3 Best Affiliate Tracking and Management Software for WordPress

Last updated Jul 10, 2019

Affiliate marketing is a proven way to increase awareness about your business and products. This is why most large businesses like Amazon, eBay, Hilton, etc have made it an integral part of their marketing strategy. With the growth of eCommerce sites powered by WordPress, several of our users have asked for our recommendations on the best affiliate tracking softwares. In this article, we will compare the 3 best affiliate tracking and management software for WordPress and highlight their pros and cons.

Why Add an Affiliate Program to Your Business?

Affiliate programs allows you to instantly build a sales army and increase your exposure. The best part about it is that you only pay affiliates when they make a sale. In other words, affiliates are sales guys who work without a base salary and only get compensated when they make a sale.

If you’re thinking of adding an affiliate program to your WordPress eCommerce store, then you’re in the right place. Below are the best affiliate management solutions for WordPress.

1. ShareASale

ShareASale is one of the most popular affiliate network on the web. It offers easy to implement affiliate management solutions with access to its vast network of affiliate marketers. They have been in business for 13 years and have faciliated over 8 million merchant/affiliate relationships. We use ShareASale for our family of products such as OptinMonster.

Pros

The software is hosted on ShareASale server so you don’t need to worry about managing or updating it.
ShareASale takes care of tracking and sending payments to each affiliate which is a big time saver
You get access to the large network of affiliate marketers on ShareASale.
No monthly recurring fee, and you only pay a small percentage when an affiliate makes a sale.
Some other features of ShareASale are real time tracking, segmentation of top performers, connecting multiple sites into one account.

Cons

Terrible User Interface – You do get used to of it, but at first sight it’s not pretty.
There is a one-time setup fee of $550
$25 monthly minimum must be met after 120 day grace period. We have never had issue meeting this after the 120 day grace period.

In our experience as a merchant, ShareASale has been awesome. The amount of time it saves us by automatically paying out affiliates and managing/tracking affiliate sales properly, it’s totally worth the one-time setup fee.

There are ShareASale integrations available for both WooCommerce and EasyDigitalDownloads.

2. AffiliateWP

AffiliateWP is an affiliate tracking and management software that is actually built as a WordPress plugin. It is developed by Pippin Williamson and Andrew Munro, the folks behind Easy Digital Downloads. It beats other solutions in terms of cost-effectiveness and the control it offers over your affiliate program.

Pros

One-time purchase entitles you for a year of support and updates. License plans start from $49.
You run your own affiliate program on your own site and build your own network.
Complete integration with Easy Digital Downloads, WooCommerce, iThemes Exchange, and other popular WordPress eCommerce plugins.
Real time reporting for you and your affiliates.
See your top performing affiliates and build lasting partnerships without paying hefty fees.

Cons

You manage everything including plugin updates, ensure tracking is done properly, etc.
You have to handle payouts every month manually. Currently there is no mass pay option either, so you will be paying each person individually although that addon is “coming soon”.
No third-party experts tracking affiliate fraud.
You don’t have access to an existing network of affiliates, which means you will have to bring affiliates to sign up for your program.

AffiliateWP is a new system in the market and is being used by other WordPress plugin developers to sell their products. This is a great solution for those who’re looking to build a small group of hand-picked affiliates. The best part about AffiliateWP is the cost because it’s a one-time fee compared to the other two options in this article.

3. Impact Radius

Impact Radius offers an affiliate marketing solution where you pay only for the affiliates you work with and not the network fees. This significantly reduces the cost as you pay only for the platform and the number of affiliates you work with. ImpactRadius is started by the co-founders of Commission Junction.

Pros

Provides better analytics and insights into your marketing campaign.
You see exactly who is bringing you more sales and develop strategic partnerships accordingly.
Great user-interface
Other features include mobile tracking, SEO friendly URLs, coupon tracking, integration with Salesforce and other CRM platforms.

Cons

Monthly recurring fee, but you don’t pay the network fee for each affiliate that you bring which can be a perk for larger programs
A smaller network of affiliate marketers.

Conclusion:

You need to choose a solution based on your own budget and requirements. If you can pay the one time setup fee, then ShareASale is the way to go. You will be joining a network of thousands of affiliate marketers, which will make it easier for you to get started.

AffiliateWP is the least expensive solution, but you pay for that with time spent on updating the plugin and managing individual affiliate payouts every month.

Impact Radius offers monthly subscription plans based on the affiliates you work with. They also offer better insights and tracking than others. It’s a great solution for businesses that pay a larger payout because you avoid the network fees on each transaction.

We hope this article helped you find the best affiliate tracking software for your WordPress site.

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