Affiliate marketing is often not a brand's largest revenue source, yet: it often provides the highest ROI.
IAB Australia did a survey and 84% of marketers rated affiliate marketing ROI as 7 out of 10 higher than other marketing channels. Major brands often get 5% - 25% of their overall online sales from affiliate marketing.
To get similar results, WordPress store owners can use affiliate marketing plugins. To assist you with selecting the right plugin, we have reviewed the top options below.
Before looking at the best tools, let’s clarify what is a WordPress affiliate marketing plugin.
A WordPress affiliate marketing plugin is a tool designed to help merchants start, manage, and optimize their affiliate marketing programs.
These plugins include features such as ready-to-use templates, automatic tracking, and A/B testing to simplify affiliate marketing. One example of such a tool is ReferralCandy, which can be used to create affiliate and referral programs.
The main reasons why you should invest in an affiliate plugin include:
So, what features should an affiliate plugin have?
This is what we recommend:
For each plugin, we will break down the key features, customer reviews, who it is suitable for, and the pros and cons.
With this information, you can better understand the differences of each plugin.
With ReferralCandy, you can create, manage, and automate your affiliate and referral programs for WooCommerce stores.
ReferralCandy's key features include all-in-one affiliate and referral management, post-purchase popups and emails, automated customer rewards, and fraud detection.
You can use ReferralCandy's editor to design affiliate and referral programs to match your brand colors. ReferralCandy allows you to track and analyze the performance of your affiliate and referral programs.
ReferralCandy is available in the WordPress Plugin Directory as well as in the Shopify App Store. It also offers various other third-party integrations, such as with Mailchimp, Klaviyo, Google Analytics, and ReCharge.
2. Pretty Links
With Pretty Links, you can turn long and unclean URLs into short, cloaked affiliate links using your own domain name. The links can be added to any page you want, including emails, websites, social media, and more.
Here is an example of how the cloaked links look with Pretty Links:
Pretty Links creates the cloaked link automatically, but you can create your own custom slug if you wish.
In addition to link cloaking, Pretty Links provides tracking and analytics features. You can see where the link traffic comes from, the browser, OS, and the host. You can also create reports showing the number of clicks per day in a configurable chart.
Pretty Links is available in the WordPress Plugin Directory. It can be used on other ecommerce platforms, but it does not offer specific apps for them.
ThirstyAffiliates is a free affiliate plugin solution for managing affiliate links and cloaking them into shorter and cleaner formats. While the platform also has a paid plan, the free version suits ecommerce brands and bloggers who want simple features for utilizing cloaked affiliate links.
ThirstyAffiliates comes with a dashboard for managing existing affiliate links and creating new ones. You can also add images and banners to the affiliate links. ThirstyAffiliates has reporting and analytics, where you can see how many clicks your links have gotten over time.
As for integrations, ThirstyAffiliates can be integrated with MonsterInsights to push data into Google Analytics.
SliceWP aims to be an all-in-one plugin for managing your affiliate program on a WordPress site. Its features include an affiliate dashboard for managing affiliate signups, real-time tracking of clicks, referrals, and conversions, and scheduled automatic payouts.
SliceWP makes the setup process easy, and you can create and customize custom pages for affiliates to sign up on. The affiliates' commissions can be set at a percentage or at a fixed rate.
Many of SliceWP's features are available as add-ons, which you have to pay extra for. The add-ons include third-party integrations, PayPal payouts, custom affiliate slugs, affiliate landing pages, and recurring and lifetime commissions. The extra cost is a slight disadvantage compared to competitors like ReferralCandy, which offers many of the features as part of its standard plan.
MonsterInsights makes it easy to integrate and manage Google Analytics on your WordPress site. While it isn't designed exclusively for affiliate programs, it is a great way to track affiliate link performance.
The integration process to Google Analytics is simple. After done, you can track the performance of your affiliate links, as well as your customers' age, device, gender, and other information that can help improve your affiliate performance. You can also see more conversational statistics, such as top revenue sources, conversion rate, average order value, and top referrals.
All data is available in the reports MonsterInsights provides you, including ecommerce reports, audience reports, publisher reports, content reports, landing page reports, and more. MonsterInsights has a Pro version available, but the free version gives you access to many features.
Coupon Affiliates is unique because it focuses on coupon-based affiliate marketing, which allows store owners to assign unique coupon codes to affiliates.
To manage the coupons, you get access to an admin dashboard. Affiliate users can track and submit payout requests through the available affiliate dashboard. From the same page, affiliates can generate referral URLs, set up link tracking, create referral campaigns, do link cloaking, and share links on social media.
Coupon Affiliates offers different reports and analytics to track affiliate coupon performance.
BetterLinks is a URL-shortening solution for WordPress sites. With it, you can create, shorten, and track the performance of any URL, including affiliate link URLs. The platform isn't made specifically for affiliate links, but it works great for them as well.
You can split-test different links with dynamic redirects, create 301, 302, and 307 redirects, check broken links, and track your performance. BetterLinks provides reports on the click-through rate, top referral links, top social media links, and more.
If you want more advanced features, BetterLinks has a Pro version that includes more advanced analytics, Google Analytics integration, Facebook Pixel tracking, the broken link checker, and the ability to control and manage user roles.
