Affiliate Sytems: ShareaSale vs. Pepperjam?

[mad111]

Hi,

As a merchant selling selling nutritional supplements I am currently looking into signing up with an affiliate system of some sort in order to help get my product sold.

After doing a whole lot of research and listening to various referrals, I am currently considering ShareaSale and Pepperjam.

ShareaSale costs $550 to sign up and charges 20% of all commissions that I would pay to affiliates. They don't let you see who the affiliates are until you sign on to do business with that particular affiliate, so there's not as much transparency as with Pepperjam.

Pepperjam costs $1,000 to sign up and charges 30% of all commissions that I would pay to affiliates. They're big on promoting the fact that they have big-time transparency, so merchants and affiliates can see who each other is and can communicate very directly and easily.

Pepperjam in general seems to be super-user-friendly and supportive; in calling them up to ask them a few questions they seemed extremely energetic about helping me out, and reviews of those who have used them have said that they have great customer support. With ShareaSale I get the feeling that I'd be a bit more "on my own," so to speak.

Does anyone have any recommendations as to which might be better? (Or others alternatives that you might prefer?) I guess it's impossible to know before signing up with any particular network whether or not they'll have a lot of relevant affiliates who are good at my particular field (nutritional supplements) . . . .

ShareaSale sounds like it's pretty darn big and has been around a long time, and the girl I spoke to there said that nutritional supplements are a very strong segment for them. The person I spoke to at Pepperjam also said they're very strong in that segment, but I'm wondering if, based on who they advertise as being their clients, maybe Pepperjam is geared more towards the really big corporate players and less so for a smaller start-up like me . . . ? Or does that not really matter?

Any insight would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

[mad111]

Anyone at all . . . ?

[xvx]

I joined clixgalore in the UK. I've got about 30 affiliates, this week they brought be 30 clicks. Not very much traffic really. Other affiliates I looked at wanted £3k-£4 just to join the scheme (setup costs)+other fees, just isn't feasible unless you've a massive selling product.

[camdengirl]

I'm also looking for something to run an affiliate scheme but because I am a control freak I'm wanting to be able to vet the affiliates and also send them updates etc.

Payloadz.com has one for ebook type digital downloads, but it's really manual and I don't really like it.

I believe 1shoppingcart has a built in affiliate programme. And if you are in the US there is a similar system called WAHMCart.com which also has this.

Sorry not to have very much more useful info! Hopefully this will bump the topic and get some more response!

[padma]

Never worked with either of those, but you could try Commission Junction (cj.com).

[thin]

Sounds pricey to me. I'm an affiliate myself, so it's kind of interesting so see how costly it is to join those programs as a merchant. I know a lot of merchants don't pay anything, but that probably depends on the affiliate network. Maybe look at azoogle or neverblue.

I think definitely take a look at commision junction. Also, maybe consider installing 'php affiliate' (or something similar) on your site and just handling the affiliate stuff yourself?

Guess it depends where you expect to find affiliates, if you're depending on the affiliate network, not sure how quick people would be to start promoting your site.