Forum Moderators: skibum
Any experiences with Linkshare, CJ, etc...? I plan to start offering affiliate commissions much higher than my competition after the Christmas season is over, and I'm curious to know what I should look for when picking out an affiliate management company, if anyone has any recomendations, etc.
By the way, I sell luxury widgets, mostly between $100 to $5,000.
Thanks.
If CJ and Linkshare are more or less equal in affiliate management services and the # of affiliates, then I guess I'll be signing up with CJ.
I plan to start offering affiliate commissions much higher than my competition after the Christmas season is over
Also, as a merchant I’d be reading all the posts by the affiliates after all are you looking for a good network or good affiliates?
Total start up costs are quite a bit higher than that, last I checked, plus you have to pay a % of commissions. Of the 2 above, CJ is best for several reasons IMHO. SAS is only $150 set up, takes a lower percentage and affiliates like the network because it's parasite-free, so that's a good option if you are on a budget or if CJ does not accept your program.
However some affiliates like "Indies" and prefer not to work with a network, so whenever possible I like to give affiliates a choice and offer both options (if it's a good paying program with a popular product.) Ideal set=up to me is to launch on CJ and also private software like MYAP or DirectTrack.
Linda
Payouts are consolidated, payouts are fast, tools are good and [virtually] always work. They don't provide as much info or as many stats as LinkShare but have always had much better luck with CJ in terms of racking up sales.
Seems like SAS might be a good choice if you don't need the exposure to affiliates. There are so many merchants in there with $0.00 EPCs for all the different periods you can look at, makes ya wonder how much sales rev goes through that system.
From the merchant side, CJ was very good, never dealt with the other two as a merchant.
CJ takes 30% of the amount you pay to affiliates, LinkShare takes 3% of the total sales $$$, both of which are probably negotiable to some extent if you can crank out the volume.
i guess CJ is a lot more than i thought, $2250 setup + 3k reserve for commissions.
i have one more question if someone knows... i'll be a little more specific...
i'll be selling jewelry, average ticket item of around $750.... assuming i don't try to recruit affiliates and just rely on being listed in the network to get people to sign up.... how many more affiliates in your opinion would i get on CJ compared to SAS? Would I be able to get 5x as much? 10x as much? is it really worth the $5,000 cost of CJ if budgets are tight?
should I just try out SAS first since i'm new to the affiliate game and try to get my EPC and conversions up and then try out CJ?
CJ at least used to offer CJ Vantage which was in the price range you mentioned and one that was more self serve, where we had to keep $500 in payouts in the account and I don't think it was $2250 to get started. With the self serve option you had to pay for each email sent and lots of other things but it was definitely cheaper. This may have all changed since we started some time ago.
If you want to go with SAS, look to see if they have any jewelry sites in there that have a decent EPC or at least make sure there are some with EPCs above zero. This time of year through the end of the year 7 Day EPCs should be about as high as they get.
