Today we are going to review two Affiliate programs that I am involved in. We are going to make Shareasale and Commission Junction go head-to-head and see who will come out on top. So in this ShareASale vs Commission Junction review, we are going to compare the services of the two companies so you can make a wise decision as to which one you would prefer. ShareASale vs Commission Junction review

Affiliate Marketing What Is It?

Before we get started, I would like to mention what Affiliate marketing is just in case you are just starting in this business and learning. I will just say in a few words that Affiliate marketing is more or less like being a salesperson but not being pushy and annoying lol.

You as a publisher, you drive customers to the Merchant by using unique links that will be provided to you by the Affiliate network. in this case Commission Junction or Shareasale. You will place those links on your website.

If someone clicks on one of your affiliate links and makes a purchase, then you will get a commission. And commissions vary depending on the kind of product you are promoting. There are some high ticket products and some Publishes do go for those products. but in each niche, you will find a product that will give you a good commission.

Please Click Here To learn more about Affiliate Marketing

I should also mention that there are people who are doing affiliate marketing using social media. Pinterest is one of the sites that people like using to promote products and make commissions. By joining a program like CJAffiliates or Shareasale, you have a big selection of products that you can promote and make money.

And so what people do, is get on Pinterest, create a business account, and then find a product and create a pin. And place their affiliate link on the pin. So if someone clicks on the pin, it will take them to let’s say Bohoo.com and they can buy the product and you get the commission.

The downside of doing business this way, is that you have to be careful because there are some advertisers who are very strict and they don’t want you to use your links in this manner. So you need to read each agreement carefully, otherwise, you could be doing a lot of work creating pins for nothing. Also, sites like Pinterest might deactivate your account for always posting affiliate pins. Your account could be flagged as spammy account.

It’s always wise to have your own website if indeed you are serious about Affiliate Marketing, that way you are in control of your business and you can join and promote any product you desire to promote.

How Does An Affiliate Program Work?

An Affiliate Program like the ones we are reviewing today, work as A partnership. By bringing Publishers and Merchant together, I choose to think of it as the affiliate program being a middle man who introduces the publisher ( you) to the Merchant (the product owner)

They also do all the tracking and in the case of Commission Junction, they make the payments also which means, your income is centralized within the program no matter how many products or companies you are involved in. For example, let’s say you are running 3 different niches, let’s say you are in the travel niche, weight loss niche, and jewelry niche.

You will have all your websites within the Commission Junction, and you will promote products within all those niches, and then commission Junction will track all your income and they will pay you, which I think works very well.

Cases when you might not get paid

Well, there some cases where your payment might get delayed or you might not get paid despite making commissions, one scenario is when the advertiser holds your commission because of cancellations or refunds. Another scenario would be if you have not made enough to meet the minimum requirement.

Commission Junction Or CJ Affiliate

Company Name- Commission Junction or CJ.com or CJ Affiliate

Website- www.cj.com

Category- Affiliate Marketing

Country- United States

Period in business- since 1998

company President- Waleed Al-Atraqchi

Company vice President- Paul Tibbitt

This is one of the oldest Affiliate networks in the world it comes in at number two after Rakuten which was launched in 1996 and it’s one of the favorites of many Affiliates, although you might come across a few negatives reviews especially from the old websites who started with the program over 20 years ago.

When the program first started, there was not much competition and according to the negative reviews I have read and I am quoting one of them, “what this meant was that they used to operate in a not so friendly manner

They could close an account just like that especially if the account was not making many sales” I have to say I have not had any problem with this Network so maybe in recent years things have improved a lot and publishers are making good money from this program.

There are of course some rare cases where accounts have been closed but, it’s not as common and if you contact their customer support team which can be reached either by email or even by phone from Monday to Friday, things will be smoothed out in a timely manner unless of course, you have committed a big offense.

Commission Junction has the trust of many big brands, and they have a huge list of advertisers to choose from depending on your niche and that’s why many Publishers prefer this program because no matter what your website is about, you will find a product to promote and make money.

How to sign up with Commission Junction.

The sign-up process for a publisher is very easy and it’s free, you just need to fill the form with your information and then once approved you will need to choose the category of your business, describe your website and of course submit your websites URL That’s it.

There are many categories to choose from as you can see below

A few Things to Consider before joining Commission Junction.

Even though it’s very easy to join CJ, there are chances that most of the advertises will not accept your application to promote their products, that’s because some advertisers prefer websites that have a huge audience and what this means is that the new websites don’t get to be accepted by the brands that they would like to promote.

This does not mean that you give up, it just means that you just promote the ones that will accept you and then as your website grows and gains authority and traffic, you can apply again to those that refused to accept you and they will accept you.

