Influencer Marketing Hub sets itself apart from conventional review platforms through the involvement of Affiliate Marketing experts such as Werner Geyser, Djanan Kasumovic, Camille Kennedy, Dave Eagle, and other notable industry figures. This expert team brings a profound understanding of the Affiliate Marketing landscape, assessing tools and platforms with an insider’s perspective on capabilities, experience, and industry acumen. Unlike user-generated review platforms, Influencer Marketing Hub’s evaluations are rooted in extensive firsthand experience and direct interactions with the tools and platforms in question. This ensures that the reviews are not only trustworthy but also deeply informed. High-caliber brands like Refersion, Upfluence, and Levanta undergo rigorous monthly evaluations, highlighting the platform’s commitment to identifying and showcasing top-tier solutions in Affiliate Marketing and beyond.
Influencer Marketing Hub has consistently been recognized by leading media outlets for our authoritative data, findings, and insights within the Affiliate Marketing landscape. Our platform is frequently cited as a trusted source of information, demonstrating the value and impact of our work in shaping industry standards and practices.
Influencer Marketing Hub employs an expert-driven methodology to evaluate Affiliate Marketing agencies, ensuring that our recommendations are both reliable and comprehensive. This approach is designed to help businesses and individuals find the best agencies to meet their specific Affiliate Marketing needs. Here’s how we assess the various agencies like Refersion, Upfluence, and Levanta:
One of the most lucrative ways to make passive income is affiliate marketing. Essentially, it allows companies to advertise their products through an affiliate in exchange for a commission. Compared to traditional marketing, this significantly increases audience reach for less cost and risk.
With that said, creating a successful affiliate marketing program requires strategy, and using affiliate marketing software is a fundamental one. Here are some of the best affiliate marketing platforms to help you jumpstart, oversee, and expand your affiliate marketing initiatives.
Leading Affiliate Marketing Software Platforms for 2024:
Best Affiliate Marketing Software
1. Refersion
Best for: Medium to large eCommerce brands
Notable clients: Bosch, Pura Vida, Webflow
Location: Headquartered in New York City, USA
Year founded: 2015
In just a few years, Refersion expanded from a beta product into a profitable company which was later acquired by Pantastic. Its reliable tracking and top-notch customer support makes it a favorite among merchants and partners. New customers can even attend onboarding seminars and training that allows them to review the software’s features.
Additionally, the Refersion marketplace lists affiliates for you to discover, helping to grow your program faster. The database has over 3.5 million affiliates and so you’re bound to find plenty of partners that get your brand and its target audience. To help you with discovery further, you also become discoverable in turn when Refersion lists your affiliate program on the marketplace for free.
One of the reasons why it’s so popular among affiliates is its level of personalization. Affiliates get a personalized portal with their dashboard, where they can monitor their activity, commissions, and payouts.
As for integrations, Refersion integrates with all major eCommerce platforms like Shopify, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Magento (an Adobe Company), BigCommerce, and WooCommerce. On top of that, there are also over 2,000 app integrations powered by Zapier.
Key Features:
- Brands can have unlimited affiliates
- Reliable and accurate first-party tracking
- Partnership flexibility; work with any type of affiliate – publisher, ambassador, influencer, etc.
- Commission, payment, and tax automation
- Dashboard customization
- Real-time and easy-to-read reports
- Multiple payment options
Pricing:
After a free 14-day trial, pricing starts at $119 per month (or $99 per month if paid yearly).
2. Upfluence
Best for: eCommerce brands of all sizes
Notable clients: Universal, AliExpress, Mercedes-Benz
Location: Headquartered in New York City, USA
Year founded: 2013
With Upfluence, over 1,600 top brands and agencies have found a solution to triple the ROI of their affiliate programs. This all-in-one influencer and affiliate platform aims to significantly increase sales while reducing your workload. The latter it does by streamlining influencer hiring and promo code generation. There are contract and outreach templates as well as unique, custom promotion codes to mention only two time-saving features.
The platform stands out for its advanced tracking feature, allowing for accurate sales attribution and commission calculation. A custom dashboard aggregates all your campaign results, facilitating data-driven decisions. It allows you to gauge the effectiveness of your influencers with individual tracking links, providing valuable insights into your total clicks and views, click-through rate, influencer engagement rate, and individual sales generated. Upfluence also facilitates a simplified payment process with automated commission payouts and international payment options.
It also shines when it comes to integrations. Key integrations include Shopify, WooCommerce, and Magento, providing compatibility with major eCommerce platforms.
It has helped the men’s skincare brand Tiege Hanley to triple their influencer activations. It’s just one example of how effective it can be. On top of that, its features also helped the brand to save up to 75% of the time they would otherwise spend on managing processes.
Key Features:
- Affiliate recruitment
- A branded landing page for sign-ups
- Affiliate link tracking and commission calculation
- Automated payments with international support
- Outreach email templates
- Promo code generation
- A content dashboard
- Detailed analytics
- A social listening tool
Pricing:
Access to Upfluence is provided on a subscription model, offering different modules of service starting from a monthly charge of $478.
