What are the best affiliation tools and software?

Affiliate platforms: essential for creating affiliate content

To get started in affiliation, it's crucial to find programs on the various affiliation platforms available on the market. These platforms enable you to create affiliate links, distribute advertising inserts, track performance and collect earnings. In short, they are the nerve center of affiliate programs (with the exception of Amazon and a few others, which have their own programs). Here are the main platforms available on the French market:

• Awin: Probably the largest affiliation platform, Awin offers many major programs such as Cdiscount, Fnac, Lidl, Sephora, Rue du Commerce, Nike... If you want access to the most comprehensive catalog on the market, Awin is a must.
• Kwanko: Another of the market's major platforms, Kwanko complements Awin. Although it may offer fewer programs, they are just as important, with partners such as Micromania, Canal Plus, Intersport, Orchestra and FDJ.
• Affilae: A French affiliation platform, Affilae also offers major programs such as La Redoute, Cultura, Conforama, SonVidéo, JouéClub... In constant progression, Affilae sometimes offers an interesting sharing of remuneration: you don't always have to be the last click to receive a commission.
• Effiliation: Another of France's longest-established platforms, Effiliation offers programs that cannot be ignored, such as Boulanger, Carrefour, Nocibé, Maisons du Monde, Norauto, Oscaro and Vertbaudet.

With these four affiliate platforms, you have a solid foundation for creating varied affiliate content relevant to your audience. We could have listed many others, such as Rakuten Advertising, CJ, Impact, Webgains... However, sign-ups are gradual, depending on your needs.

Finally, you should be aware that programs open and close on these platforms every day: today's reality won't necessarily be tomorrow's. It is therefore crucial to monitor programs on each platform on a daily basis (re-registering, modifying placed links, starting performance monitoring again).

💡Registering with Affilizz gives you access to over 1,500 affiliate programs, without having to sign up individually for each platform. So you don't need to track transfers or update your affiliate content one by one, everything is automated. For example, when the Conforama program was recently transferred from Awin to Affilae, we managed the registration on the new platform, then integrated this program to make it accessible to our partner publishers. All they had to do was wait for the transfer to take place.

What are the best tools for creating affiliate content?

In addition to the tools you need to manage your affiliation, it's essential to have effective solutions for content creation. To help you find the best tools available on the Internet, we've put together a selection.

WordPress: the essential tool for creating a website

We'll start with the most widely used CMS on the website creation market: WordPress. This CMS powers just over half of the world's websites (around 43% in 2024, to be precise). WordPress owes its success to its accessibility and ease of use. In fact, the majority of hosting providers offer automatic installation of WordPress when subscribing to a hosting package, testifying to the importance of this CMS for online content creation.

WordPress lets you create a wide variety of sites: blogs (its original vocation), showcase sites, communities, e-commerce... Whatever your web project, WordPress can handle it thanks to the hundreds of thousands of extensions available, includingAffilizz, which lets you import your affiliation in just a few clicks.

Other CMS

Although WordPress is the world leader, there are many other CMS. Here's a list of the most popular ones on the market, according to Appvizer:

• Drupal
• HubSpot CMS
• Joomla!
• Orson
• Shopify
• Squarespace
• Webflow
• Wix

The offer is wide and varied. If you don't want to use WordPress, exploring these alternative CMS can be very interesting. For example, Shopify is renowned for its ease of use for e-commerce sites, while Wix is ideal for blogging. Although it's difficult to list all CMS, our advice is to try WordPress, which, after a short period of adaptation, proves to be very powerful. Alternatively, you can test alternative CMSes to find the one that suits you best. Free trials and offers are often available, so take advantage of them!

Social networks

Content creation and affiliation are not limited to a website. Social network management tools are an excellent alternative. Social networks can be powerful growth levers for a site's audience, but they can also function independently. Having a content creation strategy that is 100% social networking makes perfect sense.

The first reflex for affiliate marketing on social networks is usually to connect directly to the network and publish your content. However, this method can be time-consuming if you use several networks (Instagram, X, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube...). Choosing a content management tool for social networks is therefore pertinent. Here are the most popular according to Hubspot:

• Marketing Hub (complete and available in French, ideal for marketing)
• Hootsuite (collaborative, easy to access, and available in French)
• Buffer (one of the simplest on the market, ergonomic)
• Metricool (visual synthesis, competitive intelligence)
• Sendible (multiple integrations, keyword intelligence, mobile application)

These tools let you manage all your social networks from a single interface, saving you precious time and offering unrivalled ease of action.

What tools can I use to help me write affiliate content?

The quality of the content you produce is essential, but so is the quantity to improve your website's SEO or your visibility on social networks. To this end, tools to help you write and create content are highly relevant in the affiliate marketing field. Fortunately, there are many tools available!

Artificial intelligence (ChatGPT, Gemini...)

