This question was recently asked on a forum. Here’s my take on it…

Typically affiliate programs account for 7-15% of a company’s overall revenue. Every situation is different, but that’s an average for affiliate programs as a % of revenue. Since they are revenue share based, provided the setup costs are minimal (many programs cost nothing or just a few hundred dollars to setup), they are generally worth doing. For most smaller software companies I would not recommend using CJ.com which is among the largest because their upfront/ongoing costs are too high, it’s a pain to setup and many smaller software merchants have lost money on CJ b/c of their fees which don’t always get offset by affiliate revenue. One of our software vendors recently reported it lost about $5,000 by testing out CJ due to the fees.

But we recommend testing out ShareASale.com, which only costs a few hundred dollars to sign up, attracts a nice range of affiliate publishers, and is easy to setup quickly.  We’ve integrated ShareASale with FastSpring. (Tip: Adjust their settings to manually approve affiliates based outside the US, EU, and Canada, so you can avoid the fraudulent affiliates who are part of almost every affiliate network and tend to be based in Asian countries such as Vietnam and Thailand.)  Don’t expect overnight riches but after a few months it could increase your revenue 7-15% if a few decent affiliate publishers pickup your offer, like the results, and stick with it. If it doesn’t work out after a few months, you won’t be out much time or expense, especially when compared to the time and cost of testing some of the more well-known affiliate networks, which is only a wise first step for software firms that have a sizable budget and plenty of marketing resources.  For most, it’s a better strategy to start with a less well-known affiliate network like a ShareASale and if it is successful, look at launching a bigger cost/benefit affiliate program after.

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