ShareASale Affiliate Program Review: Expert's Opinion (2023)
Looking to join the ShareASale, aka "Share a Sale", affiliate program and network? In this article, I'll be sharing my personal experience and expert opinion with ShareASale affiliate marketing and answer frequently-asked questions such as how it works, how to get approved, what companies are part of it, and more!
What is ShareASale?
ShareASale is a US-based affiliate marketing network that was acquired by the Awin affiliate network back in 2017. Currently, it is one of the fastest-growing affiliate networks with over 25,000 merchants and 270,000+ publishers. Over $915 million in commissions was earned by affiliates last year alone.
How do you make money on ShareASale?
Since ShareASale is a large affiliate network, as opposed to an individual company's affiliate program, you can promote any of the thousands of companies under their umbrella with affiliate marketing.
First, you need to apply to get approved into the Share a Sale network to begin with. Once you are approved, you can search up and browse the thousands of companies that are under the network.
When you find one you like, you can generate affiliate links or use some pre-made banners to link on your website and social media.
If users click your affiliate link and make a purchase within the cookie window, you generate a referral and can earn commission on those purchases.
What are the requirements for ShareASale affiliate?
From the official blog: "ShareASale requires all affiliates to have a live, content-rich website or social media page written free of hate speech and adult content. You must also own and control the website you apply with."
If you need help creating a professional affiliate website quickly, check out my affiliate marketing for beginners guide.
List of ShareASale Brands, Advertisers, and Companies Included
You can view ShareASale's "Merchant Preview" on their website that shows some of the companies they offer within the network.
They claim to offer over 25,000 merchants in many categories including Health, Clothing, Business, Computers, Web Hosting, and more.
Here are a few notable companies, brands, and advertisers in the ShareASale Network:
Reebok
Dossier
Incfile
Whoop
Freshbooks
WPRocket
Weebly
Namecheap
WPEngine
Cloudways
Pressable
Incfile
LightInTheBox.com
OptinMonster
Minted
ShareASale vs Clickbank
In my experience, both ShareASale and Clickbank are large affiliate networks that offer vastly different products and companies, with little to no overlap between them. Therefore, neither is "better" than the other, and you could always join both as an affiliate, thus have access to even more products and niches.
In terms of market share, ShareASale is a bigger network and works with much more recognizable brand names such as Reebok. Clickbank tends to focus on more "internet marketing" type of products such as online courses and certain softwares that the average consumer would not be familiar with.
Overall, they are both large and worthwhile affiliate networks to join depending on your niche.
My personal experience with ShareASale affiliate marketing
I've been doing affiliate marketing for close to 10 years now, having reviewed dozens of affiliate programs. ShareASale is easily one of the biggest networks in the world, especially after being acquired by Awin in 2017, making them even bigger.
Between Awin and Share a Sale, there are probably thousands of brands hosted on at least one or both of these affiliate networks.
From my experience, I think that any brand that is available on Awin is also available on ShareASale (at least for USA brands).
Personally, I prefer using Share-a-Sale's affiliate program as a US affiliate, since they are based in the USA with mostly American brands.
Awin has a ton of European and international brands that I'm not as familiar with.
Either way, I highly recommend affiliates to join either Awin or Share a Sale to get access to hundreds more brands.
Best Alternatives to ShareASale affiliate marketing
Having reviewed dozens of affiliate programs and networks, here are my best recommendations for alternatives and similar to ShareASale affiliates: