A Marketer’s Dream Stack: Building the Ultimate Affiliate Tech Arsenal

Oleksandr Rohovnin

18 minutes read

Get ready! The extensive array of affiliate marketing tools is poised to elevate your status in the field – or, at the very least, provide a significant boost. Prepare to discover a pathway to unprecedented affiliate marketing revenues and unwavering stability.

Despite the potential profitability of a well-executed affiliate marketing campaign, only approximately 15% of affiliate marketers earn £50,000 or more annually from their efforts, with 57.55% not surpassing £10,000 – a far cry from anticipated outcomes.

So, why is this the case, given the widespread buzz surrounding affiliate marketing?

The answer lies in the fact that many marketers lack the appropriate affiliate marketing tools, trailing behind the rapid evolution of the market. Subpar affiliate marketing tech stacks result in less effective campaign management and, consequently, missed opportunities for profit. Meanwhile, the industry continues to gain momentum, with the global marketing automation software market projected to reach £5.4 billion by 2023.

The remedy?

Here’ the solution: to consistently outperform the competition in affiliate marketing, it’s imperative to utilise the most advanced affiliate marketing tools and continually update your toolkit with newly emerging options (fortunately, they surface quite frequently, so your quest won’t be futile).

What do we provide?

• Foundational knowledge of the finest affiliate marketing tools
• Access to a categorised catalogue of the leading affiliate marketing tools

We wish we could offer more to ensure your success, but ultimately, it’s up to you to carve out your unique path in the affiliate marketing sphere. Should you find yourself veering off course, fret not: we have an entire team of marketing professionals ready to support you, along with a plethora of affiliate marketing guides to steer you back on track.

What’s your role?

Two things. Firstly, read this blog in its entirety to acquire a theoretical foundation. Secondly, utilise our extensive array of affiliate marketing tools to identify the ones best suited to your needs.

With that said, it’s time to delve into the unknown, unraveling the intricacies of the best tools for affiliate marketing step by step, commencing with a concise summary of the field.

Affiliate Marketing in a Few Words

Just in case you’re unfamiliar with affiliate marketing, here’s a brief overview:

• Affiliate marketing is a business model in which affiliates (also known as publishers; though there are minor distinctions between the two, they are irrelevant for now) promote products of a third-party company (referred to as a merchant) in exchange for a commission.

The affiliate marketing process may or may not involve an intermediary known as an affiliate network, which facilitates a favourable marketplace for both parties. However, whether an affiliate network is involved or not, the fundamental principle of affiliate marketing remains consistent: advertisers purchase leads, affiliates generate and sell leads, and both parties converge at a mutually agreeable value-price point to finalise a transaction.

That’s essentially it – you promote products for financial gain. Period, end of storey!

In reality, however, matters are considerably more intricate. Affiliate marketers expend considerable effort to attain their objectives, intensifying the competition.

Why Utilise Affiliate Marketing Tools?

You require sophisticated affiliate marketing tools to stand a chance amidst the fierce competition. You must be capable of automating and enhancing every aspect possible to maintain cost-efficiency on the battlefield. Otherwise, how do you anticipate outpacing someone who performs the same tasks as you but quicker, more precisely, and… simply better?

• Affiliate marketing tools even the playing field. They are no longer a clandestine weapon conferring an unfair advantage but an essential requirement. Automated affiliate marketing tools are pivotal to your success in 2023.

And these encompass not only affiliate link trackers, though they are indispensable too. There exists a plethora of other affiliate marketing tools at your disposal for your campaigns, ranging from renowned platforms like the Google Marketing Platform and Google Ads to myriad specialised ad analyzers, landing page creators, content optimisers, and beyond.

The game is intricate, but you have already embarked on the journey of enhancement.

Here are the 12 most sought-after types of affiliate marketing tools:

• Ad intelligence tools
• Web design tools
• Content tools
• Paid media tools
• SEO tools
• AI tools
• WordPress plugins
• Landing page builders
• Plagiarism chequers
• Referral software
• URL shorteners
• Web analytics tools

Ensure you familiarise yourself with all the categories and proceed to the dedicated reviews for the affiliate marketing tool categories you wish to learn more about.

Now, it’s time to unlock the treasure trove for you, commencing with ad intelligence tools.

Ad Intelligence Tools for Affiliate Marketing

Let’s pull back the curtain on ad intelligence first:

• Ad intelligence furnishes insights into your competitors’ advertising campaigns across various dimensions. Consider SensorTower, for instance: this ad intelligence tool can furnish comprehensive insights into competitors’ mobile affiliate campaigns, detailing where ads are positioned and their effectiveness.

Some refer to ad intelligence tools as spy tools, but you needn’t concern yourself with that. Any licensed ad intelligence tool will refrain from crossing legal boundaries, ensuring you can safely analyse fellow affiliates and advertisers.

