Planning to join a shareasale merchant's affiliate program...

[Shiznaught]

Any words of advice or caution?

Also, I'm considering joining an affiliate program through clixgalore. Any words on them?

[MovingOnUp]

ShareASale.com has a good reputation. ClixGalore.com doesn't. Google "clixgalore sucks" to find some horror stories.

[Shiznaught]

Thanks, MovingOnUp.

[howiejs]

I am also interested in shareasale - any other comments.

We will have our own private program also - I am interested in shareasale for their affiliate network / recruiting

[MovingOnUp]

ShareASale.com is a good, honest company, but they're too small to get you very much exposure for affiliate recruiting. CJ or Linkshare is your best choice there, although they're both quite costly. I would recommend either doing recruitment in house or hiring an independent Outsource Program Manager for recruitment.

[hobbnet]

Shareasale is a great way to get an affiliate program up and running quickly. But like others have said it won't get you much exposure. You will have to do a lot of recruiting on your own but in my opinion any serious merchant should be aggressively recruiting regardless of how much exposure their network gives them.

[webzilla]

Exposure is not that much of an issue if you think about it.

No matter how many hundreds or thousands of affiliates sign up with you, over the long haul only a handful of them will prove to be productive.

With CJ/Linkshare you may very well get several hundred or more new affiliates right off the bat. But only a few of these will be the seasoned pros that you need.

You'll find that you'll be just as well exposed to these same affiliates (the pros) with Shareasale.

You'll also find that a fair number of the pros alluded to here strongly prefer to promote merchants on the Shareasale platform, due to Shareasale's policy of not tolerating link interception tactics used by some spyware operators who get the red carpet treatment from CJ and Linkshare.

[chameleon]

Shareasale is a great way to get an affiliate program up and running quickly. But like others have said it won't get you much exposure. You will have to do a lot of recruiting on your own but in my opinion any serious merchant should be aggressively recruiting regardless of how much exposure their network gives them.

I just joined ShareASale as a merchant about three weeks ago. My experience matches what is said above. They provide the framework, but I didn't see a flood of affiliates signing up just because I was listed there. I got a few, but it's still up to me as the merchant to track down and recruit new affiliates. That's a bit of a dissappointment. I'd like to see them try to make more of an effort to match up merchants and affiliates.

[howiejs]

Thank you for your comments. We have our own private labeled aff program for in house recruiting - I was looking at shareasale JUST for their network / recruiting

[webzilla]

"shareasale JUST for their network / recruiting "

Crunch some numbers.

Consider the ROI on the investment if you acquired even just ONE productive affiliate.

For less than the cost of running a classified ad in a city newspaper for a week, you'd have somebody promoting your goods for a much longer term.

[tntpower]

Shareashale is good, ideal for the test-drive of affiliate business.

[XY7affiliatenetwork]

Stay away from networks charging upfront or network access fees. If they have a strong base of producers there is no need for it take it from me :)

[tntpower]

I could also say that stay away from any merchant that does not want to pay any up-front fees. Well, if down payment is a bad idea, then big mortgage rate is the only alternative. Up to you.