Best Affiliate Marketing Tools and Plugins in 2022

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ZP blog header Best Affiliate Marketing Tools and Plugins in 2021

Affiliate marketers have always had tools that make their life easier. In order to make your life even easier we have compiled a list of the best affiliate marketing tools just for you.

Do you think you are missing one that could give you an edge over your competition?

Read this guide to find out about the best affiliate marketing tools and plugins in 2022.

What are affiliate marketing tools?

Affiliate tools are any online resources that help to make your ad campaigns more successful. The tools all affiliate marketers should have are;

  • A tracker to see where your money is made in your advertising campaigns (and more importantly where you are losing money),
  • A spy tool that will help you spy on your competition,
  • Web hosting for your landers, and trackers if you’ll go for a self-hosted solution,
  • Creative tools for improving your ad copy and creatives,
  • Plugins for your browser,
  • And many more….

The previous section gives you an idea of the different types of affiliate tools available, but what you want are specifics, and we’re going to give them to you.

These tools have been suggested by the affiliate community and provide an overview of your potential options rather than specific recommendations.


Disclaimer: The affiliate tools mentioned in this article are not affiliate links. Feel free to explore these recommendations, safe in the knowledge that these resources have been recommended because they are popular in 2022— not because we are being paid to promote them!


Why do you need affiliate marketing tools?

In a word, competition. To stay ahead of your competitors in the affiliate game, you need to keep to the cutting edge with your ad campaigns. Affiliate tools allow you to do just that.

Each affiliate tool allows you to make a marginal optimization, which, when combined together, allows for you to have an overall optimized affiliate marketing campaign. This combined effort puts you ahead of the curve, allowing you to increase your spend on the best-performing traffic.

Benefits of using affiliate marketing tools include:

  • Increased credibility with mistake-free copy
  • Being able to stand out from others by creating engaging landers
  • Cutting losses by optimizing based on tracked data

Each step forward from each tool puts you a step ahead of your competition. And when using many different tools, you won’t even be able to see your competition! You’ll be so far ahead!

What to look for when choosing affiliate marketing tools?

Here are the top tips we have for choosing the right tools for your affiliate marketing strategy.

  • It is important to look out for free trials when choosing your affiliate marketing tools as these can help you test out the product before burning your budget on a tool that does not work for you.
  • Some tools are entirely free too, which is always a bonus when they help you make money. Bonus profit for your campaigns!
  • But that’s not to say the tools for affiliate marketing that you have to pay for are a rip-off, they are not, especially when they end up increasing your ROI.
  • You just need to remember to always take into consideration what kind of ad formats, GEOs, and offers you’re running and pick the additional tools based on that.

Affiliate landing page builders

Lander builders, affiliate Marketing tools

What is a landing page builder?

You all know by now that the best way to warm up a potential customer to your offer is through a landing page. And the best way to get the best landing pages on the market is to make them yourself. This is where lander builders come in.

A great landing page builder allows you to make eye-catching and effective landing pages that will increase your conversion rate.

They also allow you to make big changes to any landing pages you might find using a spy tool. As we know, the trends in affiliate marketing can change in an instant, and it’s best to be able to react to them quickly.

Also, you can opt for templates that have been tried and tested and are already proven to increase conversions. That allows you to have a leg up in ensuring that when your ad gets in front of the right person, they will click on it.

Landing page or website designs range from simple drag and drop schemes where you can add your compelling advert copy and images, to more complex pages that require a little more coding expertise. It’s also worth noting that you might need some creative design tools like Canva to increase the visibility of your lander offer.

What is the best landing page builder on the market?

Let’s go through examples of some of the most popular landers in the affiliate market and their descriptions to show you what these tools are really capable of!

Instapage 

Firstly, Instapage is a page builder that boasts increasing your conversions by 400% whether you can manage that or not is up to how you use it.

The benefits from this platform are the analytics which it offers alongside simply being a lander builder. Additionally, it provides heatmaps and built-in A/B testing which will help boost your conversions further. Pricing plans start at $149 per month if you choose the 12-month plan. They also offer customized plans that are made to measure to fit your business needs.