SensorTower

SensorTower stands out as a well-regarded ad intelligence tool for affiliate marketing, with a primary focus on the mobile app ecosystem. It facilitates a deeper understanding of competitor advertising strategies, providing insights into:

• The variety of ads utilised
• Advertisement placement
• Estimated expenditure on ads

In addition to offering ad intelligence insights, you can also analyse rival apps, keywords, creatives, and additional aspects.

AdScan

AdScan emerges as one of the freshest ad intelligence tools tailored for affiliate marketing, boasting the largest repository of YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook adverts currently in circulation across various markets, all readily searchable and traceable. Think of AdScan as akin to Facebook Ads library but with enhanced trackability from a paid perspective.

AdScan furnishes a wealth of invaluable ad intelligence data, encompassing transcripts and estimations of ad expenditure for each advertisement creative, an AI-powered analysis elucidating the strengths and weaknesses of specific ads, and the functionality to bookmark ads for future reference using the Chrome extension.

Here’s your definitive lineup of ad intelligence tools for attaining success in affiliate marketing.

Web Design Tools for Affiliate Marketing

Web design tools for affiliate marketing encompass an array of specialised and renowned website and landing page builders, image editing software, design utilities, CSS frameworks, plugins, heatmap tools, and other resources aimed at optimising your online presence.

• With a plethora of web design tools at your disposal, you can select the level of intricacy and optimisation for your website, ranging from robust content management systems such as Drupal, WordPress, and Joomla to user-friendly automated website and landing page builders.

The finest web design tools for affiliate marketing can aid in enhancing page loading speed, ensuring mobile responsiveness, and offering insights into integrating keywords for improved search engine rankings.

Adobe

Renowned in the design realm, Adobe stands as a prominent figure, offering an extensive array of products tailored for designers, including Adobe XD, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Illustrator, each boasting unique advantages:

• Adobe XD
  • Facilitates website and landing page design
  • Allows for testing CTA locations and customer journey
  • Ensures the appropriate design of affiliate offers

• Adobe Photoshop:
  • Enables the creation of affiliate banners, ads, and other visual content
  • Optimises image size to enhance website loading speed

• Adobe Illustrator:
  • Facilitates the design of branding elements such as logotypes and icons
  • Aids in crafting high-quality promotional graphics

With Adobe’s suite of tools, you can craft visually stunning websites, blogs, or landing pages that captivate your visitors, fostering higher engagement and conversion rates. Equally significant, you project a professional image, positioning yourself as an industry authority.

Wix

Bringing together a collection of over 800 designer-made templates, Wix empowers you to effortlessly drag and drop elements onto your website, tailoring it for both users and search engines. Moreover, you can craft bespoke landing pages for specific affiliate marketing campaigns, seamlessly integrating features such as payment gateways or shopping carts. This comprehensive platform also offers an SEO toolkit, web hosting services, and bespoke domain names.

Below is your definitive list of web design tools essential for achieving success in affiliate marketing.

Content Marketing Tools for Affiliate Marketing

Regardless of whether you utilise affiliate links, banners, or videos to attract customers, two elements are crucial for success: compelling content with a unique value proposition and the appropriate content marketing tools to expose your content to the target audience.

• Apart from social media, the primary channels for promoting business in affiliate marketing include blogs (27.8%), review sites (18.7%), coupon sites (14.8%), newsletters (7.2%), and editorial sites (6.5%).

Fortunately, most content marketing tools for affiliate marketing not only aid in promotion but also facilitate content creation and customisation. AI-driven writing assistants such as Grammarly rectify errors and ensure content originality, while comprehensive content marketing platforms like HubSpot assist in aligning content marketing strategies with other business avenues.

Canva

The largest web design platform in affiliate marketing, Canva offers a comprehensive suite for designing various website elements, excluding the website itself (Canva leans more towards being a graphic design tool rather than a website builder). With its extensive library containing hundreds of templates and elements, along with a drag-and-drop editor, you can assemble your design effortlessly in just a few clicks.

Here are some of the content types you can design using Canva:

• Infographics
• Social media graphics
• Guides and e-Books
• Banners and ads
• Print materials

Canva also operates a design school, providing a helpful starting point for web design endeavours.

BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo serves as an intelligence and content marketing tool, aiding in the discovery and analysis of trending topics, popular ideas, and niche influencers. Alongside competitor analysis and content discovery, you can configure alerts for specific domains or keywords to promptly respond to shifts and changes in the content market. Moreover, the Question Analyser feature helps identify the most prevalent questions posed on platforms such as Quora.

Utilising BuzzSumo can enhance your strategic positioning, guide content creation, and amplify the visibility and engagement of your content.

Below is your definitive list of content tools for achieving success in affiliate marketing.