Key Features: Influencer Search & Discovery, Relationship Management, Campaign Management, Third Party Analytics, Automated Recruiting, Influencer Lifecycle Management, Team Collaboration Tools, Content Review, Campaign Reporting, Audience Analysis, E-commerce Tools, Product/Gifting Tools, Payment Processing, Social Listening, Affiliate Management, Affiliate Campaigns,
Channels: Instagram, Youtube, Facebook, Twitch, Tiktok, Twitter, Pinterest, Blogs
3. Levanta
Best for: Amazon Sellers (not vendors) of any size
Notable clients: Forum Brands, Acceleramota, Acquco, Martech Record, Ella Bella
Location: Seattle, Washington
Year founded: 2022
Levanta.io emerges as a platform where Amazon sellers and content creators converge, designed to amplify sales through strategic affiliate partnerships. Levanta.io is particularly adept at fostering these connections, offering a suite of tools that streamline the affiliate marketing process.
At the core of Levanta’s offerings is its advanced tracking system, which ensures precise monitoring of affiliate-driven sales. This feature is crucial for sellers seeking to optimize their affiliate relationships and for creators aiming to maximize their earnings from Amazon listings. Levanta.io enhances this with a competitive commission structure, including the opportunity for sellers to earn an average of a 10% Brand Referral Bonus from Amazon, a significant incentive that sets it apart from other Affiliate Marketing Software.
The platform is user-friendly for both sellers and creators. Sellers benefit from an efficient dashboard to manage and track affiliate performance, while creators enjoy a simplified interface for managing their affiliate activities and earnings. Levanta.io’s pricing structure, which includes a free initial option, caters to a broad range of users, from those just starting out to large-scale sellers and established creators.
Key Features:
- Tailored affiliate management for Amazon
- Direct Brand-Creator Partnerships
- Performance Analytics and Reporting
Pricing:
- Standard Plan: $150 per month or $1,440 per year, plus 5% of affiliate sales revenue
- Levanta Gold Plan: $750 per month, plus 3.5% of affiliate sales revenue
4. UpPromote
Best for: Small, medium, and large businesses
Notable clients: Capterra, TréSkin, Mysteek Naturals
Location: Headquartered in Hanoi, Vietnam
Year founded: 2019
UpPromote has helped its user base of 35,000+ brands to simplify affiliate marketing by breaking down the process into key steps. You create your program, find suitable affiliates and, lastly, monitor their performance.
They include several features and tools to make these three essential steps even more manageable and guide you through the different phases seamlessly. For example, after you’ve created a program (step one), UpPromote will automatically create a signup form for potential affiliates (step two). Communication is also straightforward and there’s a variety of triggers that you can use to automate much of the communication.
In addition to ease of use, it also offers loads of control. Let’s take the commission structure as an example. You can choose to use a flat rate per sale/item/milestone or a percentage of the total sales. Then, you can also use a tier system if you want to reward affiliates more if they manage to bag bigger orders. UpPromote also lets you create special commissions for specific products. Plus, if you don’t want to reward affiliates with money, you can opt for store credit instead. The possibilities are virtually endless.
All in all, its user interface is pretty intuitive. That said, if you do need more help navigating your way around the different menus, you can check out their YouTube channel where you’ll find several helpful videos.
As for the kind of results you can expect, you can refer to their website where they share a number of customer success stories. For example, Saledress, an international online fashion clothing store, generates most of their sales through UpPromote. With the help of the platform, the eCommerce store managed to generate about $1.8 million in sales.
Key Features:
- Customizable registration forms, email templates, affiliate links
- Analytics and reports
- Integration with PayPal for automatic payments
- Custom commissions
Pricing:
UpPromote’s paid plans start at $29.99 per month (or $24.99 when billed yearly). A free plan is also available.
5. Tracknow
Best for: Brands and agencies, large and small
Notable clients: WeSell, Cashdo, SIMple, DNA Markets, Wifly
Location: Ashkelon, Ilinois
Year Founded: 2022
Over 100 clients use Tracknow to streamline their affiliate marketing needs. Moreover, with a 98% customer satisfaction score, Tracknow is an all-in-one platform designed to receive all your affiliate data in one place. Its popularity stems from its flexibility and depth in customization options, allowing for a tailored approach to affiliate marketing and enabling businesses to expand their advertising efforts significantly.
At the core of Tracknow’s offering is its ease of use, simplifying the complexity inherent in managing vast affiliate networks or launching new programs. The platform is equipped with real-time tracking features, providing detailed insights into affiliate and influencer performance, thus empowering businesses to make data-driven decisions. Moreover, Tracknow’s innovative affiliate features include offline coupon tracking, multi-level marketing (MLM) tools, and advanced commission rules, which offer a comprehensive suite of tools to optimize affiliate marketing strategies.
On the integration front, Tracknow can fully integrate with the most widely used eCommerce platforms, including Shopify, Magento, and WooCommerce, as well as PayPal and Google Tag Manager.
Key Features:
- Dashboard for affiliate and influencer performance monitoring
- Customizable branding options, including domain personalization and email templates
- Unlimited creatives for up-to-date content
- Advanced commission rules and fraud detection to optimize earnings and protect against fraud
- Comprehensive tracking for affiliate programs, sales, and commissions
- White-label options for a branded affiliate marketing experience
Pricing:
Three plans available, starting with Small Business and scaling up to Network, billed monthly or yearly. Plans come with unlimited sales and unlimited affiliates.
