Shareasale for merchants
$685
Pros
- Easy to set up program
- Real time reports
- Autodeposit
Cons
- Dashboard look outdated
- Approval process take time
- discount codes
Are you a merchant looking for selling your products and growing your brand? Have you heard about Shareasale? A product discovery tool for affiliate marketers and a merchant platform for small and intermediate businesses. Did you know Shareasale have a merchant portal? Today I review Shareasale merchant portal and look at how easy small and intermediate businesses can make money online getting started as a shareasale merchant and show how merchants can drive more traffic, develop a brand and generate more sales using affiliatemarketing.
Before you read the rest of my article I want to inform you according to best practices with information that may be important to you:
Affiliate disclaimer: This post contain affiliate links which means I will get a commission at no extra cost for you if you should click through and make a purchase.
Third party disclaimer: We are not legally responsible for what happens when you click on third party links because have no control over third parties websites, content, functionality or security and can not be held responsible for any technical or other damage to your device such as computer, mobile or tablet used when clicking on a link to connect to other platforms, download material, install, modify or distribute any material, software or other.
Earnings and result disclaimer: Programs or products mentioned in this post that involve earning money will not work for everyone and there is no guarantee for success because there are to many factors that influence the results such as skills, circumstances and knowledge that we have no control over. Our Intention is to provide you with good potential opportunities and tools that can be helpful to your success.
Opinion disclaimer:
All views and opinions expressed in posts on are my own and not Shareasale views or opinions. Projections in this post are not endorsements.
Shareasale for merchants review
I am not a merchant myself and have no personal experience with the merchant portal, but I am an affiliate marketer connected to Shareasale as an affiliate. I decided to write this article while doing a review of Shareasale affiliate program. There were not many reviews about the merchant portal and I found it hard to find good and reliable information about it.
I hope my review can give you as a merchant looking to start an affiliate program some useful facts, statistics and information about the merchant portal so it will be easier for you to make a decision if this is for you.
I will review the merchant portal according to my research, statistics, facts, users opinions and following criteria:
1. How user-friendly and easy to manage for merchants is Shareasale merchant portal?
2. How is Shareasale helping and supporting merchants?
3. What are Shareasale key features for merchants?
4. Will Shareasale giving you value for the money?
5. Do you make money with Shareasale?
6. Will Shareasale merchant program free to use?
7. Shareasale surprises
8. Will Shareasale a good merchant program?
9. Shareasale cons
10. Will Shareasale recommended for merchants?
What is Shareasale for merchants? Some facts about Shareasale
Shareasale is one of the largest affiliate marketing networks in the world where affiliate marketers can search for products to promote and earn commissions. It is among the Top 10 for affiliate marketers. It is also one of the largest merchant portals for small and intermediate businesses where merchants all over the world can promote their products to affiliate marketers. A win – win situation for both parts. 86% of all affiliate marketers use Shareasale according to Wikipedia so this would absolutely be an interesting platform for most small and intermediate businesses to use.
Owner: Shareasale (It is a standalone brand who became Part of Awin in 2017)
Founder: Brian Littleton
Website: www.Shareasale.com
Products:
Affiliatemarketing portal – Free – Sign up here
Merchant portal – One time starter price $650 – Sign up here.
Requirements to join: You need to have a website to join and be over 18 years old.
Shareasale have 3900 affiliate programs in 40 different categories and their platform is continually expanding with more programs, categories and affiliates.
Shareasale holds 55,7% of the market share. According to digital global the affiliate marketing industry is expected to reach the 6,8 billion mark by the end of 2020. According to Authorithy Hacker affiliate programs generate 15% -30% of all sales of advertisers.
Who is using shareasale for merchants?
Brands like Tailwind, Reebok, Promorepublic, Spanx, Rock your worth, Zen business, Mailpoet, Erin Condren, Prowriting Aid, Etsy, Invideo, Sears, Formidable forms, Grammarly, Freshbooks and Optinmonster are just some larger brands that are connected to Shareasale merchant portal.
It is a part of their marketing strategies and they are able to reach new grounds they never get to using traditional marketing methods.