Skimlinks is a content-to-commerce platform designed to help merchants monetize their content through affiliate marketing. It converts regular product links into affiliate links, allowing content creators to earn commissions on sales generated through their content.
Its key features include automatic product link converter, reporting and analytics, content monetization tools, geotargeting, and integrations with third-party software.
Skimlinks is unique in that it is free to use, but they charge a percentage of the sales you make. This can be a disadvantage for brands with high sales volumes, but it can also be advantageous for merchants with low sales volumes.
Post Affiliate Pro helps WordPress store owners create, manage, and optimize affiliate programs. It’s key features include an affiliate dashboard for management and analytics, as well as fraud protection.
One unique feature of Post Affiliate Pro is the marketing materials it provides to its new users. These include ready-to-use banners, discount coupons, and smartlinks, which can be used on your website and ads.
Post Affiliate Pro includes automation features such as email sending, social media posting, and automated commissions. For analytics, you can see impressions, click-through rates, conversions, sales, and more.
Easy Affiliate’s key features include affiliate and commission management, tracking and reporting, fraud protection, custom link generation, and affiliate payout management.
One unique feature of Easy Affiliate is the ability to create an affiliate application process. It requires visitors to apply for your affiliate program before they are eligible to join.
With Goaffpro, ecommerce merchants can launch and manage their affiliate programs. The platform offers a custom-branded affiliate portal, several commission options, affiliate tracking, and link sharing.
Goaffpro’s analytics provide data such as clicks, sales, new signups, net and gross revenue, and cost per conversion. The data is quite extensive and one of Goaffpro's standout features.
Goaffpro not only offers affiliate marketing tools for WordPress stores, but it is also a popular Shopify app. From the affiliate dashboard, affiliates can share their links and coupons on different social media platforms.
YITH WooCommerce Affiliates lets you quickly create an affiliate registration page and start earning money. You can create a custom registration form and decide which one of your customers get accepted to the program.
The tool comes with an affiliate table, where brands as well as affiliates can track their commissions, earnings, and conversion rates.
For more capabilities, YITH WooCommerce Affiliates integrates with third-party tools.
AffiliateWP offers an easy integration with WooCommerce and Elementor stores for running affiliate programs. It has an affiliate dashboard for affiliates, fraud detection, and one click PayPal and Stripe payouts.
WP Affiliate Manager integrates with WooCommerce and various shopping carts and helps you manage, track, and pay affiliates. The tool comes with email templates, customizable affiliate registration, and basic analytics.
Ultimate Affiliate Pro is an affiliate program plugin for WordPress and WooCommerce store owners. The tool offers different commission types, such as product rates, membership-tailored rates, and recurring referral rates.
Ultimate Affiliate Pro integrates with different ecommerce, form, and membership platforms for more functionality.
As the name suggests, Easy Affiliate Links offers a simple tool for managing affiliate links. Whether you’re creating a landing page or a blog article, you can add the affiliate links easily to your text.
Easy Affiliate Links is compatible with the WordPress Classic Editor and Gutenberg Block Editor.
A competitor to EasyAzon, AAWP, lets you create and manage Amazon affiliate links For example, if you run a blog and recommend products to your readers, you can lead them to Amazon through your affiliate links.
AAWP comes with templates, including boxes, lists, and tables. It works on all WordPress themes.
AdSanity lets you display ads anywhere on your WordPress site. To use it, you need to join an ad network and request a code snippet that the ad network will provide.
You can then add the code snippet to AdSanity and display the ad on your website through ready-made blocks, widgets, and shortcodes.
Similar to AAWP, EasyAzon lets WordPress users create Amazon affiliate links. With it, you can control affiliate links through site defaults or individually. The links can be set up to open in a new tab, have a no-follow attribute applied, and be cloaked for SEO purposes.
Affiliate Coupons is a tool for managing coupons on your WordPress site. Each coupon has a title, description, link, and validity date. Affiliates can share these with their audience, and when someone makes a purchase, both parties benefit.
Affiliate Coupons works for all WordPress themes. There are templates you can use to speed up the creation of your affiliate program.
Solid Affiliate lets WooCommerce store owners launch affiliate and referral programs. It includes an affiliate program where affiliates can manage referrals and payments.
One of Solid Affiliate's cool features is its marketing assets, such as banner ads and advertising videos. These can be shared with affiliates, who can use the materials to promote your products.
Referral emails can also be sent within Solid Affiliate.
If you’re unsure what plugin to choose, ask yourself these questions:
ReferralCandy offers all of the above and enables you to easily set up your first affiliate program, as well as send post-purchase pop-ups, emails, and pages to enroll new customers.
If you want to see how other ReferralCandy customers have done, like Wing Assistant, who got a 27.9x ROI on its affiliate program, check out our case studies.
Raúl Galera is the Growth Lead at ReferralCandy, where they’ve helped 30,000+ eCommerce brands drive sales through referrals and word-of-mouth marketing. Over the past 8+ years, Raúl has worked hands-on with DTC merchants of all sizes (from scrappy Shopify startups to household names) helping them turn happy customers into revenue-driving advocates. Raúl’s been featured on dozens of top eCommerce podcasts, contributed to leading industry publications, and regularly speaks about customer acquisition, retention, and brand growth at industry events.
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