6. Trackdesk
Best for: Small eCommerce businesses, SaaS providers, subscription services
Notable clients: Nicereply, Converting Ads
Location: Prague, Czech Republic
Year founded: 2022
Trackdesk is an innovative platform that transforms your affiliate marketing approach. It offers advanced workflow, state-of-the-art automation, and steadfast support to generate valuable insights that fuel growth.
Let’s take its automation capabilities as an example. Its automated solutions enable creation, monitoring, and improvement of campaigns that boost conversions and ROI. You can also automate recruitment, providing flexible commission structures, and streamlining affiliate management.
Another standout feature is its integrations. It integrates with many platforms, such as Mailchimp, Shopify, PayPal, Stripe, and Wix, ensuring a smooth and harmonious fusion with your current marketing infrastructure.
Key Features:
- Integration with popular platforms
- Automation
- Customizable commission groups
- Unlimited affiliates
- Responsive customer support
- Fraud protection
- Real-time reporting
Pricing:
Trackdesk offers a free plan for up to $5,000 revenue per month. For businesses that generate more than $5,000 per month, pricing starts at $67 per month. Custom pricing is also available for enterprise clients.
7. Rewardful
Best for: Small SaaS businesses
Notable clients: Podia, MemberSpace, PickaSite
Location: Headquartered in Edmonton, Canada
Year founded: 2017
Rewardful is a highly efficient and user-friendly affiliate marketing software platform tailored specifically for SaaS businesses. By seamlessly integrating with Stripe and Paddle, it offers an incredibly simple and convenient way to set up affiliate and referral programs for your business.
Trusted by over 20,000 SaaS companies, Rewardful handles referrals, discounts, and commissions, all while eliminating guesswork. Focusing on simplicity, deep integration, and a clean, minimalist user interface, it aims to unlock your business’s untapped growth potential through its comprehensive referral and affiliate program management features.
The simplicity of Rewardful’s setup process is what truly sets it apart as the platform allows you to launch your affiliate program in under 15 minutes, thanks to its easy-to-follow instructions and minimal coding requirements. Designed with subscriptions and Stripe in mind, Rewardful caters specifically to all SaaS and subscription scenarios, including free trials, upgrades, downgrades, cancellations, pro-rated changes, and refunds.
Moreover, this white label affiliate marketing software enables the creation of on-brand, customizable affiliate programs that can be public, private, or invite-only. The platform also offers in-app customer referral programs, allowing you to manage all referral and affiliate program types from a single location. This streamlines your marketing efforts and optimizes efficiency. Additionally, Rewardful allows you to unlock various revenue channels by managing different programs from one account, saving you time and effort.
Key Features:
- Simple setup process
- Integrations with other tools
- Subscription-focused features
- Customizable affiliate programs
- Refer a friend program
- Streamlined management tools
Pricing:
Rewardful offers an array of subscription options to fit various needs and budgets. After a free 14-day trial, pricing starts at $49 per month.
8. Post Affiliate Pro
Best for: Medium to large businesses
Notable clients: Instabank, ProtonVPN
Location: Headquartered in Bratislava, Slovakia
Year founded: 2001
As one of the most reviewed affiliate marketing software, Post Affiliate Pro has a presence in over 100 countries. The company has 100 million affiliates and paid commissions amounting to $500 million. It has also won several awards in referral software, customer satisfaction, and affiliate management software.
Post Affiliate Pro integrates with over 200 content management systems and payment processors, making it easier to customize for your brand. The platform’s branding feature allows you to create different banners for your promos and get free lifetime updates. If you should get stuck, though, the software has a five-star customer support team available around the clock on various communication platforms.
Key Features:
- Customizable interface
- Tracking tools
- Fraud protection
- Mass payments
- Real-time data reporting
- 24/7/365 customer support
Pricing:
After a generous 30-day free trial, pricing starts at $129 per month.
9. Tapfiliate
Best for: Small and medium businesses
Notable clients: Sendinblue, Selz, DEGIRO
Location: Headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Year founded: 2014
Tapfiliate’s 93% customer satisfaction rate speaks for itself. More than 2,000 clients stand by this platform, which places customer happiness at its core. Additionally, Tapfiliate is part of the Amitad, a network that gathers advertisers and affiliates in one platform.
One of the ways that it keeps users happy is by giving them full brand control. You can create personal links and sign-up pages, as well as manage brand materials and promotions within the platform. This can be attractive to affiliates, whom you can even add with an invite URL.
It’s features like these that have helped Enpal, an award-winning startup in the solar sector, to onboard 200 affiliates. They’ve praised the freedom they have to customize the program, making it much easier to fit affiliate marketing into their overall marketing strategy.
Key Features:
- Step-by-step onboarding
- Sales tracking links and coupons
- White-labeled affiliate pages
- Commission flexibility
- Real-time program reporting
- Integrations with more than 30 platforms
- Custom integrations
Pricing:
Tapfilliate prices begin at $119 a month with a 14-day free trial.
10. LeadDyno
Best for: Small, medium, and large businesses
Notable clients: Snappa, Beddy’s
Location: Headquartered in Edina, USA
Year founded: 2014
A leader in affiliate management, LeadDyno has tracked more than 309 million referrals since it was founded and more than $161 million in affiliate generated sales in 2022 alone. This affiliate marketing automation software integrates with more than 25 platforms, which you can install in just one click. These include eCommerce, payment processors, CRMs, and marketing platforms.