How to join and get approved by Shareasale for Merchants
First you need to have a website to sign up. And you need to be over 18 years old.
Are you a merchant? go to the Shareasale merchant portal
Not a merchant? Go to Shareasale affiliate portal
Is Shareasale free to use for merchants?
No it is not free. Merchants have to pay a one time total fee of $685 to sign up as a merchant and start an affiliate program. However, it is a low cost alternative for setting up an affiliate program.
Affiliate marketers sign up for free, but Shareasale will take 20% in transaction fees of their sales commissions once they make a sale.
Shareasale for Merchants:
Photo: print screen of the merchant portal
What to do once you are approved as a merchant
Start to create a longterm and short term marketing strategy with Shareasale.
Present yourself with a program bio. Affiliate marketers are trying to find a company that is relevant and suited to their niche. A good presentation in bio will make you more attractive for affiliate marketers and will help you get the most relevant affiliate marketers for your products.
Develop a showcase of your products: A showcase of your products will increase your chances to earn more money.
Develop a program agreement: Be clear about what you expect from your affiliates and what you can offer in return for their services.
Develop a PPC policy and bidding rules: This is important for an affiliate marketers perspective when choosing a merchant so they know how they can promote your products the best way possible. Design a clear and easy to understand.
Upload a product data feed: This increases visibility and conversion and is very helpful for content marketers.
Add Keywords: Help your affiliates with adding relevant keywords.
Setup auto deposit so that the affiliate links is always active even if your balance is zero or below. Affiliate marketers wants to connect with merchants who have auto deposit.
Use communication templates to create monthly newsletters to your affiliates about your products and other important matters regarding your products or niche. This is extremely helpful for your affiliates and will keep them stay more loyal to you.
As a merchant it can be wise to follow the steps recommended by Shareasale. You can read them here.
Shareasale support for merchants
. Shareasale provide different types of support for their merchants:
Welcome kit: A four-week program helping merchants using Shareasale and setting up an affiliate program and provide checklists.
Program diagnostics: Helping merchants in analyzing how to improve their affiliate program
Monthly training webinars and more advanced webinars.
Best practices information: A series of PDF with frequently asked questions
Shareasale Terms and conditions
Helpdesk: Here you can deliver support tickets
Knowledgebase: Search for your questions in the knowledge base
It looks like Shareasale provide a good and broad support for their merchants so they are able to succeed with their affiliate programs.
Growing your brand with Shareasale
Shareasale is a real opportunity to grow your brand if you are a small and intermediate company. Many large brands are using Shareasale as well for branding purposes and as a part of their master marketing strategy. With shareasale and the large group of affiliates your business have the opportunity to become visible in new markets. And customers will be more familiar with your brand over time and this will build your brand trust and awareness.
Save time on marketing with Shareasale
You can save a lot on using Shareasale instead of expensive marketing costs to get your brand known. Affiliatemarketing is a real effective way to build your business in terms of traffic and branding. The affiliates are selling your products for a commission, generate leads and traffic to your website.
Get quality connections using Shareasale
Using Shareasale will connect you to new networks and affiliates and you have the chance to create long term quality connections that will grow your business. You can definitely begin small and go for the larger dream step by step using Shareasale.
Can Shareasale scale up your business?
Photo: unsplash
Creating an affiliate program is a way to scale up your business through affiliatemarketing. A good business strategy will always include affiliatemarketing as a part of the strategy to spread risks and to generate multiple streams of income for your business. It is a great way to scale and build resilience.
Can you enter new markets?
Photo: unsplash
One of the obstacles for small and intermediate businesses is to reach new markets with low costs. With Shareasale your business will enter new avenues and create new opportunities for your business at a very low cost.
Affiliates will open this door of new possibilities for you and can enter markets you can not get to without. Many companies have seen a huge increase in traffic, customers and conversions after implementing affiliatemarketing as a part of their business master plan.
