ShareASale is one of my favorite affiliate networks because it’s very easy to search for brands and products to promote. They just rolled out a new interface not so long ago, so I thought it’s timely to talk about how to make money with Shareasale. If you just started a blog and looking to monetize with affiliate programs, then you will be interested to read this article until the very end.
Before We Get Started…
I assume you already have a blog in place and by that, I mean a WordPress website build with a custom domain. The reason is that WordPress makes publishing content more visible and having your own domain will help to speed up the application process.
Most companies generally want to work with bloggers who are serious about their work and having those two properties shows a lot about your level of commitment.
If you are not yet on WordPress OR are still using a subdomain, find out from your hosting company on how to move your site to WordPress and where to purchase a custom domain for that transfer process.
If you already have a WordPress blog, then you are good to go.
How to Search for Products to Promote
ShareASale contains thousands of merchants and product data in their system so it is not practical to go through every single one of them. Instead, you can use the following methods to narrow down a product search.
- Is there a particular brand/company that you like and want to promote through blogging? Enter the company’s name in the merchant search bar to see if they exist.
- What is the nature of product/services that suits your targeted audience? Look under the product category tabs and select one that is most relevant.
- Not sure about which merchant or product category to choose? Enter a product keyword that’s most relevant to your niche under the search tab.
- Searching for a particular product to promote for the festive seasons? Use the ShareASale marketing calendar to see what options are available for your blog.
- Want to leverage from what’s popular and converting for affiliates? Check out the ‘Power Rank’ for the top 100 best selling merchants on ShareASale.
Understanding Merchant’s Data
While a blogger’s main task is to market online, the merchant plays a bigger role when it comes to product research/manufacturing, tracking orders and delivery support to customers. A company’s effort to work with affiliates and to meet these qualities online can be reflected through some data that can be found on the merchant’s page.
Typically, this is what you will see.
The program statistics are read in two ways; the affiliate performance within 7 days and 30 day period. This puts into perspective what you can potentially earn in a week and a month’s time. According to the 7 days data above, this particular company makes about $624 sales/day through affiliate marketing in which an affiliate earns about $12/sale. That’s a pretty nice profit for a 2% commission rate.
Meanwhile, EPC stands for the program’s earning for every 100 clicks sent to the merchant’s online store. This metric is a representation of the merchant’s funds, hence the higher the value, the better the payout.
A 24% conversion rate basically tells us that for every 100 people an affiliate sent to the merchant’s site, about 24 of them will make purchases that result in sales commissions. Naturally, a brand that’s popular will yield a bigger conversion number.
From the product data feed, we also know that this company offers a variety of product information and an affiliate has up to 30 days to track a visitor before he/she becomes a buyer.
Judging from the overall statistics, this is an example of a good performing merchant so it’s not surprising that they manage to get a spot in the Power Rank listing.
Another crucial data to look for in a merchant is their program status. If the company isn’t making a lot of profit, the status will read ‘low funds’ and if their statistics are something like the one below (zero conversion rate, zero EPC and etc.), you should avoid joining this affiliate program altogether.
Chances are, this particular company is no longer active and you will not gain anything promoting their products online.
How to Get Approved for an Affiliate Program
Besides having a WordPress blog and a custom domain, another factor that influences your application is literally how you appeal to the merchant as a blogger. Although it is stated as optional, there’s a space on the application page that allows you to describe your promotional method.
I highly recommend making full use of this opportunity to share your marketing plans and online goals as this information will help them gauge your understanding towards affiliate marketing and the amount of effort you are willing to put in.
Just like any job interview, your sincerity will surely win an approval into their program after which you can start to use the affiliate links on your blog.
Use Program Keywords to Your Blogging Advantage
One of the things I like about ShareASale is that all the merchant pages contain program keywords that you can find above the performance statistics. In my opinion, these are also product keywords that can inspire topic ideas to write for a blog.
You can mix and match those words OR pick the most descriptive one and run a quick brainstorming using the Alphabet Soup Technique. In the example below, you’ll see that Google is suggesting a few related keywords based on what other online users are searching within this niche.
Likewise, if you look all the way down on the search results, you’ll find more terms that are related to our original keywords.
These program keywords are extremely useful to expand the content of your blog, linking one post to another and helping to find new topics to write about so that you can constantly attract new visitors to a product review page. If you are new to blogging and don’t know much about keyword research, this is where you should start from.
Grow Your Blog Profit With ShareASale
ShareASale has been established for 17 years now and given the reputation of the company, I believe that they will continue to help small and mid-sized companies expand their eCommerce outreach through affiliate marketing.
With more than 3000 merchants to choose from and a brand new affiliate interface to navigate, you’ll never run short of product choices to promote in your blog. In fact, finding for profitable affiliate programs is now easier than ever if you follow through all the tips that I’ve mentioned.
I hope you’ve found this article to be helpful. If you need further assistance in starting an affiliate business, please visit my recommended program for more tools and training resources.
How do you make money from your blog? Do you use ShareASale or other affiliate networks? Let’s hear about your experience/thoughts in the comment area below.
I’m currently an Amazon affiliate but I was thinking of diversifying away from Amazon (don’t want to put all my eggs in one basket). I have heard of ShareASale and know it’s pretty good, but are there requirements for joining? You see, I have been rejected by other affiliate networks in the past, so I’m curious about the success rate with this one.
Hi Ezra, as far as I know, ShareASale is one of the easiest network to join as long as you have a basic blog set up. They don’t have a lot of strict requirements, nor do they ask for a fee like with AWIN. The only challenging part is to get accepted by the advertisers as they may want to look at the performance of your site before granting you into their programs.
Thank you so much for this knowledge. I have had trouble getting “low hanging fruit” to reach a good amount of traffic, but I couldn’t find a way until I discovered the alphabet soup technique. Using that technique to discover the potential of merchants on ShareASale seems like a good idea and I’ll definitely be using your tips on my own blog moving forward.
Hi Cathy,
I’m a member of ShareASale so I have found them to be reputable. I agree with you about the company offering a simple go to website where merchants and affiliate marketers can come together to promote a common product.
I like the fact that an affiliate marketer can see which merchant to go with based on the statistics they provide. I certainly don’t want to waste my time trying to promote a product from a merchant that has a zero conversion rate.
Hi Cathy, I learned a few things from this article, especially for the two main ingredients “WordPress and Keyword”. I do believe that having an understanding of these two powerful skills will help a blogger a far way when using ShareASale. Mind you, I never heard of ShareASale before, but the information that you have given causes me to believe that it is one of the best ways forward for a blogger. My question is – can one blog about different products on the same website?
Yes, you certainly can Dorcas. As an affiliate marketer, you can write multiple product reviews as recommendation OR for the purpose of comparison. As long as the products are relevant to your niche, you can be affiliated to multiple affiliate programs within a blog. Just make sure you don’t overuse your affiliate links as a push sell.
Cathy,
Thank you so much for the education on Shareasale. I’m new to the blogosphere so every bit of education is helpful. Having been on the Shareasale site, I was unfamiliar with interpreting their data – what you provided was so very helpful indeed.
The company > niche focus > product keyword process was most insightful. I realize that I have a lot of work to do to get good at this. Appreciate the education!
No problem Christian. Glad you benefited from this read!
Hey Cathy, am happy to have found your blog talking about ShareASale. This network has some awesome products and tools to help every affiliate monetize their sites, but the thing is sometimes, it is difficult to have them approve your application. But with your guide, every publisher should be clearer about the process because you made everything simple and easy to follow.