Using affiliate marketing software is an effective way to create a successful affiliate marketing strategy. The platform you use will help you with several crucial tasks to get your affiliate program started efficiently, such as creating custom links, tracking commissions, and paying affiliates. Essentially, these tools will help your business advertise its products through an affiliate in exchange for a commission.
In this article, I outlined some of the best affiliate marketing software, including general overviews, best user cases, key features, integration options. and pricing information.
Best Affiliate Marketing Software Shortlist
Here’s the shortlist of the best tools that I’ll cover in this article.
- Tapfiliate - Best for ecommerce platforms
- Squaredance - Best for connecting with affiliates
- Refersion - Best for monitoring affiliate campaigns
- Impact.com - Best for automating affiliate campaigns
- PartnerStack - Best for B2B SaaS companies
- LeadDyno - Best for accurately tracking campaigns
- Affise - Best for end-to-end campaign management
- CAKE - Best partner monitoring tools
- Awin - Best for launching global affiliate campaigns
- EverFlow - Best pre-built integrations
What is Affiliate Marketing Software?
Affiliate marketing enables businesses to partner with various external parties, such as publishers, bloggers, and influencers, to promote products to their audiences. Affiliate marketing software can help your teams manage your company’s affiliate program. The platform you use will automate and centralize the end-to-end operations of your affiliate marketing campaign. You can also use this tool to track your campaign’s success, so you’ll always know if you’re heading toward your goals.
Overviews of the 10 Best Affiliate Marketing Software
You can use the simple overviews of each tool below to understand how each tool stands out from other affiliate marketing software.
1. Tapfiliate - Best for ecommerce platforms
Tapfiliate integrates with the top 4 ecommerce platforms to create custom affiliate programs.
Why I picked Tapfiliate: The platform is suitable for businesses that operate and generate revenue on the top 4 ecommerce platforms: Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Adobe Commerce (Magento). Tapfiliate is cloud-based and fully customizable and allows you to create, track, and optimize your affiliate campaign management. Integrating the tool into your ecommerce platform is quick, meaning you can get started with your new affiliate marketing programs immediately after set up.
Tapfiliate works well for any sized business that needs an affiliate marketing tool that can easily integrate with their company. Thanks to the platform’s pre-formatted code, you can use the software to quickly integrate it on any site. Tapfiliate promises complete brand control with personal promoter links and sign-up pages. Also, you can manage your brand materials and promotions within the software.
Tapfiliate Standout Features and Integrations
Features include personal affiliate links and coupon codes, brandable affiliate and referral links, shareable social media post designer, branded affiliate dashboards, custom payout methods, affiliate partner network, and recurring or lifetime commission options.
Integrations include Stripe, Chargebee, Mailchimp, Ecwid, WordPress, Slack, Lightspeed POS, Evernote, Shopify, Zapier, Wix, Wufoo, BigCommerce, Tradetron, Squarespace, and WooCommerce.
Tapfiliate costs from $89/month when paid monthly or $890 for the entire year. They offer a free 14-day trial for new subscribers.
Pros
- Easy to use.
- Intuitive and user-friendly.
- Excellent customer support team.
Cons
- No communication with affiliate capabilities.
- API updates break integrations.
2. Squaredance - Best for connecting with affiliates
Squaredance enables businesses to match with relevant media experts to help find new affiliates for their brand.
Why I picked Squaredance: You can use the platform to work directly with the top, relevant affiliate partners to create effective campaigns. Squaredance can intelligently match your brand with partners that align with your business goals. The tool will provide you with affiliate partner bios, which gives full transparency regarding the partner’s capabilities and previous performance.
Squaredance is an excellent option for small and medium businesses looking for more success with their affiliate marketing campaigns, regardless of their budget. You will always have access to your most crucial metrics to help you make the best data-driven decisions. Squaredance also enables you to eliminate any campaign bottlenecks and communicate directly with your partners.
Squaredance Standout Features and Integrations
Features include affiliate partner management, affiliate performance tracking, campaign testing, performance data, ad-approval tools, content management, and real-time reporting.
Integrations include Shopify, Tapjoy, Amazon, Taboola, and Outbrain.
Squaredance charges a 15% fee for sales made from partners. Squaredance is free to sign up for.
Pros
- Cost-effective.
- Easy to use.
- Excellent customer support.
Cons
- Not many integrations are available.
3. Refersion - Best for monitoring affiliate campaigns
Refersion is an affiliate tracking platform that helps businesses monitor affiliate marketing campaigns in one platform.
