What are the best tools and software for affiliate marketing?

4 min read

alexandre-lemoine

Monetizing your website through affiliate marketing can sometimes be a challenge. Indeed, many elements must be considered (platforms, content, performance tracking, audience acceptance, etc.), which can easily lead to confusion. At Affilizz, our motto is simplification. This article aims to provide an overview of the essential tools for optimizing your affiliate marketing.

Affiliate platforms: essential for creating affiliate content

To get started in affiliate marketing, it's crucial to find programs on the various affiliate platforms available. These platforms allow you to create affiliate links, display ads, track performance, and collect earnings. In short, they are the central hub of affiliate programs (with the exception of Amazon and a few others, which have their own programs). Here are the main platforms available on the French market:

Awin : Probably the largest affiliate platform, Awin offers many major programs such as Cdiscount, Fnac, Lidl, Sephora, Rue du Commerce, Nike… If you want access to the most complete catalog on the market, Awin is essential.
Kwanko : Another major platform in the market, Kwanko is very complementary to Awin. Although it may offer fewer programs, these remain just as important, with partners such as Micromania, Canal Plus, Intersport, Orchestra, and FDJ.
Affilae : A French affiliate platform, Affilae also offers major programs such as La Redoute, Cultura, Conforama, SonVidéo, JouéClub… Constantly growing, Affilae sometimes offers an interesting revenue sharing: it is not always necessary to be the last click to receive a commission.
Effiliation : Another French platform among the oldest on the market, Effiliation offers essential programs such as Boulanger, Carrefour, Nocibé, Maisons du Monde, Norauto, Oscaro, Vertbaudet.

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With these four affiliate platforms, you have a solid foundation for creating varied and relevant affiliate content for your audience. We could have mentioned many others such as Rakuten Advertising, CJ, Impact, Webgains… However, registration is done gradually, depending on your needs.

Finally, be aware that programs open and close daily on these platforms: today's reality may not be tomorrow's. It is therefore crucial to monitor the programs on each platform daily (re-register, update any saved links, and restart performance tracking).

💡Registering with Affilizz gives you access to over 1,500 affiliate programs without having to register individually on each platform. This means you don't need to track transfers or update your affiliate content one by one—everything is automated. For example, when the Conforama program was recently transferred from Awin to Affilae, we handled the registration on the new platform and then integrated the program to make it accessible to our partner publishers. They simply had to wait for the transfer to complete.

What are the best tools for creating affiliate content?

In addition to the tools needed to manage your affiliate marketing, it's essential to have effective content creation solutions. To help you find the best tools available online, we've compiled a selection.

WordPress: essential for creating a website

We'll start with the most widely used CMS on the website creation market: WordPress. This CMS powers slightly more than half of the world's websites (approximately 43% by 2024 , to be precise). WordPress owes its success to its high accessibility and ease of use. In fact, most web hosting providers offer automatic WordPress installation when you sign up for a hosting plan, demonstrating the importance of this CMS for creating online content.

WordPress allows you to create a wide variety of sites: blogs (its initial purpose), showcase sites, communities, e-commerce… Whatever your web project, WordPress can meet it thanks to the hundreds of thousands of extensions available, including Affilizz , which allows you to import your affiliate program in just a few clicks.

The other CMS

Although WordPress is the global leader, there are many other CMSs. Here is a list of the most popular on the market according to Appvizer :

Drupal
HubSpot CMS
Joomla!
Orson
Shopify
Squarespace
Webflow
Wix

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The selection is vast and varied. If you don't want to use WordPress, exploring these alternative CMSs can be very worthwhile. For example, Shopify is known for its ease of use for e-commerce sites, while Wix is ideal for blogging. Although it's difficult to list all the CMSs, our advice is to try WordPress, which, after a short learning curve, proves to be very powerful. Otherwise, you can test the alternative CMSs to find the one that suits you best. Free offers and trials are often available, so take advantage of them!

