8 Affiliate Marketing Features for Growth

More than 80% of advertisers rely on affiliate marketers for improved marketing, increased customer acquisition, and market exposure.

An affiliate’s ability to drive sales, optimize marketing campaigns, and foster scalability often stems from the affiliate management software they use. If an affiliate marketing software fails to provide innovative and streamlined performance marketing functions, you are ultimately hindering your organization, affiliates, and supported merchants.

To maximize growth for your affiliating efforts, our article covers eight affiliate marketing features that your platform should support to optimize growth and scalability:

1. All-in-One Affiliate Management 

Every affiliate management system should feature a complete affiliate management system. 

These include functional parameters like creating and managing multiple affiliate groups and networks within a centralized dashboard, providing geo-restrictions, creating campaign budgets and multi-tier users, and the ability to set caps.

Additional robust features you should seek out are:

• Parallel Tracking – Consumers may be put off by seeing an affiliate link instead of the site’s raw URL. With parallel tracking links, you gain all the functionality of multifaceted tracking links without the need for tracking links.
• Dynamic Split Testing – Perform A/B testing to monitor variables and discover the most high-valued landing pages. 
• Postbacks & Pixel Creation – Creating dynamic Facebook and Google Ads pixels can allow you to learn more about your user’s actions. 
• Unified API System – Allows affiliates to send leads to advertisers while having complete control over geo-restrictions, capping, and scheduling. 
• In-Depth Performance Monitoring Hub – Understand your affiliates’ audience and traffic sources with granular performance marketing data and perform in-house comparison reports for drawing up optimization strategies. 

2. Traffic Monetization Tools 

Traffic monetization tools are the bread-and-butter of successful affiliates, and they can make or break you. Without powerful performance marketing tools like lead distribution, creative catalogs, dynamic offers, and flexible geo-location restrictions, an affiliates campaign may be severely affected. 

For affiliate managers and network operators, having the ability to create a multi-tier commission system with various commission types (like fixed sums, dynamic, RevShare, and hybrid) helps boost profit margins while better incentivizing your affiliates.

3. Dedicated Account Manager 

While this is a service, dedicated account managers are truly invaluable for the roles they perform and should be included within any affiliate management system. Among a handful of the ways they aid affiliates would be by: 

• Preparing in-house affiliate programs
• Helping affiliates with campaign oversight
• Processing commissions 
• Troubleshooting issues affiliates may be experiencing
• Recruiting new talent and approving applicants

Without committed account managers, affiliate partner programs are unlikely to succeed.

4. Customizable Campaign Builders 

Campaign managers should be able to create campaigns and control all associated parameters. Tools that automate your campaign building process, like automated tracking link generators, should be available within a centralized location, along with various landing page options and potential discounts. 

5. Educational Hub 

An affiliate management software that doesn’t provide an educational library for streamlining the onboarding process ultimately hurts itself. Even simplistic user guides can significantly affect how your affiliates perceive and decide to promote your platform. The more education you can provide them, the more value you’re likely to receive in return. 

6. Remarketing 

According to Mailchimp, about 97% of first-time site visitors leave a webpage without buying. Hint, why remarketing is so valuable – you’ve got to capitalize on that 3%! That’s why at Getlinked.io, we provide remarketing features such as Omni-messaging systems and third-party integrations like STP, autoresponders, and SMS messages for improved remarketing efforts.

7. Network, Back-office, and Finance Management 

Affiliate marketing has evolved over the years, and so should your demands of features they ought to possess. Affiliate marketing software that only provides affiliate tracking is obsolete. Nowadays, if your affiliate system doesn’t support the following, then consider switching to us: 

• Complete and automated invoicing
• Full network security logs
• Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)
• Automatic legal pages for fulfilling data compliance standards
• Secure servers with powerful encryption and unbound scalability

8. Customization Options

Affiliate management systems need to create custom features and technology extensions that align with your business demands and objectives. For instance, suppose you need a particular feature to fulfill a business process. In that case, Getlinked.io can create them for you, allowing you to focus more on fostering growth rather than technical innovations that seem too challenging to tackle.

The Bottom Line 

Affiliating is a multi-billion dollar industry and is the leading customer acquisition channel for 40% of U.S. merchants. Without a robust and technologically inclined affiliate management system, affiliates and brands are less likely to thrive. 

As a leading SaaS partner with over 40 years of marketing experience, Getlinked.io is qualified and fully capable of meeting your technology and marketing demands. Our software platform is fully customizable, flexes intuitive performance marketing and analytical features, and is optimized to maximize your ROI. 

By choosing Getlinked.io, you gain more than a technology partner, while our success is tied to yours. 

Connect with one of our specialists to learn more advantages of Getlinked.io.