The ShareASale Debate - Merch to Merch.

[ncmedia]

Greetings,

Are you a merchant within the shareasale environment? I'd love to get some feedback and info before coming on board within their merch environment. So far phone support/research and options as a vendor seem favorable. Please feel free to answer these questions:

1. Do you run more than one brand or product? If so you probably have a centralized area/way to train and support affiliates within each brand and product. If you are limited to resources do you launch a new product with a new account each time? After speaking to the sales rep I found that though it's not favored, it IS possible for me to launch my 'product' as my gateway to all my products instead of launching a new account for each one (i don't need seperate accounts, I already have an affiliate base and support for another network, and it would be easy to integrate the shareasale program within it as well, which also gives shareasale awareness/exposure from the top level to attract more affiliates, merchants...). So the question is what is your experience with this scenario of multiple products, brands, different account maintenance, etc.?

2. Recruiting affiliates: Those that have opted to utilize their in-house team for your recruiting (2K?), I'm assuming your product is great and your brand is also great - Realisticaly how many affiliates do they attract for you? Even a ballpark or from-to range will do. If this is sensitive info for you I understand.

3. Has anyone been a part of another network before with multiple products, and switched to SAS? Did you close down shop with the other network? Duplicate your sites/payment systems? Or keep both and keep looking for other networks to branch out even more?

4. Assuming some managers here are very well versed & looking after 3 or 4 figure affiliate bases for their products - What is the most important support needed for them within the SAS eco-system? If you have a resource center with banners, landers, product photos, videos, audio, email/article templates, quick SAS and AFF starters guides etc., what do you find yourself doing most often with your top affs? Or do you spend more time trying to train your newcomers and doing updates/new feeds/creatives?

5. If you were to rewind time - perhaps you've spent a lot of fiscal resource and sweat and are emotionally attached to this business now however are finding it difficult to monetize or you've plateaud - would you do this the same way? Would SAS still be your first choice and why?

This is all in preperation of potentially coming on board with many products and brands with more always being added. I want to make sure I'm positioned right as an existing well versed merch/product developer and aff manager...

Thank you all in advance, I look forward to reading reply's, please share your scenario's.

Norb.

[Julia_Shoeboxed]

Hey there, Norb.!

I can help you out with your first two questions.

#1. First off, you CAN have multiple products or services for sale, each with its own commission, if you want.

I have 3 different services levels with 2 different payment structures for customers, so basically my affiliates have 6 different services they can sell. I have pre-paid year plans set to give my affiliates a set percentage and the monthly subscriptions just get a set dollar amount. We had to set our affiliate code to identify four distinct products. Apparently the coding wasn't that hard . I manage it all from one merchant account. I think the most challenging part of managing several services/products for one account, is communicating how commissions are set up to affiliates. I want to articulate the benefits as clearly as possible, but it's a very confusing set-up, so I rely pretty much on giving them the raw numbers.

#2. Recruiting Affiliates: I haven't used ShareASale's 2K affiliate recruiting strategy. I would love to hear more, when you do.

Currently, I google relevant keywords to my site/service. I contact websites that seem relevant and get pretty good traffic. I've made some great contacts, but it's been challenging to get many affiliates through "cold emails."

Cold calls work better. If you can find phone numbers, call your dream affiliates. Seriously.

Also, if you get 28K more to spend on recruiting affiliates, you might consider Syntryx. I was so d-mn incredible, that I almost cried.

I hope you'll consider ShareASale. The people there really build a sense of "the ShareaSale Community". Carolyn Tang rocks.

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Julia,

Thanks so much for weighing in with your Shareasale experience.

"The people there really build a sense of "the ShareaSale Community". Carolyn Tang rocks."

You know it's so rare to find any service provider, much less an affiliate network that everyone seems to like and respect. But Shareasale and also ShareResults are 2 networks that everyone just seems to have nothing but positive things to say. So refreshing, with all the negativity and network bashing that happens sometimes.

[Julia_Shoeboxed]

Thanks Linda! I agree that there is so much negativity. It's both unprofessional and doesn't reflect well in the community and is unproductive to spend so much time complaining, when you could be improving an advertising campaign or making sales and comissions.

While we all tend to get riled up by web policies and procedures with our favorite sites/companies, in the end you have to be careful how you behave regardless. You never know who you'll upset or **** off, which can close off many opportunites down the road.

[ExpAds]

I find Shareasale great for growing a program with multiple products or a single offer. I havent used the recruiting services but I find that naturally several good potential affiliate join each month. Some of my clients run in Shareasale and CJ, which I think works well. Using a datafeed is a great way to enable affiliates to produce. Its hard to say whether SAS would be a first choice, it depends on how aggressive you want to grow your program and the resources you have to do so..