Paid Media Tools for Affiliate Marketing

While organic exposure holds value, it often falls short in generating the desired attention for promoted products. Therefore, it’s essential to combine organic advertising tools like SEO with paid media tools for affiliate marketing.

From pay-per-click (PPC) ads to display ads to social media ads, paid media tools aid in expanding reach, boosting engagement, and increasing conversions, often resulting in revenues that surpass the costs of paid campaigns.

• Consider Facebook Ads Manager, an in-house tool for managing Facebook and Instagram ads, as an example. It facilitates targeting, attracting similar audiences, retargeting website visitors, and implementing bidding strategies to maximise the efficiency of paid ad campaigns.

Alternatively, standalone tools like Acquisio leverage AI technologies such as machine learning to enhance the effectiveness of paid media campaigns. The options are vast and varied.

Google Ads

Google’s online paid media advertising platform, Google Ads, offers premier advertising opportunities across its search engine, YouTube, partner websites, and more. Utilising Google Ads allows you to engage with the broadest audience using your most impactful ads, be it search ads, display ads, shopping ads, video ads, or other supported ad formats.

Among its features, you can utilise:

• Keyword Planner to comprehend the impact of specific keywords on your ads
• Conversion tracking tools to trace the customer journey

Google Ads operates by bidding on audiences and keywords to activate ad displays.

Below is your definitive list of paid media tools for achieving success in affiliate marketing.

SEO Tools for Affiliate Marketing

SEO tools for affiliate marketing play a vital role in attracting organic traffic, enhancing website visibility, and ensuring your content reaches the appropriate audience at the optimal time. Additionally, SEO tools aid in refining your website structure, backlinking strategies, and local targeting efforts.

SEMrush

SEMrush presents itself as another versatile affiliate marketing tool that provides SEO insights alongside social media marketing capabilities. On the SEO front, SEMrush covers a wide spectrum of optimisation tasks, offering services such as keyword research, competitor analysis, local and on-page SEO, as well as link building tools and more.

Here’s your definitive list of SEO tools for achieving success in affiliate marketing.

AI Tools for Affiliate Marketing

Artificial intelligence tools for affiliate marketing offer remarkable efficiency, performing tasks at speeds and levels of precision beyond human capability. Even free AI tools for affiliate marketing can generate text and visual content, make data-driven predictions, interact with referrals, and automate and optimise marketing efforts across various channels.

Here’s your comprehensive guide to utilising AI for affiliate and performance marketing.

According to Statista, marketing professionals widely employ AI to enhance customer experience by predicting customer behaviour and needs (60%), identifying common customer journeys (47%), enhancing omnichannel messaging (45%), and numerous other purposes.

ChatGPT

As a pinnacle of deep learning technology, ChatGPT can assist with content creation, customer support, market research, and language translation. Accessible through integration with your chatbot or standalone at https://chat.openai.com/, this record-breaking assistant is utilised by nearly 1.5 billion individuals monthly. Evolving from GPT-3.5 to GPT-4, it offers unparalleled capabilities.

Here’s your definitive list of AI tools for affiliate marketing success.

WordPress Plugins for Affiliate Marketing

Powering 43% of all existing websites, WordPress can achieve even greater heights when augmented with plugins. Among WordPress’s most crucial affiliate marketing tools are plugins, which enable you to enhance your affiliate links, automatically embed them into keywords, and monitor and analyse clicks, among other functionalities.

Pretty Links

One of the finest affiliate marketing plugins available for WordPress, Pretty Links lives up to its name by shortening affiliate links to make them more enticing to click. Additionally, Pretty Links offers the functionality to customise URL slugs and provides link tracking and reporting features.

This plugin comprehensively handles links and URLs, enhancing their contribution to your affiliate success. Notable features include toggling no-follow attributes, link redirection, automatic keyword substitution, scheduled link expiry, and more.

Here’s your definitive list of WordPress plugins to ensure success in affiliate marketing.

Landing Page Builders for Affiliate Marketing

Landing page builders tailored for affiliate marketing focus on merging user-friendliness with desired levels of features and customisation for your website. A diverse array of builders is available, ranging from straightforward drag-and-drop editors to sophisticated CRM platforms like HubSpot, empowering users to create landing pages, blogs, and websites without necessitating technical expertise.

Unbounce

Unbounce stands out as a haven for creating landing pages, offering an extensive selection of optimised templates, an intuitive drag-and-drop builder, and a plethora of useful features such as dynamic text replacement, lead form creation, pop-ups, and more. To gain a comprehensive understanding of Unbounce metrics, you can seamlessly integrate it with Google Analytics and similar tools.

HubSpot

HubSpot, a titan in the realm of online marketing, doubles as an exceptional landing page builder for affiliate marketing. It boasts drag-and-drop templates, customisable landing pages, blogging tools, and beyond.