Why I picked Refersion: The software is one of the leading affiliate marketing platforms on the market for monitoring campaigns. Refersion provides a robust and customizable dashboard that enables your business to manage every aspect of your affiliate program, such as monitoring all affiliate activity. You can also use the tool’s extensive real-time reporting capabilities to monitor your affiliate partners’ performance.
Refersion is an all-in-one affiliate marketing software that works well for any business wanting to promote its ecommerce brand or SaaS software. It can provide your business with the best fraud detection and security features. If you need help finding affiliate partners for your brand, Refersion can help your business become discoverable by listing your program on their marketplace for free.
Refersion Standout Features and Integrations
Features include affiliate discovery and outreach, affiliate network, campaign management, affiliate support tools, custom campaigns, KPI tracking, affiliate onboarding, advanced commission calculations, and payment schedule.
Integrations include Stripe, Upfluence, Mailchimp, Exercise.com, Shopify, Zapier, PayPal, Klaviyo, Wufoo, Magento, Gatsby, Bold Commerce, and BigCommerce.
Refersion costs from $99/month. Refersion offers a free 14-day trial for new subscribers.
Pros
- Easy to create personalized URLs.
- Highly organized dashboard.
- Straightforward affiliate tracking.
Cons
- It can be glitchy.
- Few reporting options.
4. Impact.com - Best for automating affiliate campaigns
Impact.com provides comprehensive automation capabilities to make your affiliate programs more efficient.
Why I picked Impact.com: This tool will help your business make managing your affiliate campaigns and partner relationships easier. Impact.com can automate everything for your organization’s campaigns, including tracking, nurturing, and engaging with your customers after their purchase. When using the software, you can manage multiple partnerships with its customized solutions you can adjust based on your requirements.
Impact.com is suitable for small and medium businesses that need a platform to help them manage a complex partnership environment. It provides straightforward workflows that will make it simple for your business to recruit, onboard, and manage all partnerships effectively. Impact.com offers brands instant access to performance metrics and actionable insights to optimize their affiliate campaigns.
Impact.com Standout Features and Integrations
Features include fraud protection, branded interface, cross-device tracking, commission management, and affiliate tracking.
Integrations include Shopify, Hubspot, and BigCommerce.
Impact.com offers custom pricing upon request and a free demo.
Pros
- Excellent partnership development capabilities.
- Provides simple access to partners.
- Superior reporting capabilities.
Cons
- Sometimes crashes when extracting reports.
- Locks businesses into annual agreements.
5. PartnerStack - Best for B2B SaaS companies
PartnerStack helps B2B SaaS organizations automate the most complex aspects of launching and scaling partnerships.
Why I picked PartnerStack: The platform is an excellent solution that enables B2B SaaS organizations to grow partnerships. PartnerStack will help your business recruit various types of partners with audiences looking for the latest in SaaS products. These partners include affiliates, influencers, resellers, and other vital individuals. PartnerStack will automate the recruitment process and reward your partners automatically for the conversions they generate.
PartnerStack works best for mid-sized businesses and larger enterprises that need more predictable revenue and growth from external parties. The platform will list your program in its marketplace that’s accessible to thousands of potential partners. You can also customize the onboarding process and make it unique for each new partner you recruit to your campaign.
PartnerStack Standout Features and Integrations
Features include customized onboarding, partner incentives, automated payment schedules, advanced analytics, bulk messaging, marketing asset management, coupon codes, and social sharing.
Integrations include Pipedrive, Recurly, Stripe, Salesforce, Chargebee, Hubspot CRM, Shopify, Zapier, PayPal, Squarespace, ClickFunnels, Shift, and WooCommerce.
PartnerStack offers custom pricing upon request. PartnerStack provides a free demo.
Pros
- Simplifies B2B relationship building.
- Supportive customer service team.
- Quickly processes affiliate payments.
Cons
- Navigating the platform is complex.
- Sometimes doesn’t show real-time data.
6. LeadDyno - Best for accurately tracking campaigns
LeadDyno helps businesses accurately track leads, visitors, and sales resulting from an affiliate’s work.
Why I picked LeadDyno: This tool allows organizations to track and control their affiliate programs accurately. You can track your affiliate campaigns’ performance through links, custom websites, and coupon codes. LeadDyno enables you to quickly set up your campaigns and get access to robust features, such as detailed reporting tools.
LeadDyno works well for any sized business looking to launch and grow an affiliate program to increase sales. The tool provides an affiliate portal that you can customize to fit your brand. Here you can upload marketing materials that are accessible to your affiliate partners. LeadDyno also helps you send newsletters and create new incentives to send to your affiliates.
LeadDyno Standout Features and Integrations
Features include affiliate recruitment, lead management, affiliate website, affiliate management, marketing campaign tracking, commissions and payouts, marketing automation, data visualization, and conversion tracking.
