What is Affiliate Tracking Software?
Affiliate tracking software provides organizations with a system for tracking referrals, endorsements, or recommendations of a product or service from associated partners.
Generally, an affiliate tracking solution utilizes special software and web plugins to create unique URLs containing an affiliate ID. Sometimes, these special tracking links include a campaign number while parsing to the advertiser’s site. Using a cookie to identify landing page, visit date, expiration date, user ID, and related information is how affiliate tracking links work.
When considering signing up with an affiliate tracking network, it’s essential to weigh the platform’s offerings against the standard benefits of affiliate tracking software.
5 Benefits of Affiliate Tracking Software
More businesses are leveraging the benefits of affiliate tracking software following the COVID-19 pandemic. As more companies are working remotely, there are greater demands for providing full-service affiliate marketing solutions. Here are some of the benefits you can expect to find with affiliate tracking software:
- Advanced Tracking & Reporting Tools – Better monitor ROI and campaign effectiveness through granular tracking and reporting.
- Boost of Web Traffic – Gain additional market exposure and foster web growth through your affiliate’s efforts.
- Accounting Management – Minimize accounting hassles with fully automated in-house accounting software.
- Direct Linking for Improved SEO – Boost search engine optimization through direct linking when using your domain.
- Affiliate Management – Merchants can effortlessly manage their affiliates through robust admin features that streamline communication, marketing campaigns, commission earnings, program memberships, compensation, and real-time reporting.
10 Must-Have Features of Affiliate Management Software
Business owners and marketing professionals often use SaaS affiliate software to cultivate brand awareness through third-party promotions. By using a comprehensive SaaS affiliate tracking software, operators can create, launch, and manage affiliate programs from a centralized platform.
While the advantages of using affiliate tracking software are abundant, not all SaaS solutions are created equally. To help you find the service that best suits your business needs, make sure they have these eleven features:
1. Affiliate Management Hub
Every affiliate management software should feature a centralized hub allowing affiliates to log on and view the following data:
- Recent activity
- Payment history
- Sales and clicks generated
- Active commission structure and pending amounts
- User-friendly promotional tools
2. Customizable Landing Pages
Network operators should be able to dictate which affiliate leads to which page. Discovering the landing pages that create the most impact for your affiliates across the board should be empowering process fine-tuned over time.
3. Promotional Tools
Campaign managers should have the ability to create and add customized promotional tools for affiliates. By doing so, affiliates can use the tools that make the most impact on your campaigns while customizing affiliate links and landing pages.
4. Affiliate Signup Forms
Affiliate signup forms should be an automated feature within your SaaS affiliate tracking software. Network operators should be able to create these automated forms which:
- Collect information regarding the affiliate
- Create affiliate accounts
- Assign them a commission plan
- Generate emails with getting started guides for affiliates
5. Flexible Commissions
Affiliate managers should be able to define and customize various commission plans easily. Having the ability to set up commission tiers and provide customized rates allows you to reward high-performing affiliates with better compensation than low-level affiliates while developing a commission plan aligned with business objectives.
6. Lead Management Resources
While it’s excellent to have new leads with your affiliate program, it’s more powerful to have the tools and resources in place for optimizing campaigns and improving conversion rates. Emphasize automating processes such as the collection of lead information and follow-up emails to leads.
7. Simple Software Integrations
Ensuring software integrations is an often overlooked component of affiliate tracking software as organizations are likely to use additional business software.
By consolidating software into a functional whole, your organization will be able to save time and money while eliminating huddles later down the road. Therefore, seek one-click integrations that centralize your marketing plans and allow you to start strong.
8. Affiliate Performance Monitoring
Being able to monitor the performance of your affiliates and provide insights that can improve their campaign efforts is essential. Using key performance indicators (KPIs) such as click-through rate, conversion rate, average order value, and ROI should be used to improve an affiliate’s performance.
9. Customization Capability and Branding Options
Establishing continuity with your affiliates and your affiliate program through branding is crucial. Therefore, you should have the ability to use your company logo and colors through custom CSS, set up a custom domain, and choose your background aesthetics. Other personalization areas you should consider would be:
- Will you add custom fields to learn more about applying affiliates?
- Will you enable reCAPTCHA to mitigate unauthorized account creations?
- Will you provide descriptions and information to better market your program to potential applications?
An experienced SaaS software partner can fulfill your personalization demands while delivering customized solutions that are fine-tuned to meet your business needs. Should the platform lack a specific application or tool to optimize your organization, they aren’t worth your time.
Do you have business processes you need to be customized? Speak with one of our specialists!
10. Multifaceted Tracking
It’s a no-brainer that you’ll want to gauge campaigns and the performance of your affiliates through affiliate tracking, but you’ll want more flexibility than traditional tracking links. Within the same dashboard, your affiliate tracking software should track marketing efforts across:
- Coupon tracking
- Referral links
- Email marketing
- Social media
- Paid ads
Integrating multiple market mediums into a singular dashboard will provide you with an encompassing overview to strategize your next move.
Choosing the Best Affiliate Tracking Software
There are several aspects to weigh before joining an affiliate tracking and management software. Before committing, make sure you consider the following:
- Is affiliate marketing your core sales strategy, or is it supplemental?
- What developmental stage is your business?
- What is your experience with affiliate marketing and management?
- Which employees will have access to your affiliate marketing management system?
- How many affiliates do you have, and do you have the capacity and versatility for more?
Other factors to weigh would be price, features, customer service, onboarding, and social proof of their success.
How to Get Started (Easily & Quickly)
A robust and customizable affiliate management and tracking software can provide your organization with the edge it needs to foster business growth and become an industry leader.
While many SaaS affiliate management and tracking solutions are available, not all are structured or committed to meet your business needs. Ensuring that your affiliate management and tracking solution offers the features, flexibility, and customization can save you from hurdles down the road.
At Getlinked.io, we help our clients influence the masses and optimize ROI through full-service affiliate management and tracking solutions. As a trusted technology partner, we’re committed to your growth and consider your success to be our success.
Speak with one of our specialists to learn more about what Getlinked.io has to offer.