PureLander 

PureLander has made the list of affiliate marketing tools because it’s a seasoned veteran of the affiliate industry with many years of service to affiliates all over the globe.

Like the other lander builders on this list, they offer hundreds of templates to create innovative landers that should blow the competition out of the water. It also has a number of more technical options for developing your coding skills… if you think you can handle that.

But this isn’t the reason they made the list. The reason is they might be one of the best value for money affiliate tools out there right now.

Their new offer is also in the Zeropark DEALS tab so be sure to check that out in your dashboard! So if you are a beginner in this industry then you better be quick to snap up that offer.

Landerize

Finally, it’s also worth checking out Landerize, which has been one of the best lander builders in the affiliate marketing industry for a few years. Also,  its uniqueness comes from the fact it’s been built by affiliate marketers for affiliate marketers. So, all of the templates and customizations are designed around affiliate content.

Landerize comes in at a reasonable price too at €77/M, if you choose to pay for the entire year upfront, or €97 per month if you choose the monthly subscription. The business subscriptions range from €237-297 per month depending on the same upfront or monthly choice.

We still recommend you do your own research to see which lander builder suits your needs. But to help you with that process, we have done a comprehensive review of 9 of the best landers in the industry.

These include the three mentioned above as well as LanderLab, ClickFunnels, LeadPages, Convertri, Wizzi, Elementor and Unbounce. You’ll have to read on to find out which of these has a free trial and which has the most lander templates for you to try.


Landing Page Builders Header

Check out the article on the best landing page builders.


Affiliate spy toolsSpy tools, affiliate marketing tools

What is a spy tool?

To put it, simply a spy tool is a tool that can be used in the affiliate industry to spy on other landing pages and offer pages run by your competitors. It’s all part of the competitive research process that every affiliate should be doing. This is done to ensure that you have the best offer for your potential customers and to double-check your offer isn’t being used by every other affiliate out there.

It uses a large database of landing pages being used on various traffic sources, and in any vertical, ad format, or geo out there. The best spy tools do not only allow you to see the different landing pages being used but also rank them by conversions and which have the highest click-through rate.

So, you can rely on the data to tell you the full story.

The best thing about this data is that it is live, updated in real-time because that’s how fast-paced the affiliate industry moves.

Do you think you are ready to keep up?

Well, we will give you a head start by suggesting some of the best options in the affiliate market.

Which is the best affiliate spy tool on the market?

As with many physical tools, it really depends on what the job at hand is, and of course, your budget. Well, the same goes for affiliate marketing tools.

For example, if you are just a beginner with a small budget, we will recommend that you go for a tool that has a free plan.

And don’t worry if you’re a big spender, we’ll make sure you have a tool that can handle your increased traffic needs too.

With that in mind, this next affiliate marketing tool is for you bigger spenders!

Now it is time to go through examples of the best tools for spying on your competition, and understand why some landing pages convert better than others.

AdPlexity

If you’ve read any affiliate forum, you’ll have likely heard of AdPlexity. It is one of the best in the spy tool market and provides you with an insight into your competitors’ desktop, mobile, native.

Although being the market leader does come with a hefty price tag. The cost per month ranges from $149-$249 which means you need to be serious about your spying if you are going to use this affiliate marketing tool.

Anstrex

Another option for your spying needs comes in the form of Anstrex, which covers much of the same advertising platforms as AdPlexity. The main benefit is the price when the two are compared, as Anstrex is half the price of AdPlexity. Starting at only $59.99 per month.

It doesn’t currently have a free trial, but if you ask the customer service team, you can have a refund after two days of using the product according to their website’s FAQs.

These are just a couple of the best spy tools on the market, you’ll have to continue your undercover journey with us to find out about the rest of them. Luckily you can, in our article about the top five spy tools.


ranking of spy tools header

If you are still trying to spy the right spy tool for you then
Check out the Top 5 spy tools article here!


Affiliate ad trackers

Trackers, affiliate Marketing tools

What is an affiliate ad tracker?