One of LeadDyno’s most exciting features is the affiliate portal, which you can customize with your logo, color scheme, and welcome message. You can also upload your marketing materials, which affiliates can easily access and share to their platforms. You can even send newsletters and create incentives and trackable coupon codes for your affiliates.
For example, when Cents of Style wanted to empower female entrepreneurs and, at the same time, reshape traditional marketing, they turned to affiliate marketing. They didn’t immediately turn to LeadDyno, though, but once they did, everything started to click and real results rolled in. With the help of LeadDyno, they’ve paid hundreds of thousands in commissions to hundreds of affiliates, helping them to realize their vision of empowering female entrepreneurs. And, their fashion brand also benefited. Their web sales grew by 80% and they’ve generated nearly $2 million in affiliate sales.
Key Features:
- Real-time commission tracking
- One-click integrations
- Multiple tracking options
- Marketing and recruitment automation
- Easy set-up commission structure
- Customizable payment scheme
Pricing:
LeadDyno’s pricing starts at $49 per month with a free 30-day trial.
11. Grin
Best for: Brands looking to scale their influencer and affiliate marketing efforts
Notable clients: InkBox, Uber, Mari Gold, Ipsy
Location: Sacramento, California
Year founded: 2014
Grin.co distinguishes itself in the Affiliate Marketing Software Platforms landscape by offering an all-in-one solution that simplifies affiliate marketing management. This platform is ideal for brands that aspire to cultivate and expand their affiliate relationships efficiently. Grin.co’s software is engineered to generate and track affiliate links, manage discount codes, and create custom, branded affiliate pages—all while seamlessly integrating with your eCommerce shop.
The platform’s integrated campaign workrooms and CRM functionalities for affiliates underscore its commitment to fostering long-lasting affiliate relationships. Grin.co’s ability to manage payments within the platform ensures a smooth operational flow, making it a happy haven for affiliates.
For brands seeking to grow their word-of-mouth marketing efforts, Grin.co’s extensive suite of tools provides the necessary leverage. The platform’s focus on building authentic, brand-boosting relationships is evident in its design, making it a valuable asset for any affiliate marketing strategy.
Key Features:
- Discovery and Recruitment
- Reporting and Analytics
- Product Seeding
- Content Management
Pricing:
Book a demo to acquire more detailed pricing info.
Key Features: Content Amplification, Search/Discovery, Influencer Lifecycle Management, Influencer Relationship Management, Content Review, Content Library, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, E-commerce Tools, Product/Gifting Tools, Forms and Compliance,
Channels: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Twitch, YouTube
12. EverFlow
Best for: Large businesses
Notable clients: AdColony, Kettle & Fire, Sharecare
Location: Headquartered in Mountain View, USA
Year founded: 2016
A company that began in 2016, Everflow has already tracked more than $1.9 billion in revenue in 2021 and $1.1 billion worth of payouts. Everflow enables merchants to manage more than one type of partnership, from influencers and offline placements to media buying. The platform also offers a tailored action plan (from prelaunch to hyperscale) for brands, agencies, and ad networks. It works not only with Google Ads and Facebook, but also with the software’s integrated shopping carts, which you can set up in an instant.
Not only does it allow you to manage multiple types of partnerships, but it also lets you find better partners. To do this, it includes EF Match, a solution created with the purpose of building long-term partnerships for Everflow users.
With this unique feature, Modanisa, an innovative fashion platform, generated six-figure sales in a matter of months. In fact, two partners alone drove more than $150,000 in new sales for the fashion brand.
Key Features:
- Performance and impression tracking and analytics
- Coupon code reward
- Variance reports
- Direct linking
- Instant cart setup
- 24/7 customer support
Pricing:
Everflow starts at $750 a month.
13. Affiliatly
Best for: Small businesses
Notable clients: Heather Campins Jewelry, HempSapa
Location: Headquartered in Vratsa, Bulgaria
Year founded: 2014
If you’re on a budget, Affiliatly is an ideal option. Despite its low costs, it has a wide range of features that don’t stop it from competing with other affiliate marketing software.
Affiliatly officially integrates with over 10 platforms, including Shopify and WooCommerce. For your unsupported eCommerce sites, Affiliatly can provide JavaScript and PHP codes to help you integrate them on the platform. This referral management software can even help you inspect your site to check if it’s compatible with the platform.
Key Features:
- Shareable content
- Individual affiliate management
- Quick link generation
- Gift card rewards for affiliates
- Performance and activity tracking
- Custom integration for unsupported platforms
Pricing:
Affiliatly’s starter pack is $16 a month with a 90-day free trial.
14. TUNE
Best for: Medium to large businesses as well as subscription services
Notable clients: Zillow, Groupon, BetterHelp
Location: Headquartered in Vratsa, Bulgaria
Year founded: 2009
TUNE boasts a 98% customer satisfaction rate. That alone says a lot.
TUNE launched the first software solution to measure mobile app campaign performances. The company has since expanded its services to support the needs of all types of performance partnerships, including ad networks, influencers, and publisher businesses.
TUNE works across desktop, mobile, and app, which helps you track your progress anywhere and anytime. The software’s performance automated tools can even help you save time and increase your net profit. With the platform’s cookie-less server postback tracking, you can even get accurate and real-time data reports on your campaign’s performance.