Thinking about the fact that affiliate marketers actually generate 15% – 30% of all sales of advertisers if not more ( Authority Hacker). The trends are clear – the use of affiliate marketers is increasing. The fashion industry is a good example of this using affiliate marketers to promote their products to reach new markets.
How would it impact your business if you could generate 15%- 30% more just using Shareasale?
Manage your affiliate encouragements
You are able to reward and motivate your affiliates in different ways through Shareasale.
This will help you to get loyal affiliates and customers.
Creating a good affiliate program with good guidelines, statistics, info graphics, product information, rewards that inspire to action and creativity, resources like banners and videos, and an attractive commission system will help you reach new markets.
Remember the better commissions, guidelines, info graphics, banners, videos, newsletters and rewards you have that inspire to action the better will your collaboration with your affiliate marketers will be. You will also have more control over the quality.
Open up to a substantial pool of Affiliate Marketers
The best thing with Shareasale is that you do not have to use a lot of time looking for affiliates to promote your brand or business. You can access a lot in one place.
What do the merchants say about Shareasale?
Doing my research on my article about Shareasale affiliate portal I discovered that there were not many reviews about the merchant portal. That is why I decided to write this article.
I have collected some good and bad user experiences from G2 and Trustpilot.
However, it is hard to say if all these reviewers are verified users of Shareasale merchant portal. Another thing to be noted is that The review site on G2 and Trustpilot have not yet been claimed by Shareasale.
The good:
– easy to get started
– unique offers
– reaching out to multiple affiliates at once
– good rates
– awesome reporting dashboard
– high quality advertisers use the platform
– benefits of introducing new products
– quick and easy launching of an affiliate program
– Easy to track
– Easy to make payouts
The dislikes
– The payoneer payout is too high – should be reduced
– limited deep diving reports
– Bulk approval commission process is either all at once or done manually one by one.
– Outdated user interface look
– limited search and filters
– not a good experience with discount codes
Almost everyone think this is a cheap and easy way to set up an affiliate program and manage affiliates. It seems that there are different experiences regarding tracking and reporting. Some are very content and others feels it is limited. The feature most seems to dislike the most is the Bulk approval and the outdated look on the interface.
Trustpilot reviews
Trustpilots reviews are not so thorough and very short. And the reviews were too few to get a good and true picture of Shareasale.
The good:
– transparent
– helpful support
The bad
No merchants had written any bad – Only Affiliates who had been suspended or did not earn anything.
Technology features
Real time tracking:
You get information in real time about details to which banner or links are clicked on, when a sale is made or a commission is generated. Via click stream report you can see all the details.
Segment and organize your affiliates:
Use tags to organize and segment into groups, to send Newsletters, commissions, coupons, bonuses etc.
Merchant API :
For reporting and updating, real time editing of transactions, subscriptions, recurring commissions, approve or decline affiliates automatically and more
Stores connect:
If you have multiple websites you can manage all your websites with stores connect with separate commissions and reports.
Custom link creation
Deep links and License plate links with social media features.
Will Shareasale give you value for the money?
Yes, based on my research and the facts I have found Shareasale will give you a unique low cost opportunity to make an affiliate program and reach new markets which will lead to increased traffic, familiarity with your brand, leads and sales.
Do you make money with Shareasale?
Many merchants who invest time in creating a good and strategic affiliate program will make good money with Shareasale.
Shareasale – a good merchant program?
Shareasale is among the Top 10 Affiliate programs in the world and definitely a real good program. They have 20 + years experience with what works and what does not work. Many brands have managed to grow with Shareasale using it as a part of a larger marketing strategy.
Shareasale cons
Outdated Dashboard, approval process could take some time and discount codes are the features that is mentioned most.
Shareasale – recommended for merchants?
From what I have found the Shareasale merchant portal is something I would strongly recommend as a part of a business strategy.
I think if you base your business only on one kind of marketing it will be hard. A good business strategy is a strategy that contain multiple marketing methods.
According to my research Shareasale is among the top ten affiliate programs for merchants at a low cost.
Starting with Shareasale is quick, easy and very affordable.
They provide good training, resources and support to their merchants and they have 20+ years of experience in the field.