You know that you should be optimizing your campaigns, but do you know that you need to be tracking them too? Well, you can’t optimize without any data, and tracking your campaigns will get you just that.

Affiliate ad trackers are used to track the referral, made by you, the affiliate, to the customer that buys your recommended affiliate products or services from the company selling the product or service.

This tracking process is needed in order to ensure you get your commission and any other people or businesses in the affiliate chain like affiliate networks get their piece of commission too. Using this tracker also puts you in the driving seat, as you can manage and more importantly optimize your campaigns at your leisure.

Having an overview of all of your campaigns available to you means that you get a clear idea of which campaigns are performing well and which need improvement or need to be killed.

Which affiliate marketing ad trackers are the best?

Voluum

This tracker is so well known in the affiliate industry that it really needs no introduction by now. In fact, it is award-winning, as it claimed AffLIFT’s best tracker tool of 2020. That’s why we have put it on the list for you.

The benefits of Voluum are its easy integration with many different traffic sources including Facebook Ads Manager, Google Ads, and full integration with Zeropark.

Other strengths from the platform come from the companion mobile application, as well as the excellent customer support team dedicated to matching your current tracker’s price if you are happy to join them.

You’re probably wondering how much that will cost you, well wonder no more.

There are three options:

  1. The Discover Plan $69 per month – for beginners still learning the ropes.
  2. The Profit Plan $149 per month – for intermediates with their eyes on success.
  3. The Grow plan $449 per month – for affiliate agencies or those with a large budget.

There is a 7-day demo to check out how everything works before you fully commit, too.

BeMob

Another one of the tracking tools to consider is BeMob. It has a pretty good free plan, so, if you are still dipping your toes into the affiliate market, they might be a good place to start.

Some of BeMob’s ‘Ultimate features include:

  • Fraud Protection
  • Automatic Optimization
  • Multichannel Notifications
  • Customizable Settings
  • Flexible Workspaces
  • API-Integrated Traffic Sources
  • Multi-funnel Tracking
  • Cookieless Tracking

It only allows you to have 3 months of data to analyze on the free plan, though, so keep that in mind. They also have plans from $49 to $499 per month if you have larger tracking needs. The top ‘enterprise’ plan allows you to track up to 30,000,000 events in a month. So it’s best to understand your needs first before choosing your plan.

Also be sure to check out LandingTrack and RedTrack, Binom, ThriveTracker, CPV Lab Pro, and AdsBridge. And the best part is that some of them even offer a free trial, so you can test them out before you commit. Each of these tracking tools has its own benefits and drawbacks, but one of them will surely suit your affiliate business needs.


best trackers header

For a full review of each of these trackers
Check out the ad tracker article


Affiliate web hosting servicesCloud computing affiliate marketing tools

What is web hosting and why do affiliate marketers need it?

So, we have covered why it is important to build your own landing page, but it is also worth having a server that is dedicated to hosting your affiliate offer landing pages. This is because as with much of life, time is money. 

By this, we mean that the faster your webpage loads for the visitor seeing your page, the higher the chance there is of them clicking on your ad. All affiliate marketers will end up using web hosting in some shape or form sooner or later. Affiliates like you choose to use it right from the start as it’ll cut down on the loading time of all of your landing pages, and for all of your visitors.

Here are the 3 main options when it comes to choosing a company that can host the site for you:

  1. Shared hosting
  2. VPS (Virtual Private Server)
  3. Dedicated Server

Examples of web hosting sites:

Bluehost:

This is another favorite tool for affiliates, as it comes at a reasonable price and the performance is just what you need. So, you are sure to get a bang for your buck.

Investing in a dedicated server is an expensive option, so if you are a smaller affiliate marketer, shared hosting with a company like Bluehost might be your best bet.

A benefit of Bluehost is that it is able to host your landing pages and your affiliate ad tracker (if it is not already cloud-hosted). Another bonus of using this web host is it is flexible to your budget.  You can choose the cheaper option of shared hosting, or increase your speed with a VPS (but this comes with an increased cost of course).