HubSpot is really a platform to cover your marketing from A to Z. Even the free plan includes tools for email marketing, forms, landing pages, blogs, and live chat.

Here’s your definitive list of the finest landing page builders to ensure triumph in affiliate marketing.

Plagiarism Chequers for Affiliate Marketing

Plagiarised content not only lacks engagement but also suffers in search engine rankings. Plagiarism chequers for affiliate marketing guarantee the ethicality of your content and ensure your writers invest genuine effort. With plagiarism chequers like Grammarly, you can swiftly scan your content, identifying potential sources of plagiarism within seconds.

Grammarly

Fuelled by NLP technology, Grammarly emerges as a premier writing assistant for detecting typos and rectifying grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors, especially if you lack the finesse of a professional wordsmith. Grammarly proves invaluable when scrutinising copious amounts of content while ensuring its authenticity.

Grammarly boasts compatibility with nearly every device and platform. As a browser extension, it can serve as your steadfast writing companion in day-to-day correspondence, encompassing emails and chat messages.

Here’s your definitive list of plagiarism chequers for achieving success in affiliate marketing.

Referral Software for Affiliate Marketing

Referral software for affiliate marketing finds more utility among advertisers and affiliate networks rather than individual affiliates, streamlining affiliate management and consolidating operations to provide a comprehensive overview of your affiliate marketing strategies.

Referral software encompasses various functionalities, aiding in the administration of affiliate programmes, tracking affiliate links, disbursing payouts, tailoring payout structures, onboarding affiliates, managing cookies, and detecting fraud.

Speaking of affiliate marketing fraud, here’s a quiz to assess your proficiency in preventing marketing fraud.

ReferralCandy

ReferralCandy presents itself as a tool for affiliate marketing, encouraging users to invite referrals to your products, thereby facilitating word-of-mouth marketing for advertisers and creating an additional income channel for affiliates. The entire referral process is automated, from sending invitations to issuing rewards.

Here’s your definitive list of referral software for achieving success in affiliate marketing.

URL Shorteners for Affiliate Marketing

Short and descriptive URLs not only enhance visual appeal but also convey valuable information about the content. URL shorteners for affiliate marketing serve to streamline your URLs while incorporating relevant keywords to attract more clicks.

Bitly

Bitly, primarily focused on shortening URLs, also offers the option to create branded URLs like “yourbrandname.link/xyz” and customise URL slugs, enhancing the professionalism and informativeness of your URLs. The service provides comprehensive analysis for every shortened link, including click data, geographical location, and the device used by the clicker.

Here’s your definitive list of URL shorteners for achieving success in affiliate marketing.

Web Analytics Tools for Affiliate Marketing

Web analytics tools for affiliate marketing serve as the primary source of insights, offering the potential to unlock every aspect of website traffic and customer activity data. From monitoring traffic sources to analysing user behaviour to conducting A/B tests, web analytics tools play a crucial role in every facet of affiliate marketing.

Google Marketing Platform

Google Marketing Platform brings together a range of proprietary marketing and analytic products, catering to the needs of both affiliates and advertisers. With Google Analytics, a component of the Google Marketing Platform, you can delve into the complete on-site journey and every touchpoint of a specific customer, from their path to conversion to their interactions before leaving the site.

Here’s your definitive list of web analytics tools for achieving success in affiliate marketing.

Acquire Your Comprehensive Affiliate Marketing Toolkit at Phonexa

Phonexa provides affiliate marketers with precisely what they need – a comprehensive suite of affiliate marketing software that consolidates diverse campaigns into a single dashboard, seamlessly connecting clicks, calls, and revenue. With eight proprietary marketing solutions, Phonexa ensures that every customer journey is tracked from start to finish.

Secure your affiliate marketing software suite now, or book a demo to learn more about how Phonexa can supercharge your business.

Frequently Asked Questions

What affiliate marketing tools make up a winning marketing stack?

The ideal set of tools for affiliate marketing varies depending on whether you’re an affiliate, advertiser, or part of an affiliate network.

Affiliates may access affiliate marketing tracking tools offered by their partner advertisers or affiliate networks. Additionally, affiliate networks might supply creatives such as ads, landing pages, and visuals to enhance performance and increase commissions.

However, it’s often more dependable to handle things independently rather than relying on third parties.

Consider the following affiliate marketing tools to enhance your strategy:

• Ad intelligence
• Web design tools
• Content marketing tools
• Paid media tools
• SEO tools
• AI tools
• WordPress marketing plugins
• Landing page builders
• Plagiarism and AI content chequers
• Referral marketing software
• URL shorteners
• Web analytics tools

Certain platforms incorporate most of these features within their ecosystems. For instance, Phonexa combines click tracking software Lynx with seven other performance marketing tools, providing comprehensive marketing solutions from a single intuitive dashboard.