I will give you an example, I really wanted to promote Airbnb, and when I thought of applying, I checked their requirements and decided to wait a little bit longer until I reach their traffic requirement which stands at a staggering figure of one million visitors a month. I am not there yet but I will get there.

Definitely, CJ is a great Network because they have many advertisers and they have many household names which means your audience will be familiar with the products you are promoting which will make your job easier as well as increasing your number of sales which means more commissions and more growth to your business.

So those are my thoughts on Commission Junction, lets now take a look at Shareasale

ShareASale Lets Compare

Company Name- ShareASale

Website- www.shareasale.com

Owner- Awin-

Period In Business– since 2000

Country- United States

How Does ShareASale Work?

Shareasale is a big affiliate network coming second behind Commission Junction, and so when I was searching for affiliate networks to join, I decided to Join the two biggest ones, I will advise to join as many networks as you can depending on the time you have to create content and reviews.

You really don’t want to just put all your eggs in one basket so to speak, so what is ShareASale and what makes it so popular with affiliates? ShareASale has been in business for a long time and they have built a reputable brand that many affiliates and advertisers are happy to work with.

Over the years they have worked tirelessly to improve the network and to make sure that their name is known for being an honest and transparent company that works toward delivering efficient and accurate customer service. In 2017 ShareASale was bought by an international network known as Awin which made it a favorite affiliate network for many international affiliates.

Very Beginner Friendly

ShareASale is very beginner friendly, their sign up is super easy, and also they make it very easy for you to organize your websites if you have more than one, there are many affiliate networks that require you to sign up separately for each website you own, this is where ShareASale becomes the favorite of many because you only need to sign up once and you can just add your websites.

Another thing that I like about ShareASale is the fact that they will notify you when a merchant has deleted their account, this used to be a problem before and I have seen some reviews of people complaining that they were not notified when one of their merchants pulled out.

This can be very frustrating for an affiliate because you could be spending time creating content and reviewing products that are not going to give you any commission.

So I am glad to see that ShareASale has taken care of this problem, the reason I know this is that I just received a notification the other day that one of my merchants has pulled out, it’s sad because I had done some reviews of products from that merchant and it means my links are not going to earn me any commission, but it’s good to know so I can search for another merchant.

A Few Things to Consider Before Joining ShareASale

The minimum requirement for a payout with ShareASale stands at $50, now for a new website that’s not getting a lot of traffic, it can take a while to meet this requirement and this is disheartening for beginners but we have to start somewhere so don’t let the threshold discourage you, besides who knows by creating Keyword rich content by using A keyword research tool that will help you target the best keyword within your niche, you will get traffic.

Also by promoting your website on social media, your traffic will rise very quickly and you could make many sales, so great content, detailed reviews and sharing your content on your social networks.

No Paypal Makes Things Frustrating For Affiliates

Another thing to think about when joining ShareASale, Despite many affiliates networks having Pay Pal as a method of paying their affiliates, ShareASale does not pay by pay pal which makes it frustrating, because many affiliates prefer payments going into their PayPal because dealing with checks takes a lot of work and time.

If you are considering joining ShareASale, I would highly recommend that you familiarize yourself with the network and when you decide to choose merchants to work with, take full advantage of their top quality search functions so you can find the best products to promote. By using their Feature rank tool, you will be able to find the top 100 merchants and you can decide which ones you want to join.

You even have a choice to either search by commission or search by how long the merchant has been with ShareASale, You want to go with the ones who have been around for a while because they are probably the best. Shareasale has many brands and big brands too so you will definitely find products to promote and earn commissions.

My Conclusion

Affiliate Marketing is the best and the easier ways to start making money online, and if you know how to utilize this form of marketing, you can earn a very lucrative income right from your home, Affiliate marketing is especially ideal for stay at home Mom or Dad because you can structure your working hours the way you want.

So by starting a blog and joining a few affiliates networks you could easily start earning money, if you are thinking about venturing into the world of blogging and affiliate marketing, and you are not sure how to go about it, then I suggest you check out my number one recommendation for Affiliate Marketing training and community support and learn more on how you can get the training and the tools you need to succeed in Affiliate Marketing.

You should join both networks so you can maximize your income

Those are my opinions about these two networks, I think each one has it’s best features as well as the not so good features, so it’s really up to you to choose which one you like better or join both of them, I will say for someone who is in the travel Niche I think CJ would be the best because they have many of the big brands within their network.

Companies like booking.com, sky scanner and many more.

Well, I want to thank you so much for reading this review, if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below and I will be very happy to respond.

Thank you for your time

Rose

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