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) has become essential. Two approaches are possible: AI can generate content in its entirety, or be used as a support tool. In our opinion, it is preferable to use AI as a support tool.

Indeed, 100% AI-generated content runs the risk of being penalized by search engines, and may seem "generic" to readers, causing them to quickly leave your site. On the other hand, tools like ChatGPT are extremely useful for improving content, offering services such as spelling correction, SEO optimization, content performance analysis and automation of repetitive tasks. ChatGPT is a free tool, with a paid offer available at $20 per month.

Images (Canva, Dall-E...)

To illustrate affiliate content, it's often necessary to add images. However, finding royalty-free images that can be used commercially can be a challenge.

The ideal tool for this is Canva, which offers a vast library of images, templates, fonts and various graphic elements. Canva also enables collaborative working, which is perfect for editorial teams. The tool has a free version and a "Pro" version at €110 per year.

AI can also be used to generate images, for example with Dall-E. All you have to do is write a prompt to obtain an illustration image. For example, here's the image Dall-E can generate in a few seconds with the following prompt: "Generate an illustration image for a French blog article on the best tools for creating affiliate content (blog, video, social networks...)".

Search engine optimization (WordPress plugins, Semrush, Semji...)

Creating affiliate content is a great initiative, but getting the word out about it is just as crucial. Even the best content can go unnoticed without a good SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategy. Using dedicated SEO tools is therefore essential. Here are a few recommendations:

• WordPress SEO plugins: Among the most popular are Yoast SEO, SEOPress and Rank Math. These plugins generally offer a free version as well as a "Premium" subscription version.
• Semrush: This all-in-one service is dedicated to all types of websites and offers tools for content marketing, market research, advertising and social networking. Semrush provides SEO scores for specific pages. Ideal for ambitious projects, its base price starts at just over $100 a year.
• Semji: This tool perfectly combines SEO and artificial intelligence. It creates high-quality content, taking into account SEO criteria, current trends and spelling correction. Semji is one of the best tools on the market, albeit an expensive one, with prices reaching several thousand euros.
• Google Search Console: Entirely free of charge, this tool is used by most web designers to manage SEO performance. It helps monitor page indexing, site ergonomics and error correction. It also provides numerous KPIs such as number of impressions, clicks and average positions on Google. A must-have.

The list of tools for working on the SEO of your affiliate content is long. The ones mentioned here are perfect for getting started!

How can you track affiliate performance using Analytics tools?

Now that you've got the tools you need to create affiliate-oriented content, there's one important task left: tracking the performance of what you've created! This step is crucial to adjusting your strategy and determining what works and what doesn't. Here are some of the most popular tools:

• Google Analytics: The undisputed leader in website performance analysis, Google Analytics is ultra-complete (if complex to use). It provides a wealth of information on traffic, user behavior and conversions. Google Analytics is completely free, which contributes to its dominant market position.
• Adobe Analytics: mainly used by large companies, this tool offers even more advanced information than Google Analytics. However, its price (several tens of thousands of euros per year) makes it unaffordable for many websites.
• Hotjar: This tool uses "heat maps" to provide a visualization of the most-used areas on a site. It's very practical and comprehensive. Prices range from free for the basic package to €200 per month, depending on site size.
• Matomo: Similar to Google Analytics, Matomo focuses on privacy and RGPD compliance. It's free if you host the system on your server, otherwise it costs around €20 for use in the cloud.

Other tools exist on the market, but those mentioned are the main ones. You can also use the tools seen earlier in the SEO section, such as Google Search Console or Semrush, which provide valuable information on the performance of your affiliate content.

How does Affilizz position itself as an affiliation tool?

At Affilizz, we know that affiliation and content creation are closely linked. So one of our priorities is to provide a comprehensive, yet easy-to-use tool:

1. Platform centralization: Affilizz brings together the majority of affiliation platforms in a single tool. This means you don't need to sign up individually for each program or platform (with a few exceptions, such as Amazon).
2. Fast creation of affiliate links: An affiliate link can be generated by a simple cut-and-paste operation, which takes just two or three seconds.
3. Performance tracking: The performance of each link can be tracked via the dashboard: clicks, transactions, commissions, eCPC... So you can quickly adjust your affiliate strategy.

These three points will save you precious time in creating affiliate content. We've also added a number of innovative features to take things even further:

• Creating price tables: You can create a price table (a mini-comparator) in just a few moments. Simply copy and paste your link, then click on "transform into table" to immediately obtain this mini-comparator.

• ‍Createeditorialized cards: In addition to price tables, our tool allows you to create editorialized cards. These resemble tables, but with one notable difference: you can add editorialized content to them.

The two formats complement each other: the table offers a clear price comparison, while the card provides additional engagement through the addition of content. Many of Affilizz's media partners are increasingly using this card format, with excellent feedback.

At Affilizz, our credo is to save time and make affiliate marketing easy to use. We are constantly striving to follow this path in order to offer you the best possible tool!