Awin vs ShareASale: I Filled Out Both Applications and One Just Ghosted Me

After I decided to actually turn dxbbase into something that might earn a bit of money, the first thing I did wasn’t write articles — it was apply to affiliate networks. In my head the plan sounded great: sign up for a few big ones, drop in some links, and watch the money roll in. Reality slapped me pretty fast, and it slapped from both sides, just with different force.

Awin: asked for a deposit, but smooth

Awin told me upfront I had to put down a £5 deposit, supposedly to keep out spam accounts. Honestly I liked that — it showed they were serious. I filled in the site info, verified the domain, and two days later the email came: approved. The whole thing didn’t snag me once, like opening a bank account.

ShareASale: I still don’t know why they didn’t want me

ShareASale’s application form was absurdly long. One field wanted a “traffic screenshot,” and I sat there thinking — my site is brand new with single-digit visitors, what exactly am I supposed to screenshot besides that pathetic number. I uploaded the sad dashboard anyway. Then I waited. Over a week later an email arrived: rejected. The reason field was blank, just a canned line about “not meeting current needs.”

I read it three times looking for something I could fix. Was the site too new? Was the screenshot too thin? Is there some automated filter I can’t see? Nobody told me. I even thought about emailing their support to ask, then decided chasing someone who’d already clearly said no felt a bit pathetic.

Where I’m stuck now

Awin let me in, but I’m still picking through which merchants there are worth promoting. ShareASale’s door I knocked on once and it didn’t open. Maybe I’ll try again in three months with a different pitch, or once the site has more content. Maybe I won’t — I hate being rejected by a system that won’t give a reason, that weird suffocated feeling I can’t quite name. Either way, for affiliate stuff, getting one network working is enough. I don’t need both.