[Jorge - JRami]

Merchants: Are affiliates complaining that you are showing Low Funds?

Don't let this (http://forum.abestweb.com/showpost.php?p=436287&postcount=33) happen to you. From the suggestion made here (http://forum.abestweb.com/showpost.php?p=436523&postcount=39)

These are some basic "startup" steps you should take as soon as you setup your account with shareasale.com

15 Steps for a shareasale startup success:

1 - Setup account from day one at $200.00 (also helps to apply for Premier Merchant later)
2 - Set to notify when balance reaches $200.00
3 - Log out and sign up to SAS as an affiliate yourself with your own same name and information you gave as a merchant (get the experience and see what the affiliate sees)
4 - Find and join your own program (approve yourself) You will probably see yourself as Low Funds
5 - Grab a link or small banner from your program and place on any site you own temporarily. (don't forget to remove later)
6 - Click-through this link/banner which should now take you to your own merchant site
7 - Find any one of your own products, perhaps one with a small price (you are going to use your own credit card)
8 - Click through and buy it for yourself (you can skip shipping it)
9 - Log back into SAS as a merchant (you)
10 - You should now see a sale made by an affiliate (you) and amounts for commission paid. etc
11 - Log back into SAS as an affiliate (you)
12 - Search for your own merchant account, you and other affiliates should NOT see Low Funds any more.
13 - Remove link/banner from site you own
14 - Don't worry about your own affiliate account and sale, it will remain there. You can use this for testing at any time, etc.
15 - Go to ABW and post some good news to affiliates saying: You created auto deposit with $200.00, tested your own link/banner, tracking works perfect, no more Low Funds showing.

Any other suggestions from others you are welcome to add them here.

[BatteryFuelPatrick]

Jorge,

Can you expand on these please - maybe add some steps before the SAS signup i.e. what is a minimum number of and what types of creatives should be created?

[Jorge - JRami]

patrick,

Sure, I will expand and update this next, thanks!

[Jorge - JRami]

Patrick, thank you again for reading through this old post and replying to it, glad it is helping you and perhaps others.

Updates:

What are some of the first things you need to learn and do when starting or are already on the shareasale.com network. There are 15 other good reasons above already, but let's expand a little as in this is an almost 2 year old post but most still applies.

1 - You already decided that shareasale.com is a good fit to start or improve on your affiliate program, maybe you listened to advice from affiliates and others on ABW, that's a good start.

2 - It's time to hire and OPM! (ok sneaky of course, but if you are an Affiliate Manager, then you're good to go too) but if you really still need and OPM or Affiliate Management, there are many here on ABW that know the ins and outs of working with shareasale network and will help you.

3 - Shareasale Network Access Fee is only $350. That right there should get you calling and OPM and shareasale and setting up a program. It is probably the only fee you will be charged on SAS, ever, besides the low 20% transaction fee, see all here http://www.shareasale.com/pricing.cfm

4 - Creatives are good, but text links and links to actual product landing pages are the best. But, you still need to add creatives/banners and having good ones and proper sizes can make a difference in whether affiliates promote and/or use them effectively or not.

These are some of the most often requested and implemented sizes and probably all you need to start:

88 x 31
120 x 60
125 x 125
468 x 60
728 x 90

There are other styles and sizes see some samples here:

http://www.iab.net/standards/adunits.asp
https://www.google.com/adsense/adformats

and even DRMs (Dynamic Rich Media) like explained here http://www.jrami.com/ed-links.html and here http://www.gigagolf.com/affiliates/store_hot_demo.html and seen in action here http://www.gigagolf.com/affiliates/aff_dynamic.jsp

5 - Start looking at your store or service first and see what it needs, then look at your competitors and see what they have, then start creating promos, specials, bonuses and ways to make sure your products or service stand out and sells right NOW. Don't so much worry about what affiliates are doing, the ethical AM's and OPMs trained through ABW lookout for that and also know to protect your brand at all times and promote you, worry about customers and closing the sale, today!

What you promote and do on your store is what we promote and do for you!

[BatteryFuelPatrick]

Woowoowoo. Keep it up. I am a sponge for this stuff :happydanc

[Jorge - JRami]

Auto Deposit Expanded

Another, don't let this happen to you update: "Offline but "Auto Deposit"?" (http://forum.abestweb.com/showthread.php?t=90074)

It's a simple thing to make sure no transactions are missed and no such thing as low balance or low funds, specially on shareasale.com, hire an affiliate program consultant (http://forum.abestweb.com/forumdisplay.php?f=236).

Want to try it yourself first, follow these steps after you log in to you account whether you are new or been around SAS for a while, look for these:

Edit Settings (https://shareasale.com/m-account.cfm)

Scroll towards the bottom:
1 - Notify on Balance low? = Enter 'Yes'
2 - Balance to Notify on: = Enter '200' ( Notice there is no decimal or dollar sign only the actual number needed. You can add less, but 200 is a prefered suggestion )

Setup Auto-Deposit (https://shareasale.com/m-autopaymentsetup.cfm)

1 - Please turn my Auto-Deposit ON = ( check the little circle button, aka 'radio' button)
2 - When my balance reaches my low balance trigger, deposit this amount: Enter '$200.00'

What happens next?

A) You will start to make sales, then as soon as you reach $200.00 balance in your account you will get an email notifying you that your balance is low and to make a deposit (that's because you said yes to 'notify on low balance', which is good and what you want to happen).

Here is what it will look like:

- Important: Your account balance with ShareASale.com account number XXXX has dipped below your
threshold.
- You may want to log in to your merchant area, at www.shareasale.com/m-login.cfm (http://www.shareasale.com/m-login.cfm) and deposit more money
into your account if you want to continue to receive visitors from shareasale.com
- Your account will not be able to receive new sales from affiliates if your account reaches $0.
- To turn this feature On/Off, or to raise/lower your threshold, please visit your Account Manager at
www.shareasale.com (http://www.shareasale.com/)

B) In that same split second a deposit amount of another 200.00 will be added to your account. Bringing your
account now to 400.00 and at the same time you will receive another email to notify you of Automatic Deposit Received.

Here is what it will look like:

- This email is to confirm your recent AUTOMATIC SYSTEM deposit to shareasale.com. The amount was 200.00, updating your balance to 400.00
MerchantID: XXXX domain.com

Note 1: You will still be notified of a low balance, by email. If the auto-deposit is successful, you will receive notification via email as well. If the deposit is not successful, you will receive an email as such, and should
login to your account to manually make a deposit. The system will attempt three times, after which it will turn off and you will need to make a manual deposit.

Note 2 : You can add a backup credit card incase the first card is not successfully charged for some reason the second credit card will attempt to get charged for the same deposit amount.

C) If your automatic deposit does not go through for some reason and your first credit card and your second backup credit card is unable to get charged, you will then receive an email to notify you to log in and make a deposit.

Here is what it will look like:

- Our system attempted to automatically deposit, and it failed.
- Your balance is low, you should login and add funds manually. The system will NOT retry.
- MerchantID: XXX domain.com

You can setup multiple emails on your account so that anywhere you are around the world, at home, at the office, waiting at the airport, on a cruise on vacation or by the pool, nothing is missed. I am sure that by now in 2007, 99% of the merchants who have a cell phone can receive emails on it direct and without even login in. If you want sales, do it now.

If you still need help moving forward, contact an affiliate program consultant (http://forum.abestweb.com/forumdisplay.php?f=236)

http://forum.abestweb.com/images/icons/icon7.gif