Getting ready to launch your own digital product is a great feeling. You should be proud of your achievement. Let's begin.
After the research and planning are done. After the 'trying' phase of your product creation is done. After the Beta testing, changes, and everything else in between are done, you're finally ready to launch your first product and begin the grueling work of marketing and promoting it to the world.
Before you think about moving forward to the next phase, just give yourself a pat on the back for reaching this point. You darn well earned it. However, now the real work begins.
You're ready to start marketing and promoting your product and begin reeling in some sales. Where should you start?
Did you know?
Blogs offer some of the most credible sources of information on the internet.
In fact, 47% of customers consume between 3 to 5 pieces of content before deciding to buy something.
So naturally, one great way to get your product in front of thousands of hungry customers is by getting others to talk about it, to write about it, to blog and vlog about it.
Think of all those influential people, all those credible bloggers with larger audiences in your industry, ready, able, and willing to try out your hot new product, and ready to start promoting it to their readers and subscribers.
As I mentioned earlier, blogs have been rated as one of the most trusted online information sources for consumers today?
So, what's the point I'm trying to make here?
Well, if you truly believe you have produced the best product ever, and you want other bloggers, marketers, and influencers to promote it for you, then maybe it's time you thought about creating your own affiliate program.
With an effective affiliate program, you can invite bloggers in your industry and community to come and check out your latest digital products or service and encourage them to signup so that they can help promote it for you.
Why would they want to help you promote it?
Good question - Hopefully, and importantly, your product will be too good for them to resist. And secondly, there are plenty of bloggers looking for hot new products to promote on their blog to earn additional revenue.
It's a win, win formula. You get your new product or service promoted for free, well, almost for free. Your affiliates, in turn, get to earn a commission for every single successful sale.
By creating your own affiliate program, you are effectively passing on a lot of the tedious work of doing product marketing and promotion to your affiliates.
All those key bloggers that you've spent connecting and building relationships with over the years, they will hopefully become your brand ambassadors.
Again, providing that you have a great product or service available to start shipping out, think of all that super-targeted traffic you could be driving to your sales pages. All those targeted leads that could potentially convert into sales for you, and some nice commissions for your affiliates too.
So, where do you even begin with creating your own affiliate program?
Well, you're going to need some affiliate marketing software to help you get started and organized properly, especially if you use WordPress.
So, as you've probably guessed, in this post, we're going to look at 5 of the best affiliate tracking and management software, tools, and plugins to consider using.
Let's dive in!
Let's start with Omnistar OSI affiliate software, one of the most trusted affiliate tracking and management software online today.
OSI Affiliate offers some useful growth tools for promoting your business using referral marketing.
Their full list of features includes the ability to create an affiliate program for both your online and offline store. You also get fast and unlimited reward options for your product promoters.
So, in a nutshell, using this tool effectively can help solve several problems straight away.
Firstly, it's not all about being online; you can use 'word of mouth marketing' to help drive consumers to your business, and saving money on useless, often ineffective advertising.
Other tools include with Omnistar are -
Prices
Cost-wise, there are 3 plans to choose from with Omnistar. The very basic plan will set you back $47.95 per month.
There is also a Pro plan at $97.95 per month, and a Premium Plan at $147 per month.
Before I shove a special offer down your throat, I want to shed my final thought on Omnistar.
I've trialed Omnistar for a few months myself. Yes, the tools are indeed useful and powerful. Managing everything in one place is a huge time-saver. However, even at the basic price of $47 per month, it could still be out of the price range for some startups and entrepreneurs.
But, to hopefully counter that high-price, the special offer below will appeal to you if Omnistar is the way you want to head.
SPECIAL OFFER: Magnet4Blogging readers can save 20% off all monthly plans, and for every single month, not just one month, by signing up here.
So, a $47 per month plan could cost you only $38 per month.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
Cons:
If you can look past the high monthly fees, OSI Affiliate is fun and easy to use with lots of useful tools for managing your referral marketing campaigns. It's the complete solution, in my opinion.
Once again, Magnet4Blogging readers can save 20% off the monthly plans. Click the button below to get started straight away.
Number 2 on my list is Shareasale.
Shareasale has been around for the last 16 years or so. They are one of the most trusted affiliate performance marketing networks online.
If you do any kind of affiliate marketing on your blog or promote any affiliate products, then you may well be familiar with Shareasale.
Shareasale currently has over 200,000 affiliate partners registered. Their network features include:
Prices
Cost-wise, there isn't a set monthly fee to weigh you down each and every month with Shareasale.
That being said, you can incur something called 'transactional fees' and 'monthly minimum fees.'