Your business are likely to grow and become more familiar in new markets. I know this to be true – If you never try you will never know.
I hope I have provided you with some useful information about the Shareasale merchant portal and that you see the opportunity it will give you to reach new markets and scale your business further.
Now it is up to you to decide if this is for you and take action. You can sign up to the merchant portal here.
If you are reading this article and you are a merchant of Shareasale already I would love to hear your opinion and experience with Shareasale merchant portal in the comments below.
Do you have any questions about Shareasale? – Let me know in the comments below
Hi there,
I most have to say thank you for your welldone in providing us with this great insightful informations about Shareasale, i am an online business starter that is looking for a platform like this so that I can be able to monetize my online business, and thank God i have come across your help review on my research, i will surely give a try to this, thank you,
mike rrsq
Hi Mike! I am really glad I could be of help to you. Let me know how things work out for you later on!
Thank you for the information about Sharesale Merchant. This is a site that I had read was good for affiliates and had considered adding to my site. The fact that the site is a bit dated is a little discouraging, but not one that would be a deal-breaker for me. The site is so large, and so many affiliates have recommended it that makes it attractive. Did you see anywhere in your research any information that smaller business were using the Merchant site? The cost is a stop for me to consider it. However, feel that it might still work for affiliate offers.
I appreciate your attempt to share with us what you could find about this Merchant Portal. When offering items to the online public, finding the correct place to release the product you have to sell is very important. There are many issues when dealing with the general public. More shoppers are turning to this kind of shopping and we as marketers need to avail ourself of all oppurtunities. Having a strong portal to release though would save a lot of time, therefore earning the fee to joining that side of the market for Saleshare.
Hi Sami! Thank you for your outlook. Shareasale is good for both merchants and affiliates. A lot of small and intermediate businesses use Shareasale to sell their products because they know affiliatemarketing is an effective way to sell and because they can reach new markets they normally will not be able to reach. I only mentioned the larger ones in my article, You have to remember they also started small once. Well I can understand it can be a huge investment for small businesses, but this is one of the lowest if not most affordable affiliate merchant portals out there that can show to real good results over time. I think you must look at it as a longterm investment. I hope you see Shareasale as a good opportunity to start your journey.
I have recently started using Shareasale as an affiliate marketer and I am impressed with the vast array of products that one can promote, and the commission structures are pretty decent too. If I had a product to sell, I would definitely look at using the merchant portal for these purposes.
The only drawback of being an affiliate is having to apply to each merchant for approval, which can take time and in a lot of cases, I don’t get approved.
I loved using Amazon for the reason that you only have to be approved once, but their commissions are rock bottom at the moment.
Hi Michel! Thank you for giving your thoughts on this. I agree with you – If I had a product to sell I would use Shareasale too. A great way to brand yourself and get people familiar with your product. Not to mention an important part of a marketing strategy for a vendor. I can agree with you that the application process can seem time consuming, but in the end it is the vendor who decides who they want to represent their brand. Sometimes you get disapproved because your website generate to little traffic or that your content is not relevant for the merchant. You can always appply a second time. My tips to you to get approved is to present yourself, your niche and your website. And tell them how you are planning to market their products: on your website, via mail, social media or other ways. I think your approval rate goes up if you do. If you get disapproved – write to them and ask why you were disapproved and what you can do to get approved.
Amazon used to be a popular and profitable affiliateprogram, but now I see many affiliatemarketers comment and change from Amazon to other affiliate networks or brands.
Can Shareasale website be of advantage without disadvantage and will it be safe for an individual to invest a huge amount of money in this.
Shareasale website has been of help to my family because it brought a way to make money and everyone was happy.
I am glad to notice Shareasale website because it has make a change to my life and I appreciate that.
Hi! How great to hear that Shareasale have been a help to your family and changed your life. I would really like to hear your story about how Shareasale changed your life and the life of your family. I absolutely believe it can change someones life for the better and change a business to get more profitable. I am glad the investment really paid off for you and your family. Thank you for sharing this! I appreciate it a lot!