Shared hosting prices start from only $2.95 and Zeropark recommends the ‘choice plus’ plan for $5.95 for the best value. A VPS will set you back between $15-50, and if that’s not enough, you can use their dedicated servers for $66-100 at the time of publication.

Be sure to check out the other options available to you, our affiliate community-recommended using Vultr, DigitalOcean, Amazon web services, to host either landing pages or trackers depending on budget and requirements.

Investing in a dedicated server is an expensive option, so if you are a smaller affiliate marketer, shared hosting with a company like Bluehost might be your best bet.

Affiliate campaign optimization tools

Affiliate marketing campaigns can always be optimized, either through manual tweaking or through the use of artificial intelligence, in automatic optimization. Let us show you the best ways to optimize your affiliate campaigns using some handy tools.

Which tools can help you in optimizing your affiliate marketing campaigns?

The simple answer to this is every affiliate tool can be considered as helping in the optimization of your affiliate marketing campaigns. But here are a few optimization tools we think you should check specifically to help yourself with the running of your campaigns.

Rule-based optimization

Rule-based optimization is your friend when it comes to making your affiliate campaigns work. Everyone likes a little help from AI, and this tool helps you by providing IF-THEN rules for your campaigns to follow, so you don’t have to worry about killing your campaign too soon or burning your budget.

Zeropark has its Rule-based Optimization feature built into the platform, so if your campaign starts burning your budget while you are not at your computer, it will be automatically stopped so you don’t waste your hard-earned money.

Rule based optimization, affiliate Marketing tools

There are, of course, other paid auto-optimization tools, such as TheOptimizer. Whether you’d need a powerful tool like that or not, depends on how much experience you have, and what’s the scale of your business. Either way, rule-based-optimization will provide you with a free helping hand regardless of how many campaigns you run.

Extra resources for campaign optimization:

extra resources forums

Community forums:

Another resource that you can always rely on is affiliate forums. We recommend you spend some of your time checking out the discussions that are happening on forums like affiliatefix, Dijs Forum, i Am Affiliate, affLIFT, or STM. These forums are run by some of the affiliate industry’s biggest influencers and bloggers so you know they are trustworthy. Each of these will have bonus tips on optimizing your campaigns and they communicate with affiliate networks so know when there are exclusive deals going on.

Translation services

As an affiliate marketer, you will most likely run your campaigns in many different GEOs — both big and small. And if you want people to engage with your ads, they need to understand them first. That’s where translation services come in.

Onehourtranslation

Affiliate marketing guru Charles Ngo swears by a language checker like Onehourtranslation, especially if you are targeting countries that do not speak a widely known language. That’s because Google Translate might not be good enough and you cannot afford to have copy that isn’t optimized for conversions.

Design Tools

It is important for affiliates to use design tools to make sure their landing pages are eye-catching and intriguing. It also means when designing your ads you get to choose how they look rather than trusting the color scheme and images from the spy tools and lander templates.

If you still haven’t had enough affiliate marketing tools then there is one more for you.

Canva

Canva isn’t strictly speaking an affiliate marketing tool. Yet it is a tool used by advertisers and digital marketers worldwide for its easy-to-use interface, and the ability to make someone with no creative bone in their body creative very quickly.

This tool, when used correctly, will allow you to give your landing pages a splash of color and a dash of style. Any content on your website, blog, or affiliate program offer page can be transformed into a mesmerizing work of art that will stop internet users in their tracks, and get them to read what’s on your page.

Canva offers a lot of content for free. If you are looking to scale up your design needs they also offer small and large business subscriptions with a range of extra features, including an extensive image library.

Pricing plans start from free to $9.95 per month for pro and $30.00 for large businesses on the ‘enterprise’ pricing plan. And although these do come at a cost, there is a free trial for each of the paid plans that lasts one month, too, so you can test them out before you buy.

Because who doesn’t love a free trial?

Keyword research

If you’re an affiliate marketer, keyword research can help you in choosing targeting for your keyword campaigns, and also for making the copy on your offer pages more relatable.