Integrations include Stripe, Recurly, Ecwid, Desktop.com, Mailchimp, WordPress, Slack, Hubspot CRM, Shopify, Zoho CRM, Wix, Aweber, Squarespace, Klaviyo, and Keap.
LeadDyno costs from $49/month. LeadDyno offers a free 30-day trial for new subscribers.
Pros
- Reactive customer support team.
- Transparent affiliate dashboard.
- Simple affiliate campaign configuration.
Cons
- Long learning curve.
- The user interface is outdated.
7. Affise - Best for end-to-end campaign management
Affise provides end-to-end affiliate management capabilities to enable businesses to utilize partner marketing.
Why I picked Affise: The software allows you to manage your affiliate program from end to end in one centralized location. Affise helps you see which affiliate is converting visitors into new customers, what they’re buying, how much they’re spending, and other crucial data. The platform has a built-in CRM tool that helps you track and manage your affiliate partners, so you can see how they’re doing and follow up with them when necessary.
Affise is more suitable for larger enterprises that need to simplify their partnerships with influencers, publishers, and affiliates. The software offers two affiliate management tools, one for performance marketing and the other for recruiting new partners and influencers. Affise ensures complete transparency and reliable user data while reducing your marketing efforts and driving revenue.
Affise Standout Features and Integrations
Features include performance marketing fraud, tracking and attribution capabilities, analytics and reporting tools, bulk actions and links checkers, notification systems, and campaign controller rules.
Integrations include TrafficGuard, JustControl.it, Billoid, IPQualityScore, FraudScore, AdopSolutions, Google Cloud, Forensiq, Affbank, and AffiliTest.
Affise costs from $500/month. Affise offers a free 15-day demo trial for the Affise Reach tool.
Pros
- Monitors an enormous amount of data.
- Easy for new users.
- Simple and effective user interface.
Cons
- Can be slow when updating.
- The tool is expensive.
8. CAKE - Best partner monitoring tools
CAKE manages and measures your affiliate partners’ performance to help you optimize campaigns for the highest profitability.
Why I picked CAKE: The platform provides you with powerful performance tools that will give you clarity regarding your affiliate marketing campaigns. You can use custom parameters, such as device, traffic caps, and redirects, to accurately monitor partner performance in real-time to get up-to-date information. CAKE will empower your business with the insights needed to make smarter marketing decisions.
CAKE helps any sized business increase its customer base and engage with them effectively. You can immediately act on fraud with the tool’s pixel whitelisting and custom alerts that will recognize abnormal campaign behaviors. CAKE’s uptime guarantees can also meet your organization’s needs when scaling.
CAKE Standout Features and Integrations
Features include accurate data measurement, affiliate relationship management, real-time insights, customizable alerts, granular data, custom commission structures, uptime guarantees, and 24/7 support.
Integrations include CallTrackingMetrics, Quickbooks, Marketo, Offer18, 7shifts, Publisher Discovery, AnyTrack, Contact Cloud, Anura.io, Retreaver, Trackier, IPQualityScore, and Pushnami.
CAKE offers custom pricing upon request. They also provide a free demo.
Pros
- Easy to use.
- Very intuitive.
- Responsive support team.
Cons
- Some functions are only through API.
- Alerts need improvement.
9. Awin - Best for launching global affiliate campaigns
Awin is a global affiliate marketing network platform empowering your business to grow worldwide.
Why I picked Awin: The platform’s network can connect your affiliate marketing campaign to over 241,000 active partners around the globe. This will enable your business to create profitable partnerships and increase its consumer reach. Awin operates across 17 markets with experts who work in each market.
Awin is an excellent option for small and medium businesses ready for significant growth by connecting with new customers worldwide. The platform offers dedicated publisher management features that provide expertise in travel, retail, mass media, and technology sectors. Awin offers technical and business intelligence teams to help ensure your affiliate programs operate efficiently.
Awin Standout Features and Integrations
Features include account management, campaign coordination, data reporting tools, campaign monitoring, affiliate tracking, and publisher rewarding tools.
Integrations include White Label Loyalty, Windsor.ai, AnyTrack, Trackonomics, Skimlinks, Blotout, Gravity Data, Meltano, TrackAd, FuseCommander, Remarkable Commerce, and SegmentStream.
Awin offers custom pricing upon request.
Pros
- Reliable dashboard features.
- Easy to use tools.
- Simple to locate new publishers.
Cons
- No transaction filtering.
- Some functions are restrictive.
10. EverFlow - Best pre-built integrations
EverFlow helps businesses connect all data sources into one central platform that will automate tedious affiliate marketing processes.
