Recommendations for trial of affiliate program

All programs are not the same, but is there any correlation between them?

[mangotude]

Hello,

I'm looking into starting an affilate program for my site. To my knowledge, there is no such program in my niche, which is telling me something, but like the Oracle telling Croesus that he will destroy a great empire if he attacks, I'm not sure WHAT it tells me.

As such, I'm initially reluctant to go straight into what would probably be my 'final' choices, Commission Junction and Tradedoubler - as if its boom, the business isn't structured for quick and easy scaling, and if it's bust, the fees aren't a huge financial blow, but nor are they an amount I'm willing to toss away.

So my initial thoughts are a trial on Shareasale, and if the results are encouraging enough, get a new infrastructure in place, and scale up to CJ and TD.

What I'm curious about is this - would a trial on Shareasale actually reveal what I'm trying to find out - is will the affiliate model work at all in my field.

The site has a good conversion rather with 'normal' and PPC Customers, so assuming that time and effort is put into the program, with generous terms and windows and the like - is it possible to say that if Shareasale results in X sales, then maybe CJ and TD might result in Y sales.

I know that such a formula is nonsense, but it highlights my wondering if the differences are of scale, or are they simply non comparable.

Any advice or opinion greatly appreciated.

[eljefe3]

Have you thought about doing an in-house aff program? By doing so it takes more time, but also allows you to pay more by eliminating the middleman.

I'm also of the belief that if you have more people selling your product, you'll make more $$.
Also you might want to go out and directly recruit sites that you think would be a good fit for your product as this is a win-win situation.

[mangotude]

Hi eljefe3, thanks for the message.

I'm not looking to run things in-house, as personally i'd rather pay the rake to the agency than go through setting up the network etc. I'm perfectly happy with that setup.

My issue is more since this niche is (to my knowledge) a completely unknown quantity in affiliate sales, would ShareaSale give me an indication of how good a proposal it is, or would I have to go up to CJ or TD to really be sure - in which case, I might as well go straight to them.

[mangotude]

Do any of these programs have exclusivity clauses? e.g. can I sign up to ShareASale, and CJ and Tradedoubler?

[Perfiliate]

Hi

I may be getting the wrong end of the stick but CJ , TD and Shareasale are all ok networks with Shareasale having the better rep with affiliates from the forums but as far as I know Sharasale is nothing in the UK and TD is nothing in the US so its the first time I have seen TD mentioned in the same weighing up as Shareasale. CJ deal in many markets so that wasnt the surprise.

Which market are you most interested in?

If its US I would go for Shareasale and CJ and if its UK I would go for Tradedoubler.

Mal

[mangotude]

Hi Mal,

Without being funny, I'm interested in both - we have customers from UK and US - and so that was why I was thinking of both, as I thought TD for UK and CJ for US. SaS I like the look of and was also encouraged by forum postings about it, and thought it could serve as a potential trial for US.

[Perfiliate]

Ahh ok no problem well then I would say to go for all 3 - its probably not going to cost you much mroe and then you can focus on the best performing one of your American choices as they rise to the top.

TD is quite solid in the UK so you should do ok with that

Mal

[mangotude]

thanks for the feedback Mal

[GregMR]

If you go through with this "trial" and sign up with SAS, why would you want to move the program to CJ? If it's successful, why try to move the program?