It’s especially a great choice if you’re selling subscription services and have a number of success stories in this niche. For example, when Preply was on the hunt for a solution that offered intuitive recruiting, customizable payouts, native fraud protection, and optimization tools, they decided on TUNE. It ticked all their boxes and increased their new user sign-ups by over 100%, while cutting their customer acquisition cost in half.
Key Features:
- Real-time reporting
- Automated workflow and pay-out schemes
- Customizable payment rules
- Access across various digital platforms
- Customer support
Pricing:
The plan for advertisers starts at $599 per month when paid annually, while the plan for networks starts at $899 per month when paid annually.
15. PartnerStack
Best for: SaaS businesses of all sizes
Notable clients: Vimeo, Freshworks, Looka
Location: Headquartered in Toronto, Canada
Year founded: 2015
PartnerStack is an award-winning, all-in-one partnerships platform. It has generated over $516 million in partner-driven revenue in the past year alone. It focuses on empowering affiliates, who can receive their own dashboards, as well as performance incentives.
Then, to scale partnerships, it uses a four-step method. Listing your program in its marketplace can make you accessible to thousands of affiliates. You can even customize an onboarding experience unique to each of your partners. Moreover, the platform automatically computes conversions, so you never have to miss a payment.
All in all, it’s a great tool for software companies and it has helped email marketing software solutions like Keap, Moosend, and Omnisend. In the case of Keap, it helped the company to earn as much as 45% of their revenue through partnerships. The fact that it supports multiple partnership channels played an integral part in this success story.
Key Features:
- Customized onboarding
- Automated and flexible payment scheme
- Incentives for top partners
- Conversion across every platform
- Software integration
Pricing:
PartnerStack offers personalized plans and pricing to suit the needs of their clients. For more info, you can sign up for a demo.
16. impact.com
Best for: Brands, agencies, and publishers of all sizes
Notable clients: Canva, Lenovo, Coach, eBay, Adidas
Location: Santa Barbara, California
Year founded: 2008
Impact.com emerges as a frontrunner in the realm of Affiliate Marketing Software Platforms, offering a robust suite of tools designed to automate and optimize the entire partnership lifecycle. This platform is a powerhouse for brands seeking to amplify their affiliate marketing strategies without inflating their operational burdens. With Impact.com, you can generate unique affiliate links, customize contracts, and precisely track performance.
The platform’s standout feature is its diverse affiliate marketplace, which allows for creating bespoke affiliate partnerships. This approach is pivotal for brands aiming to maximize their affiliate marketing ROI. Moreover, Impact.com’s suite includes protection and monitoring services, ensuring brand safety and compliance.
With Impact.com, you can expect exceptional results, as shown on their website through customer success stories, case studies, and testimonials. An example of one such successful partnership is with RevLifter, where they increased their QoQ conversion rates by 27.3%.
Key Features:
- Customizable contracts and payment models
- Advanced performance reporting
- Managed services for influencer marketing
Pricing:
Schedule a demo request for pricing information.
Key Features: Influencer Content Amplification, Search/Discovery, Automated Recruiting, Influencer Relationship Management, Influencer Marketplace, Team Collaboration Tools, Content Review, Content Library, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, E-commerce Tools, Product/Gifting Tools, Forms and Compliance, Payment Processing,
17. iDevAffiliate
Best for: Merchants of all sizes
Notable clients: Exotic Golf Putters, Ubiquity Hosting Solutions, Skin Pro International
Location: Headquartered in Valencia, USA
Year founded: 1999
iDevAffiliate has 20+ years of experience under its belt. Its ease of use and rich array of features make it popular among merchants, who are also the platform’s focus. iDevAffiliate’s features cater to different users, from beginners to experts. Their built-in onboarding even comes with over 40 hours of video tutorials.
iDevAffiliates allows partners to use their own subdomain for their account location and inbound links. This eliminates any suspicious links, building more trust among affiliates and audiences. You can even share your links on social media, as well as build stronger SEO through backlinking. On the other hand, coupon codes don’t require links, which is great for offline marketing.
Key Features:
- Social media sharing and SEO linking
- General lead and coupon code tracking
- Step-by-step onboarding
- Multi-tier recruitment
- Unique subdomain
- More than 175 integrations
- Performance rewards
- Fraud prevention and security
Pricing:
Prices for iDevAffiliate start at $39 a month.
18. FlexOffers
Best for: Advertisers and publishers
Notable clients: The Motley Fool, Snapfish
Location: Headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, USA
Year founded: 2008
An award-winning performance-based platform, FlexOffers has more than 12,000 affiliate programs. The software assigns each domain to an account manager proficient in affiliate marketing. Moreover, the platform’s support team is readily accessible through phone or email, plus a ticket system after office hours.
FlexOffer’s advertiser interface is one of its biggest highlights. It not only allows you to see performance reports in real time but also makes your promotions accessible to publishers. Moreover, you’ll be able to see which potential customers have visited your website along with the total conversions that your campaign has generated.
Key Features:
- Advanced payment options
- Cookie-less tracking
- Real-time traffic reporting
- 24/7 compliance monitoring
Pricing:
FlexOffers provides pricing upon request.
