Affiliate marketing is one of the most powerful ways to make money online. You need to choose the best affiliate marketing network to maximize your revenue.
ShareASale and ClickBank are both powerful affiliate marketing networks. It might not be easy to pick which of these two is a better option for you – especially if you’re a beginner.
We’ll compare ShareASale vs ClickBank in this guide. Every affiliate marketing program has its advantages and disadvantages. We’ll look at a detailed comparison of both these affiliate programs.
Compare the price, market share, benefits, and ease of use of these programs to determine the best fit for you. Let’s dive in!
An Overview of ShareASale
ShareASale is one of the most reputed affiliate marketing networks. They have been in business for more than twenty years.
Their website claims to have over 16500 merchants and 225000 publishers on board with them. They’ve generated $182 million in 2020.
ShareASale has a wide range of products to choose from if you want to join their affiliate program. There are two programs you can join using ShareASale:
Merchant Program
You can add your products to the ShareASale network, and affiliate marketers will promote your product.
The merchant program of ShareASale is not free. It’s one of the most expensive affiliate programs. You have to pay a fee of $500 and deposit $100 if you’d like to join ShareASale as a merchant.
Affiliate Program
You’ll get a link to the product you like and promote it once the merchant approves your request.
Features
One Portal
There is a wide range of products available in ShareASale. You don’t need individual affiliate links to each of these products if you want to promote them.
You can access your favorite products from one portal in the dashboard of ShareASale.
Power Rank
The power rank feature shows you which product sells best. That’s useful information for both merchants and affiliate marketers.
Merchants will know if your product can do well on ShareASale. Affiliate marketers will know which products have the best chance of generating maximum revenue.
Conditional Commissions
You can set conditional commissions as a merchant. ShareASale gives you the option to reward your best affiliate marketers by providing them special incentives. It is a unique feature of ShareASale.
Advantages of ShareASale
ShareASale has a wide variety of products that you can choose from. If you don’t have time to go through all the products, you can use the power rank feature to choose the best products for you.
You will get timely payouts with ShareASale. ShareASale pays you all of your earnings for a month on the first day of the following month.
Disadvantages of ShareASale
ShareASale has a high initial setup fee. That makes it difficult for small merchants to join the platform. The huge installation fee is why many people refrain from being a part of ShareASale.
The dashboard of ShareASale is not user-friendly at all. You’ll have difficulty operating the dashboard if you don’t have previous technical experience. The code of the affiliate links of ShareASale isn’t visually appealing.
Not everybody can join ShareASale. You’ve to apply to join the platform through their website manually. ShareASale has a review process, and you’ll only be a part of the platform if they approve you.
An Overview of ClickBank
You must have heard of ClickBank if you’ve been interested in affiliate marketing. ClickBank is one of the most famous affiliate marketing programs in the world.
They specialize in digital products and SAAS. ClickBank has also been in business for over twenty years. They have more than 100,000 affiliate marketers on board with them.
You can join ClickBank as a seller or an affiliate. You’ll be able to add your products to ClickBank if you join as a seller. As an affiliate, you’ll be able to promote all the products of sellers on ClickBank.
Anyone can join ClickBank as an affiliate for free. There is no screening process for joining ClickBank. But there is a fee for the sellers. The sellers need to pay a one-time activation fee of $50.
Features
User-Friendly Platform
The dashboard of ClickBank is so easy to use that a twelve-year-old kid could operate it. It’ll take you very little time to get used to the ClickBank platform. You can get your affiliate links within a few minutes of signing up.
Video Sales Letter
ClickBank has a wide range of digital products. The sellers of the best digital products put a lot of effort into making it easy for the affiliates to sell them.
The better products on ClickBank usually have video sales pitches. Such pitches instill confidence in the customers to trust the brand.
Easy Integration
ClickBank has expanded its network in its twenty years of operation. ClickBank integrates with most payment platforms and CMS sites. You’ll also get access to many training materials to maximize your sales on ClickBank.