Social networks

Content creation and affiliate marketing aren't limited to a website. Social media management tools are an excellent alternative. Indeed, social networks can be powerful drivers of audience growth for a website, but they can also operate independently . Having a 100% social media content creation strategy is perfectly viable.

The first instinct when doing affiliate marketing on social media is usually to connect directly to the network and publish content. However, this method can be time-consuming if you're using multiple platforms (Instagram, X, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.). Choosing a social media content management tool is therefore a good idea. Here are the most popular ones according to HubSpot :

Marketing Hub (comprehensive and available in French, ideal for marketing)
Hootsuite (collaborative, easy to access, and available in French)
Buffer (among the simplest on the market, ergonomic)
Metricool (visual synthesis, competitive intelligence)
Sendible (multiple integrations, keyword monitoring, mobile application)

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These tools allow you to manage all your social networks on a single interface, saving you valuable time and offering unparalleled ease of action.

What tools are available to help with writing affiliate content?

The quality of the content you produce is essential, but quantity is just as important for improving your website's SEO or your social media visibility. For this reason, content writing and creation tools are highly relevant in the field of affiliate marketing. Fortunately, many such tools are available!

Artificial intelligence (ChatGPT, Gemini…)

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) has become essential. Two approaches are possible: AI can generate content entirely or be used as a support tool. In our opinion, it is preferable to use AI as a support tool.

Content generated entirely by AI risks being penalized by search engines and may appear generic to readers, potentially leading them to quickly leave your site. However, tools like ChatGPT are extremely useful for improving content by offering services such as spelling correction, SEO optimization, content performance analysis, and automation of repetitive tasks. ChatGPT is a free tool, with a paid plan available for $20 per month.

The images (Canva, Dall-E…)

To illustrate affiliate content, it is often necessary to add images. However, finding royalty-free images that can be used commercially can be a challenge.

The ideal tool to address this issue is Canva , which offers a vast library of images, templates, fonts, and various graphic elements. Canva also allows for collaborative work, which is perfect for writing teams. The tool has a free version and a "Pro" version for €110 per year.

AI can also be used to generate images, for example with Dall-E . Simply write a prompt to get an illustration image. For example, here is the image that Dall-E can generate in a few seconds with the following prompt: “Generates an illustration image for a French blog post on the best tools for creating affiliate content (blog, video, social media...)”.

Search engine optimization (WordPress plugins, Semrush, Semji…)

Creating affiliate content is a great initiative, but promoting it is just as crucial. Even the best content can go unnoticed without a solid SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategy. Using dedicated SEO tools is therefore essential. Here are a few recommendations:

WordPress SEO plugins : Among the most popular are Yoast SEO, SEOPress, and Rank Math. These plugins generally offer a free version as well as a "Premium" version via subscription.
Semrush : This all-in-one service is designed for all types of websites and offers tools for content marketing, market research, advertising, and social media. Semrush allows you to obtain SEO scores for specific pages. Ideal for ambitious projects, its basic pricing starts at just over $100 per year.
Semji : This tool perfectly combines SEO and artificial intelligence. It allows you to create very high-quality content by taking into account various elements such as SEO criteria, current trends, and spell checking. Semji is one of the best tools on the market, although it is expensive, with prices reaching several thousand euros.
Google Search Console : Completely free, this tool is used by the majority of website creators to manage SEO performance. It helps monitor page indexing, site usability, and fix errors. It also provides numerous KPIs such as the number of impressions, clicks, and average Google rankings. Essential.

The list of tools for optimizing your affiliate content for SEO is long. The ones mentioned here are perfect for getting started!

How to track affiliate performance using analytics tools?