19. ShareASale
Best for: Advertisers and publishers
Notable clients: Etsy, BuzzFeed, LTK
Location: Headquartered in Chicago, USA
Year founded: 2000
More than 20 years in the business, ShareASale has over 25,000 merchants and 270,000 active publishers around the world, making them one of the best ways to find affiliates for your marketing campaigns.
The platform seeks to nurture relationships between clients and partners. In 2022 alone, it has generated $200 million in sales.
With ShareASales’s user-friendly interface, communication would be easier for you and your affiliates. You’ll have as much control over your program’s setup, including the time frame of your report and information to track. The platform’s automated marketing emails can help save you time, while affiliate rewards and customizable commissions can motivate your affiliates.
For example, when Masque Bar wanted to grow their marketing efforts with an affiliate marketing platform, they set up an account on ShareASale. Using this platform and a digital marketing agency, they managed to boost sales by 35% and traffic by double that.
Key Features:
- Real-time performance insights
- Customizable reports
- Custom commissions
- Cookie-less tracking
Pricing:
The one-time network sign-up fee for merchants is $625 plus a $125 minimum deposit that goes into your account. In addition to these setup fees, merchants are also charged recurring fees that include a 20% of the commission paid to the affiliate (referred to as a tracking fee) and a $35 monthly fee for access to the network (referred to as a monthly platform fee).
20. CJ Affiliate
Best for: Advertisers and publishers
Notable clients: Lacoste, Dell India, Olympia Sports
Location: Headquartered in Santa Barbara, USA and London, England
Year founded: 1998
Over 3,800 brands around the world trust CJ Affiliate, an affiliate marketing platform that has been making a mark since 1998. It’s also worth noting that the platform has close to 170,000 affiliates, making them a viable partnership ecosystem.
With CJ Affiliate, you can be confident that you’re compliant with privacy regulations. Its sophisticated tech promises network quality that detects and eliminates fraud. The platform also reviews affiliates before their first payment, plus you can get specialized protection in facilitating your program policies.
Not only can you entrust affiliate screening to them, but you can also leave campaign management in their hands. Their team of specialists can craft and execute influencer strategies and take care of everything from recruitment to negotiation to tracking.
It’s this level of day-to-day management that has impressed the marketing team of Dell. Since they’ve switched to CJ towards the end of 2020, they’ve enjoyed significant growth. In the first six months of launching their affiliate marketing program, they already generated double-digit growth.
Key Features:
- Omnichannel integrations
- Real-time insights and analytics
- Intuitive platform
- Custom commissions
- Flexible compensations
- Easy integration to eCommerce platforms
Pricing:
They offer custom pricing for their software. Pricing is available upon request.
21. Referral Rock
Best for: Agencies
Notable clients: Active Campaign, TripAdvisor, Random House
Location: Headquartered in Alexandria, USA
Year founded: 2017
You might be familiar with Referral Rock as one of the top referral program software solutions available that can help you to take advantage of word-of-mouth advertising. In addition, it also offers partner and affiliate marketing software to help ensure your best affiliates stay engaged.
It offers more than 50 integrations that include integrations with the main eCommerce platforms like Shopify, Magento, and BigCommerce. With it, you can promote your affiliate marketing program on a number of marketing channels like, for example, embedding it in your site.
One of its most attractive features is that it offers highly configurable reward options. From time-based offers to recurring rewards, there are many types of incentives that you can create that will draw attention.
It’s the number of out-of-the-box integrations that helped an eCommerce store like Grover to create an automated referral program quickly. Not only could they get everything set up quickly, but it didn’t take too long before they saw results. After the first couple of months, over 5,000 customers already registered to their referral program. What’s more, more than half of these sign-ups converted to new sales.
Key Features:
- Multiple incentive structures
- Referral attribution and activity tracking
- Automatic payouts
- Advanced reward rules
- Triggered emails
- Social media sharing
- Downloadable reports and activity tracking
- Team accounts
Pricing:
Plans start at $200 per month.
22. Omnistar Affiliate
Best for: Small, medium, and large businesses
Notable clients: Cisco, Trek, Picktochart
Location: Headquartered in Orlando, USA
Year founded: 1999
Boasting an impressive 4.9 rating on Capterra, Omnistar Affiliate is one of the most highly rated and reviewed affiliate software solutions. It’s used by over 16,000 businesses from various industries that include real estate, healthcare, and eCommerce. If you’re going to be using it to help with your eCommerce store, you’ll be happy to know that it integrates with thousands of apps, including Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Squarespace.
While on the topic of integrations, Omnistar Affiliate also includes full integration with LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. This means that your affiliates will have no issue sharing their link across these leading social networks for more exposure.
Similarly to Refersion, it also has its own exclusive directory where you can find affiliates. This can come in handy if you’re searching for people who are more knowledgeable about affiliate marketing than your pool of customers.
Alternatively, it can help you to identify your most loyal customers by means of a single-question survey. This way, customers who rated their experience with your store as very positive can automatically be included into your program. This auto signup feature can be a real timesaver. Plus, it simply makes it much easier if you want to scale your program as quickly as possible.
Then, to keep your affiliates engaged and motivated, you can share email templates and upload banners or other creative digital assets that they can use to forward to their network. Not only does this help you to keep the branding more consistent, but it also makes it much easier for affiliates to promote your products. After all, if it’s too much work for your affiliates to promote your products your affiliate program won’t take off.
