 months with zero conversions. Not a huge amount of traffic but i would expect to make a sale in the field that i'm working in. In fact similar merchants on cj convert at about 2-4%.
I have removed the sas merchants and will close my account shortly. I don't think I've met anyone doing well with sas. My advice is CJ. Expensive tho. If you have a good product that sells well you will probably get the best affiliates at CJ.

Ska

[mfishy]

<<they seem to promote companies that are on the verge of bankruptcy. >>

Right.

99% of merchants sign up for small networks for one reason -lower set up fees/commissions. AS an affiliate, I am not really to keen on promoting companies that do not have steady cash flow and would prefer the merchant dedicated serious resources towards their program. When a merchant posts here saying, "I was looking into starting an aff program and saw CJ is $5000!", I am wondering if they really are financially established enough to be starting an affiliate program of their own.

[feiman]

This is good information. The biggest issue I've had with CJ/Befree is that approx 80% of the people that sign up for programs I manage through their channel are fraudulent. Basically, you can't put your program on auto-approve because of this, as I see people signing up claiming to be Yahoo, NY Times, CNN, etc on almost a daily basis.

SAS manually approves each publisher that signs up, but its really unfortunate to hear that their cust service and their conversions are so poor.

What other networks do you guys use other than Linkshare and CJ/Befree?

[Catalyst]

Other than the big 3 SAS is really the only good option IMHO. However, a new one is coming soon. There is NO perfect affiliate network. I work intimately with them all, and can tell you they each have their own unique sets of benefits and challenges.

If you are a merchant on SAS, then the super affiliates are there, just so you know. In fact many affs on the big networks prefer SAS. BUT if you just sign up and do nothing all you will get is really poor traffic. You still need to pro-actively recruit or somehow win the trust of the supers on SAS. Partly due to the fact that there are a lot of merchants there that are no-pay or low on funds. The supers will carefully evaluate you - and that's IF they can find you which is a bit of a problem on SAS and another reason to do pro-active recruiting. SAS is very tricky in some says but if you play it right it can be a STRONG winner.

Hope this helps and best of luck!
Linda

[Trisha]

I do ok with SAS merchants, not that I'm in the 10,000/month range yet. But I definitely have some that convert and I do fine with. I do prefer it to other networks. My only complaint is the reporting. It's great that its in real time, but I wish you could get more information from it like LinkShare provides.

[mfishy]

<<I do prefer it to other networks>>

For what reason?

[nakulgoyal]

I was looking for people experiences tooo...anybody who got some XXX or XXXX commissions from them?

[Trisha]

<<I do prefer it to other networks>>

For what reason?

Partly because I know any merchant with them is parasite free. I also like that the feeds are always free (even if they are pipe delimited). Plus, at least with merchants in Brian's Premiere product thing, there's phone order tracking also. In my case, there is also one affiliate manager who has a few programs ran through SAS, that I trust and know are generally good programs.

(mfishy - I really wish you were coming to this pubcon. I read your posts carefully - you always seem to be right on the mark with your observations - I'd love to have the opportunity to learn something about this business from you in person. )

nakulgoyal - if by 'XXX or XXXX' you mean $#*$! or $#*$!xx. I do $xxx with SAS. Which may not be much for someone like mfishy. But I really don't have a large number of merchants I promote yet. Most of that $xxx comes from only two. It wouldn't take too many more SAS merchants and it could be $xxxx.

[internetheaven]

After emailing every couple of days for three weeks about getting on their system with no reply, I decided it would be best to leave it alone.

I'm sure their "pay here" form would have worked, but if their "contact us" form doesn't work you know something is up.

[Porkchop]

I like SAS Payments always on time. Real time stats

[andla]

What is the most correct definition of a company/service that handle all money transaction for:
* The affiliate (publisher)
* The affiliate program provider( merchant)
* The buyer

Affiliate Program Provider (APP) or Affiliate Network

There are some money makers in the cheap networks to. I recall that I read somewhere that you can have more luck finding Money Makers on the more non famous networks or APP.

What is this?
$#*$! or $#*$!xx

Sincerely
Andla

[Trisha]

Andla - that was just supposed to be some number of x's with a $ in front of them. I wasn't sure what nakulgoyal meant with the x's at first and was trying to clarify that he meant money in either 3 or 4 digits. For some reason the WW software changed what I typed.