Thank you for your review of Shareasale Merchant Portal. I was not aware of some of the information I learned from your article. I judge a website on whether I learn something from it or not. Thank you for that. I think, however, that you need to cut the company a little slack on judging whether it should lower it’s fees for using it. I think, that we as the consumer have a responsibility in that regard. In other words, if it costs too much, don’t use it. Other than that, I think it is a good review, and warrants a lot of attention.
Hi Walt!
Thank you for your opinion on Shareasale Merhant Portal! I am glad you learned something new from my review.
Shareasale Merchant portal is one of the low cost portals out there for small and intermediate companies that wants to create an affiliateprogram to reach new markets and increase their sales.
I can understand that it may seem like a high price for you to pay, but I think it is all worth the investment. You will get return on the investment and hopefully earn way more than you invested. It is a one time investment.
I agree with you that the consumers also have a responsibility in giving feedback to companies about prices etc.
My personal thoughts is that Shareasale Merchant portal is a real good opportunity and that it should be a part of any company`s longterm marketing strategy.
Shareasale Merchant portal have 3900 merchant users in 40 different categories. And new merchants and categories appear every day. Only today when I searched for new merchants I counted 56 new affiliate programs from organic products, vegan products, business products, fashion products, digital products just to mention some of the categories.
My goal is that my review will be helpful for some merchants, vendors, small or intermediate businesses to see the opportunities with Shareasale Merchant portal and that they will create new Affiliateprograms.
This is a good one! Shareasale has provided its services to both merchant and affiliate marketers for decades. Since 2017, Shareasale has increased in its reach and also provide international opportunities to even more affiliates across the world allowing more and more countries to participate with ease.
It is an amazing platform to make money and promote your products especially during this time of economic crises.
Hi Hillary! Yes it is an win – win platform for both merchants and affiliate marketers. I agree with you that it is an ideal platform to promote products all over the world. Thank you for leaving your insights.
Thanks for this informative review of Shareasale Merchant. I am an affiliate that could benefit from more information regarding the company and the opportunity. This article gave me just what I needed. I agree that it is disheartening to have to wait for approval from a vendor not being sure if you will get it. Other than that, I look forward to working as an affiliate for the long haul as they have so many topics and ideas to promote.
Hi Patricia! I am glad you found my article helpful. Any merchant can benefit from using Sharesale as part of their marketing strategy. This is one of the best options for merchants looking for coming in contact with new markets. Using affiliate marketing as part of a strategy is different from the standard way of marketing. You can connect with highly dedicated affiliate marketers and leverage your traffic and conversions. As I understood it you are an affiliate and not a merchant. As an affiliate it is important to understand and have knowledge about how the merchant portal works too. I think you become a better affiliate. Thank you for your valuable insights. Appreciate it.
ShareASale seems like a great Affiliate Network to join for all your affiliate marketing needs. The kind of customization available is great. The commission structures are decent too. I feel that Shareasale is one of the low-cost options available in the market today and it should be tried out. Affiliate Marketing makes us join a lot of affiliate networks and this could be one of them.
Thanks.
Aparna
Hi Aparna! For a merchant who wants to start to leverage their business creating an affiliate program Shareasale for merchants is the best low cost offer. Affiliate marketers just Love Shareasale because of the decent commissions and easy interface. Merchants who use Shareasale see the immense value of taking good care of their affiliates.
This is a very detailed article about ShareASale.
In fact, before reading, I already know ShareASale, because our company has and ShareASale as merchant.
Through this article, I have a more comprehensive understanding of ShareASale.
Currently, ShareASale does bring a lot of revenue to our company.
In my subsequent work, I will continue to recommend ShareASale.
Hi Alex! Great to hear that your company generate a lot of revenue through Sharesale. Affiliate marketers love merchants who use this network simply because it is easy and fair. We will for sure put in extra good work for merchants who values affiliate marketers. Glad my article could give you a new perspective of the merchant portal and I am glad you recommend it. Thank you!
Great! thanks a lot for your comment. Appreciate your opinion. Let me know if there is anything you want to know more about or are interested in hearing more about.