Key Features:
- Social media sharing
- Exclusive influencer directory
- User-friendly setup wizard
- Multi-level marketing
- Promo code tracking
- Various rewards available that include commissions, coupons, gift cards, and discounts
Pricing:
After its free 15-day trial, pricing starts at $47 per month.
23. Reditus
Best for: B2B SaaS brands
Notable clients: Expandi, Prospectss
Location: Headquartered in Utrecht, the Netherlands
Year founded: 2021
If you’re thinking about growing your SaaS business with affiliate marketing, you can check out Reditus. Headquartered in the Netherlands, it describes itself as a partner management tool for SaaS companies. Their goal is to be a customer-centric business that can help SaaS companies (or affiliates) to grow a new recurring revenue stream.
According to their website, in as little as 30 minutes you can set up a partner and referral program. To help you continue saving time after your program is up and running, it lets you manage partners and get full control of them via a single platform. Not only does Reditus help you with partner management, but they also offer a marketplace where you can find new partners.
Expandi, one of the leading LinkedIn automation tools, found this marketplace especially useful. They added themselves to it to acquire new affiliates outside of their own network and ultimately evaluate the growth potential of using such an affiliate network. In just six months, the Reditus marketplace showed that it can be a valuable addition. They gained over 70 affiliates and generated more than $26,000 in total revenue. Based on these results, they decided to move their existing program to Reditus.
Key Features:
- A marketplace
- Analytics
- Team training
- A partner agreement template
- SEO-friendly links
Pricing:
Pricing is based on the monthly recurring revenue that you generate via affiliates. There’s a free plan available for brands that generate no more than $1,000 monthly recurring revenue. After that, pricing starts at $59 per month charged on an annual basis.
24. Cake
Best for: Advertisers and publishers
Notable clients: Forex Club, Purify Digital, DMi Partners
Location: Headquartered in Laguna Beach, USA
Year founded: 2010
Cake is a performance marketing software that includes solutions for affiliate marketing. When using it for affiliate marketing, you can use it to measure, manage, and optimize partner campaigns.
It offers a number of features, like smart real-time insights into the performance of your partners and campaigns and pixel whitelisting, to help you optimize your affiliate marketing program, while reducing risk to ensure it remains credible. Then, to ensure that all the affiliates stay up to date, it offers customized email templates for enhanced email communication.
It’s Cake’s ability to simplify management of affiliate marketing campaigns that has impressed names like DMi Partners. Considering that DMi Partners is rated as one of the top email marketing agencies, it says a lot that they listed Cake’s campaign management and customer support as two of its top features.
Key Features:
- Real-time reporting
- Roles access controls
- Voucher code support
Pricing:
Pricing is available upon request.
25. Offer18
Best for: Advertisers and agencies
Notable clients: Yellow Digital Media, Digifish3
Location: Headquartered in Zirakpur, India
Year founded: 2016
Trusted by nearly 1,000 companies, Offer18 is an award-winning tracking solution that was founded in 2016. Aimed at digital professionals, it can help them to create their own affiliate network and improve their ROI with the help of sophisticated built-in tools.
It offers all the key tools that you need to create, start, and manage affiliates. One feature that deserves special mention, though, is its flexible payouts. You can, for example, use it to pay affiliates according to their geographical conversions or use certain events or goals to set up payouts. And, to prevent that you end up paying more than needed, it includes a number of fraud prevention tools that include a traffic source validator.
Offer18’s customer stories feature a number of marketing agencies that have chosen to migrate their services. For example, Digifish3 migrated to Offer18 because of the accurate targeting options, intuitive API integration, and fast configuration. The round-the-clock support was also a deal-breaker — a benefit they didn’t have with their previous platform.
Key Features:
- 24/7 support
- Fraud prevention
- Payout tiers
- A customizable affiliate dashboard
- An affiliate link checker
- Email communication
Pricing:
After a free 14-day trial, pricing starts at $49 per month.
Expert Opinions and Stats on the Importance of Software in Affiliate Marketing
Using an affiliate marketing platform offers numerous benefits. It can give you access to a marketplace of affiliates and streamline the communication once you’ve found your crew.
You can also easily view data on sales, impressions, leads, and clicks via a dashboard. Knowing which initiatives are doing well allows you to grow your affiliate marketing program more effectively.
It’s also key for eliminating human error. Suraj Grover, the Head of Marketing at Offer18, explains:
“Software offering multi-tiered commission models reduces the risk of errors in commission calculations. They also detect and eliminate fraud in real time.”
Considering that yours truly’s The State of Affiliate Marketing Benchmark Report found that over 67% of brands worry about affiliate fraud and about a third has been impacted by it, a fraud detection feature alone is more than enough reason to invest in this type of software.
It’s not only a case about preventing errors relating to calculation and fraud, but also to prevent you from sticking to a formula that simply doesn’t work. Grover highlights that software that includes A/B testing can also boost conversion rates of your campaigns.
What Is an Affiliate Marketing Platform?
An affiliate marketing platform is a vendor that facilitates all bases of affiliate program management. This can include:
- Onboarding
- Tracking
- Reporting sales and clicks
- Managing referrals
- Optimizing site traffic
- Paying commissions
Now, finding the perfect platform for your brand is half the battle. Here are some features that you should prioritize.