Why I picked EverFlow: The platform’s integration capabilities allow your business to automate various processes throughout your affiliate marketing campaign. For example, EverFlow can use its built-in SmartSwitch integration to set rules and automatically optimize your campaign. Integrations like this will ensure your teams can focus on more meaningful tasks and your business doesn’t receive traffic from low-quality sources.
EverFlow works best for larger enterprises that require advanced affiliate marketing capabilities that will help them take control of every aspect. EverFlow allows you and your teams to get deep insights regarding every partnership and marketing channel that drives performance. You can use the software to understand what delivers the most ROI and what placements you should block.
EverFlow Standout Features and Integrations
Features include affiliate tracking, banner management, fraud detection, commission management, email communication, email marketing, and engagement monitoring.
Integrations include SendGrid, DocuSign, Quickbooks, Shopify, PayPal, ClickFunnels, Publisher Discovery, Bold Commerce, BigCommerce, Billoid, sticky.io, ReCharge, and Anura.io.
EverFlow costs from $750/month. EverFlow provides a live demo.
Pros
- Robust feature set.
- Consistent and reliable tracking.
- Helpful customer support.
Cons
- It can be slow.
- Reporting features are complex.
Other Options
Here are a few more options that didn’t make the best affiliate marketing software list:
- OSI Affiliate - Best for beginners
- Post Affiliate Pro - Best affiliate marketing toolset
- ShareASale - Best for establishing new affiliate programs.
- Commission Junction (CJ Affiliate) - Best for data-driven campaigns.
- Rakuten Marketing - Best artificial intelligence and consumer insights.
- AvantLink - Best for multi-channel analytics.
- Partnerize - Best for partnership automation.
- FlexOffers - Best for multiple affiliate strategy options.
- Clickbank - Best for connecting with elite marketers.
- LinkConnector - Best ground-breaking affiliate marketing technologies.
- TradeDoubler - Best for accessing larger advertisers’ networks.
- TUNE - Best for building custom partner networks.
How I Selected the Best Affiliate Marketing Software
Perhaps you’re wondering how I selected the best affiliate marketing software for this list? To build this top 10 list, I evaluated and compared a wide range of affiliate marketing software with positive user ratings.
After determining my long list of top choices, I further honed my list by using the selection criteria below to see how each platform stacked up against the next one. I also drew on my years of marketing experience to pinpoint the features that add a lot of value.
Selection Criteria
Here’s a short summary of the main selection and evaluation criteria I used to develop my list of the best affiliate marketing software for this article:
User Interface (UI):
The affiliate marketing platform’s user interface is essential to helping your business locate the features you need when signing up new affiliates or calculating commission payouts. Finding the features or data you need shouldn’t take more than a few clicks. I look for platforms with a UI that’s simple to navigate and won’t require much time to learn for new team members.
Usability:
No matter what stage of your affiliate marketing journey you’re in, the tool you use should make things as easy as possible for your business. I look for software that is simple to set up and doesn’t require additional tools or plug-ins to work. Also, if you’re operating multiple campaigns, the work you need to perform shouldn’t be more complex.
Customer Service:
Ensuring your software runs efficiently is crucial. Your business likely can’t afford any platform downtimes due to technical glitches that result in lost profits for that period. I look for tools that provide excellent support systems, either through phone, email, or live chat, to resolve any downtime as soon as possible.
Software Integrations:
Your business is likely using other systems to operate it efficiently. The affiliate marketing software you decide to use should provide ways to integrate with what your company already uses. I look for tools that offer native integrations you can access after subscribing or an API you or your team members with coding expertise can use to create custom system connections.
Pricing:
The affiliate marketing software you’re considering for your organization should provide transparent pricing on its website. Also, there should be different pricing levels to match your business’s needs and requirements. I look for platform vendors that give potential customers all the pricing information they need to make a quick decision.
People Also Ask
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Other Types of Marketing Software
Now that you have a good idea of your business’s best affiliate marketing software, it’s time to start growing. Here are some other excellent marketing software lists you should use to help promote your company:
- Marketing Strategy Software
- Email Marketing Software
- Brand Management Software
- Small Business Marketing Software
- Social Media Management Software
- Marketing Management Software
- Employee Advocacy Software
- B2B Marketing Software
- Brand advocacy software
The Takeaway
Excellent affiliate marketing software will enable your brand to launch affiliate campaigns and monitor referrals and sales from your partners. Using any of the tools I mentioned in this list reveals how valuable a well-performing affiliate marketing campaign is. After implementing these platforms, your business will see a significant increase in its customer base.
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