The importance of keyword research should be included in every affiliate marketing strategy. Whether you are using it to ensure your affiliate website or blog ranks higher on the search engine results page, and drive organic traffic, or simply want to keep on top of the most frequently searched for items to influence your choice of affiliate offers, keyword research will help you.

If you are wanting to go broad, one keyword research tool you can use is Google Trends. It will allow you to see how often a certain word or phrase has been searched for in a given time period, and it gives insights into the most frequent searches recently too (as you can see in the example below).

Google trends data, map of usa

Alternatively, you can opt for the keyword planner Keywords Everywhere. It will keep you up to date with search volumes of keywords and phrases as you enter them into the search engine on the SERP.

The better your page answers a particular set of questions, then the better position up the search engine results page you will get. And this is especially important if you are a blog writer, or have a website that you want to be seen by as many people as possible. As you will know by now, search engine optimization is the name of the game in the digital marketing industry.


Keyword Research for Affiliate Marketers

Want to learn more about keyword research?
Click here!


What are some additional tools and plugins every affiliate needs?

Plugins are helpful little add-ons to your browser that make digital marketing life just a little bit easier. Too lazy to go to the search bar and search for Google Translate?

Well, there is a plug-in for chrome which you can simply right-click a highlighted word on any website and it will translate it for you. This is just the tip of the iceberg though, there are a whole host of plugins for anything an affiliate marketer like yourself might need to do.

Ever wondered what the best plugins for your affiliate browser were?

Well, here are a couple of our favorites that make life a little easier. And what makes them even easier for you bloggers out there is that they are WordPress plugins too, meaning you can optimize your content as you write.

Also, if you enjoy digital marketing blogs you can click here to find our article on the best 25 digital marketing blogs.

Grammarly

We know this is the first of the WordPress plugins any writer adds to their dashboard and so, if you haven’t tried it yet, then we suggest you should. Grammarly quickly ups your writing game whether that is for your blog, website containing affiliate links, or affiliate program offer page. You’ll never have to worry about a spelling mistake again. It keeps on top of your grammar and tells you if your tone of voice is friendly or not.

The free version of this grammatically correct digital marketing tool does almost all you need. Yet there is an option for their premium version which has a few more features for explaining your errors and giving a little more feedback on phrasing for your tone of voice.

It’s up to you whether you think you will need the extra help or settle for the basic spell check option. The premium pricing plan will only set you back $11.66 per month, or $12.50 for a business plan that can accommodate up to 149 of your colleagues.

TinyPNG

As previously mentioned, time is money in affiliate marketing, and the speed at which your landing page loads is important. The faster the load time, the less time the customer waits, and often the smaller the bounce rate. So, TinyPNG helps to solve this problem of slow loading times by reducing your image file size, while keeping the image high quality. It’s just like magic, and it gives you that competitive edge.

MobileMonkey

Last but not least comes a tool that can truly make your affiliate marketing life much easier. It’s MobileMonkey, one of the industry-leading chatbot platforms.

What’s special about this chatbot solution is that OmniChatⓇ is actually MobileMonkey’s patent-pending technology. It allows marketers to write automated chat marketing conversations and unify customer messaging across multiple channels. Web Chat, SMS, Messenger, Instagram or WhatsApp — you name it!

MobileMonkey is used by over a million businesses worldwide, across various business verticals. If you’re an affiliate marketer who’s building their own platform/website, or is simply looking to connect with their audiences in a more direct way, that’s a tool for you.

Just imagine the quality of user-experience that a MobileMonkey assisted chat could deliver on your website — for any of the offers you promote.

Conclusions

When starting out in affiliate marketing, we know it is difficult to find out everything there is to know about the industry. Hopefully, we have given you some of the tools to help you on your journey into affiliate marketing. Having the best tools and resources to help you to stay ahead of your competitors is crucial to keeping your campaigns profitable.

When used individually, each affiliate marketing tool will give you a slight advantage. But when combined together, your campaigns will skyrocket.

Now that you have the tools, you need some traffic for those optimized campaigns of yours.

Get started now with Zeropark!
Buy Traffic That Converts!

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