Now that you have the necessary tools to create affiliate-oriented content, one important task remains: tracking the performance of your creations! This step is crucial for adjusting your strategy and determining what works and what doesn't. Here are some of the most popular tools:

Google Analytics : The undisputed leader in website performance analysis, Google Analytics is incredibly comprehensive (although complex to use). It provides a wealth of information such as traffic, user behavior, and conversions. Google Analytics is completely free, which contributes to its dominant market position.
Adobe Analytics : Primarily used by large companies, this tool offers even more advanced insights than Google Analytics. However, its price (several tens of thousands of euros per year) makes it inaccessible to many websites.
Hotjar : This tool uses heatmaps to provide a visualization of the most used areas on a website. It is very practical and comprehensive. Pricing ranges from free for the basic plan to €200 per month depending on the size of the website.
Matomo : Similar to Google Analytics, Matomo emphasizes privacy protection and GDPR compliance. It's free if you host the system on your own server; otherwise, it costs around €20 for cloud-based use.

Other tools exist on the market, but those mentioned are the main ones. You can also use tools discussed earlier in the SEO section, such as Google Search Console or Semrush, which provide valuable information about the performance of your affiliate content.

How does Affilizz position itself as an affiliate marketing tool?

At Affilizz, we know that affiliate marketing and content creation are closely linked. One of our priorities is therefore to provide a comprehensive tool that remains easy to use:

Centralized platforms : Affilizz brings together most affiliate platforms in a single tool. This means you don't need to register individually with each program or platform (with a few exceptions, such as Amazon).
Quick creation of affiliate links : An affiliate link can be generated by a simple copy-paste, which takes barely two or three seconds.
Performance tracking : The performance of each link can be tracked via the dashboard: clicks, transactions, commissions, eCPC… This allows you to quickly adjust your affiliate strategy.

These three points will save you valuable time in your affiliate content creation activities. We've also integrated innovative features to go even further:

Creating price comparison tables : You can create a price comparison table (a mini-comparator) in just a few moments. Simply copy and paste your link, then click on “convert to table” to instantly get this mini-comparator.

A price chart

Creating editorial maps : In addition to pricing tables, our tool allows you to create editorial maps. These resemble tables, but with one key difference: you can add editorial content to them.

An editorial map

These two formats are complementary: the table offers a clear price comparison, while the map allows for additional engagement through the addition of content. Many of Affilizz's media partners are increasingly using this map format, with excellent results.

At Affilizz, our credo is to save you time and make affiliate marketing easier to use. We continually strive to follow this path in order to offer you the best possible tool!

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Les plateformes d’affiliation sont essentielles pour créer et diffuser des liens affiliés, suivre les performances et encaisser les gains.
Utiliser des outils efficaces pour la création de contenu d’affiliation est crucial, que ce soit pour un site web ou des réseaux sociaux.
La qualité et la quantité du contenu produit sont importantes, et des outils de rédaction et de création de contenu peuvent grandement aider.
Une bonne stratégie SEO est nécessaire pour que le contenu affilié soit bien référencé et atteigne son audience cible.
Le suivi des performances à l’aide d’outils d’analyse est essentiel pour ajuster et optimiser votre stratégie d’affiliation.
Affilizz propose une centralisation des plateformes d’affiliation, une création rapide de liens affiliés et un suivi détaillé des performances pour simplifier l'affiliation.

Choisir les bons outils et logiciels pour gérer et optimiser votre stratégie d'affiliation est essentiel pour le succès de vos efforts de monétisation. Que vous débutiez avec un CMS comme WordPress, exploriez des plateformes d'affiliation comme Awin ou Kwanko, ou intégriez des technologies avancées comme l'intelligence artificielle pour la rédaction de contenu, chaque choix doit être guidé par vos objectifs spécifiques et les besoins de votre audience. L'efficacité d'une stratégie d'affiliation repose sur l'adaptabilité et la capacité à rester à jour avec les meilleurs outils disponibles, facilitant ainsi la création, la gestion et le suivi de contenu engageant et performant. Chez Affilizz, nous nous engageons à simplifier ce processus pour vous permettre de maximiser vos revenus d'affiliation tout en minimisant les efforts nécessaires.

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