How to use Share a Sale Widgets

Something that is an absolutely wonderful tool for Affiliates, but not used hardly enough are the Share a Sale widgets.  Widgets are pre set advertisements that pull products from a datafeed and enable Affiliates to always have themed or best selling product banners on their sites.  Widgets can be customized by colors by the Merchants and the Merchants can feature their best selling products on any site that is currently using that particular widget.  So why are widgets not used all the time and when should an Affiliate use Share a Sale Widgets?

Why some Affiliates will not use widgets.

The biggest concern that some Affiliates have with using widgets is that they lose control over what is displayed on their websites.  Because a widget is a javascript, the Merchant has control over which products are displayed and the Affiliates loses control over their content.  That is a big concern for two reasons.  1.  Merchant can include products that may be inappropriate or offensive to the Affiliate’s website visitors or blog readers and 2.  Merchants can include products that have lower commissions or are non commissionable and essentially get free ad space from their Affiliates without having to pay the Affiliate.  This is also sort of stealing from them.  The next issue, which most Affiliates don’t think about, is that the Merchant controls how large or small the widget is.

Suppose you are using the widget as banner space or ad space instead of as a webpage.  If the Affiliate Manager is not up to date or not thinking right, they can easily change the dimensions of the widget and that could mess up the look and feel of your website.  The next thing you know your website is no longer user friendly and you had no control over it.  The only option you have at that point is to either contact the Affiliate Manager and hope they are responsive or take the widget off the page.  So what can you do and why would anyone want to use these?

The first thing to do is to only use widgets for Merchant’s with Affiliate Managers that you trust.  You should have opened communication with them and know that they are on top of things.  You have to also be able to trust that they will have your best interest in mind and only put products into the widget that would be suitable for your site.  I have a Mommy Blogger that is using a ladies gifts widget from Executive Gift Shoppe.

My first thought was to include tabs about ladies zippos and ladies flasks but when we were talking she let me know that that would offend her community.  You have to be careful of these things because you don’t want to hurt the relationship between you and the Affiliate, and because we had an open line of communication we were able to stop me from using these tabs on the ladies gifts widget and no one on her site was offended.  When you have a Merchant and Affiliate Manager that you trust to have your best interest in mind, then it is time to use the widget.  In case the Affiliate Manager ends up adding in products that you ended up not wanting on the widget, if they are responsive and you can reach out to them then you are set because they can change it in a second for you.  So how are Affiliates using Widgets?

There are two major ways that Affiliates are using the Share a Sale widgets.  They ask for a widget that is extremely wide and has 5 tabs so that they can just post a widget and have a simple online store without having to code.  The other way that Affiliates are using widgets are as banners that update themselves and keep their ads full of new products.  Not only does this keep the ad new and different for the website visitors but it also keeps their eyes coming back to the ad since it is always different and always features different products.  That is a huge time saver for Affiliates.  So how do you get a widget for site?

1. Log into your account at Share a Sale.
2. Click get a Link/Banner under the get links menu.
3. Find the Merchant whose widgets you want in your Merchants list and click on Get Links.
4. Click on the text link for Widget Creatives which is the third over from the left in the first row of links.
5. Now find the widget you want or theme you want and click on preview widget to make sure it meets your needs.
6. Now click get widget code.
7. Copy the widget code or javascript.
8. Paste into your site.

And that is all it takes to use a Share a Sale widget.  Here are some sample widgets that I have created for two of my clients ExecutiveGiftShoppe.com and Internet Direct Response, both on Share a Sale.