Advantages of ClickBank
The commission rate of ClickBank products is usually much higher than other platforms. That’s because most of the products on ClickBank are digital products.
The manufacturers don’t need to bear any expense to create additional products. You can get up to 75 -80 % commission on ClickBank products.
ClickBank also has a lot of SAAS products. That means recurring revenue for you as an affiliate. Most affiliates earn a one-time fee when they get customers to buy the product.
But you’ll get monthly income if you can get your customers to subscribe to the SAAS companies on ClickBank.
Disadvantages of ClickBank
It would be best if you did your due diligence before promoting any product of ClickBank.
Some products of ClickBank are straight-up crap with horrible landing pages. You will lose your customers if you mislead them into buying a useless product.
The reporting tool of ClickBank isn’t very good. You wouldn’t know which products are selling best on ClickBank.
They’ve come up with a gravity score to solve this problem. The more a product sells, the higher its gravity score. But this reporting tool still needs a lot of improvement.
ShareASale vs ClickBank – Which One Should You Join?
Both ShareASale and ClickBank have their own sets of pros and cons. It would help if you determined which the best program is for you. You can also use both of them simultaneously if you think that’s the best option.
Here are the most important factors you should consider when choosing between ShareASale and ClickBank:
Pricing
Both the platforms are free for affiliates. Yet, ShareASale is much more expensive than ClickBank if you’re looking to sell your product.
You probably can’t choose ShareASale to sell your product because of their high setup fee of $500. You should choose ClickBank if the price is a big factor for you.
PayOut Difference
ClickBank offers a much better payout than ShareASale. You only have to give ClickBank a 10% commission fee if you sell your products there. You’ll have to pay ShareASale 20% for the same service.
One Time vs. Recurring Income
You can get recurring income by selling SAAS products on ClickBank. You won’t find as many digital products in ShareASale.
So, you’ll get a one-time commission if you sell the products on ShareASale but a monthly recurring income by selling the products of ClickBank.
Product Quality
There’s no practically no screening process for product approval in ClickBank. That’s why many bad products end up in the ClickBank marketplace.
ShareASale has a pretty intensive screening process before adding any product on its platform. The quality of products is generally better on ShareASale than ClickBank.
Physical and Digital Products
ShareASale dominates the affiliate network when it comes to physical products. It faces competition from Amazon.
But Amazon has lowered its commission rates to such an extent that more and more affiliate marketers are shifting to ShareASale. You won’t find too many digital products here.
ClickBank is the exact opposite of ShareASale in this matter. ClickBank has a much higher number of digital products than physical products. There aren’t too many physical products on ClickBank.
You should choose ShareASale if you’re selling physical products and ClickBank if you’re selling digital products.
Performance Benchmarking
ShareASale scored 9.5 for their quality and performance, whereas ClickBank scored 9.3. ShareASale also scored 100% for user satisfaction, and ClickBank scored 98%.
After testing user data, ShareASale is a clear winner in this battle. As you can see from the score, there isn’t too much difference since both platforms are great choices for affiliate marketers.
SEO Factor
Some websites have been negatively affected when they use ClickBank affiliate links. No such record has been found for ShareASale.
That happens because ClickBank doesn’t do a thorough job screening the products. Your website’s SEO takes a bad hit when promoting a bad product.
User Experience
The user interface of ClickBank is much friendlier than that of ShareASale. If you don’t have time to get used to any complicated interface – choose ClickBank.
On the other hand, the reporting system of ShareASale is better than ClickBank. You’ll have more information on the products if you use ShareASale than ClickBank.
Conclusion
We’ve covered all the important points in this ShareASale vs ClickBank comparison. Compare both the platforms and see which of these two fit your goals the best. You can’t go wrong with either of them as they’ve been around for a long time.
Refer to this guide and see if any taking point is more important than the other. For example, you should only use ClickBank if you’ve decided that you’d sell or promote digital products only.
Weigh out the factors according to your preference. We hope this guide will help you make the best decision for you. Good luck with your affiliate marketing journey.