What to look for in an affiliate marketing software platform
User-friendly interface
An intuitive interface should accommodate not only you, but other types of affiliates, too. You want a dashboard that gives an overview of your campaigns and their progress. On the other hand, affiliates should be able to view their earnings and easily access shareable content. Additional points if the platform can enable all parties to customize their dashboard to match their brand.
CJ Affiliate is an example of a platform that doesn’t score high marks in terms of intuitiveness. Users have reported that its dashboard comes with a learning curve and can be complicated to figure out, especially if you’re new to affiliate marketing. FlexOffers, on the other hand, has a better designed dashboard.
SaaS integration
Integrating with eCommerce platforms like PayPal and Shopify is an important feature of affiliate marketing platforms. Find one that instantly sets up applications that you use. It’s ideal to have as many integrations as possible, though some platforms also allow users to create custom integrations.
The more integrations it offers, the better transparency you can expect. If it integrates with the tools currently in your MarTech stack, you’ll get a much more comprehensive picture, allowing you to make better informed decisions.
Reports and tracking
You want affiliate marketing software that tracks clicks and sales in real time. This would allow you to see which of your campaigns are doing well and which ones need improvement. Moreover, a software that gives you and your affiliates detailed and overview reports would help you plan future campaigns more efficiently.
Ideally, your tools should also make it easy for you to spot who your best affiliates are. In addition to measuring key metrics like sales and clicks, also try to find a tool that displays the purchase conversion rate of an affiliate’s traffic.
Customer support and documentation
Customer assistance should always be available across platforms for you and your affiliates. Consider customer support uptime, as well as customer ratings. Outside office hours, the ideal platform has a ticket system for emergency cases.
Tools that shine in this category include PartnerStack and FlexOffers. Both these include a dedicated partner program/affiliate manager.
Price
While features should still be your focus in finding an affiliate marketing platform, price should also play a role. Some software is great for smaller companies with a tight budget, while others can benefit from more complex programs with their advanced features.
While on the topic of money, also look for a platform that offers some degree of fraud protection. At the end of the day, you want to ensure your money is being applied wisely and fraud detection will give you more peace of mind that your marketing budget isn’t wasted on fake orders or spam traffic.
Why Should You Use Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing can be an effective, low-risk and low-cost marketing strategy for smaller online stores with limited marketing budgets. In short, the beauty of affiliate marketing is that it can help you to reach more potential customers faster without necessarily increasing your marketing spend. The only things you basically need to concentrate on are to create content, spread the word about your program, and manage your affiliates.
As virtually everything can be tracked, it also makes it easier to measure the ROI.
Depending on the software that you use, you can also concentrate on selling specific high-ticket items. This way, you can ask your affiliates to promote only a select few products in return for a higher commission. Alternatively, if there are certain items that have a low turnover rate, you can instead ask your network of affiliates to concentrate on these to help you get rid of excess stock.
Wrapping Things Up
By investing in any one of these tools, it becomes much easier to manage your affiliate program and affiliates. This will leave you with more time to focus on finding the right affiliates and creating captivating content.
That being said, take your time to research the different tools available. While we featured only 25 software solutions, there are many more that you can choose from. At the end of the day, the right tool should be able to create links and banner ads and take care of the admin tasks, at the very least.
All of the tools that we discussed offer either some form of free trial or demo. Take advantage of this before you make any financial commitments. Also, be sure to pay attention to online reputation. There are a number of review websites that you can check out before making your final decision.
And, if you’re not convinced about trying out affiliate marketing yet, consider this — more than 80% of brands are already using affiliate programs. What’s more, almost 40% of marketers agree that it’s one of the top marketing strategies for attracting new customers. As you only pay for actual results, there’s not a lot that you can lose by giving it a try at least.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which platform is best for affiliate marketing?
There are several top-rated affiliate marketing platforms. These include:
- Refersion
- iDevAffiliate
- LeadDyno
- Referral Rock
- Omnistar Affiliate
- Tapfiliate
- Post Affiliate Pro
- ReferralCandy
- Affiliatly
- Everflow.io
Are there any good free affiliate marketing software?
Yes, you can check out:
- UpPromote
- Trackdesk
- Reditus
Which is the best place to learn more about affiliate marketing?
There are several great affiliate marketing courses that you can sign up for. This means that from the comfort of your home, you can sharpen your skills. You can, for example, try:
- The Authority Site System by Authority Hacker
- The Affiliate Lab by Matt Diggity
- Affiliate Academy by Voluum
- Savage Affiliate by Franklin Hatchett
- Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing by Michelle Schroeder-Gardner
Can I do affiliate marketing on WhatsApp?
Yes, you can do affiliate marketing on WhatsApp. When you work in affiliate marketing, you will get commission depending on what product you sell. Once you choose the product to promote, you can start promoting on WhatsApp using your affiliate URL. You can share the link with your contacts and connected groups on WhatsApp.
What are the top tips and best practices for affiliate marketing?
To help you get started with or improve your affiliate marketing strategy, consider the following top advice:
- Grow your understanding of your target audience
- Disclose affiliate links
- Implement a multi-channel strategy
- Use KPIs to monitor your progress
- Repurpose/edit old content
- Write product comparisons