The transactional fees are pretty much self-explanatory, it occurs when a sale or lead is made.
The monthly minimum fee only happens if you fail to generate the minimum amount of $25 in total fees to Shareasale from sales and leads.
Setup Fee
There is also a one-time network access fee of $550, and a minimum deposit amount of $100 required to get started with Shareasale.
Is it worth it?
Shareasale has built up quite a robust reputation in the online world. Their website is used and trusted by top brands, including Etsy, Groupon, StudioPress, LongTailPro, and CobaltApps.
For more information on Shareasale features, tools, and setup costs. Or, to signup, visit the website by clicking the button below.
IDevAffiliate has been providing a robust and powerful affiliate tracking software for the last 20 years. They have a customer base of around 35,000 and growing!
Their list of features includes powerful marketing tools, as well as commissioning options, and the ability to structure payments for your affiliates, and a host of reporting tools and metrics.
You can also customize all kinds of templates, including sales and email templates.
iDevAffiliate also has built-in fraud protection tools.
You can demo the admin center and affiliate control panel to see whether this software is something that would suit your business needs or not. See images below.
Prices
With iDevAffiliate, you have the option to take out a monthly cloud subscription, which would set you back $39 per month, so not cheap again. Plus, with this plan, IDevAffiliate hosts your affiliate program for you.
There's also the option of paying a one-time fee over three different plans: a standard, platinum, and black edition.
All of the available plans include a host of awesome features. The Platinum and Black Edition plans to include bundled plugins, unlimited affiliates and commissions, and zero transaction fees.
If you want to learn more about iDevAffiliate and check out their full list of features, click the red button below.
OK, so next up on my list is the Lead Dyno affiliate tracking and marketing software.
Lead Dyno is one of the simplest software to use, with lots of useful features built-in. So, if the sound of creating an affiliate program for your business sounds daunting, Lead Dyno is perfect for none-techies.
One of Lead Dyno software's coolest features is that it works with any website, so you don't have to be on WordPress to use it.
When you signup, you get your own affiliate website to link your existing website or blog and drive new affiliates to signup.
Your website is fully customizable, too, so you can tweak it to match your existing website and online brand identity, etc.
Lead Dyno integrates with all the major eCommerce platforms, including PayPal, Etsy, WordPress, WooCommerce, Shopify, Squarespace, and much more.
If you're interested in checking out Lead Dyno, there's a demo available for you to try out, plus a 14-day free trial.
Prices
Price wise, the plans aren't the cheapest around by far.
A Starter Plan will set you back $49 per month.
A Biz Builder Plan will set you back $59 per month. And there's also an Accelerator Plan which will set you back $79 per month.
There's also flat monthly fees and 7-day support! Click the red button below to learn more.
OK, so the last option that I have on my list for you is a WordPress plugin called Affiliate WP.
I've personally never used AffiliateWP; However, I have helped many clients set up with AffiliateWP.
AffiliateWP is considered to be one of the most popular affiliate plugins for WordPress. Being a plugin, everything is manageable inside your WP dashboard, from your affiliate's performance, referrals, and payments, to real-time reporting.
Affiliate WP offers complete integration with 27 eCommerce systems, including WooCommerce, Contact Form 7, and Zippy Courses.
Prices
Affiliate WP is probably the most affordable solution out of all of these options.
They offer 4 plans -
Ultimate, Professional, Plus and Personal plan.
A Professional Plan for example, even at $199 per year only works out at $16.60 per month.
This plan provides you with -
Being a premium plugin, each licensed plan lasts for 12 months. You'll have to renew your plan each year if you want to keep up with the latest plugin updates and support.
However, you'll be pleased to know that you get a 40% discount when you renew your plan each year. Click below to get started.
Well there you have it, 5 of the best affiliate tracking management software and plugins for you to scratch your head over, and hopefully, choose one for your business.
Whatever the case, if you're thinking about creating an affiliate program, you can't and won't do this successfully without one of these tools. That much can be said.
There are many others that I obviously haven't mentioned here. In fact, here's a quick list of some others you might want to research on:
Right, I'll leave you to decide which will be best for you. And don't forget if you're interested in using the OmniStar affiliate platform, as an awesome reader of Magnet4Blogging, you get 20% off all monthly plans! Something worth thinking about.
Enjoy.
Disclaimer: Please note that this post contains affiliate links to affiliate marketing software mentioned above. That means if you click on one of these affiliate links and make a purchase of one of these services, I will be paid a small commission, at no additional cost to you. Thank you for your continued support. Read my full disclaimer here.
