Table of Contents
Content Tools
I’m a firm believer in the phrase ‘content is king’.
No matter whether Google or any social platform changes its algorithm, if your content is great, people will find it and engage with it.
I mentioned before, but being consistent is key with your content. Focus on quality over quantity and maintain a high standard.
To enable you to do this, look to affiliate marketing tools that can help ensure your content is unique, shareable and doesn’t contain any mistakes.
Buzzsumo
Price
Pro $99/Month
Plus $179/Month
Large $299/Month
Enterprise $499+/Month
Savings can be made when you pay annually for any of the above.
Overview
Creating content that viewers will engage with either on your site or on social can be hit or miss.
With additional alerts and competitor monitoring, BuzzSumo gives you the upper hand over your rivals.
Content Discovery – Find content topics or keywords that are gathering traction across the internet.
Content Research – Instead of guessing, get actionable insights on the most engaging content from billions of articles.
Influencer – Find and follower influencers creating content that is truly resonating with their audiences.
All of this comes with a Chrome Extension and a 30-day FREE trial.
Grammarly
Price
FREE
Premium $11.66/Month
Business $12.50/Month
I use Grammarly all the time and couldn’t recommend it highly enough.
Overview
Adding a Chrome Extension will check the spelling and grammar of anything you are typing.
All content on your site should be spell-checked and Grammarly makes it very easy to ensure there are no mistakes. You can even use it for any affiliate email correspondences.
If you want a more relaxed tone of voice for your blog posts. Enter in smart goals and the app will analyse your written content in real-time to maintain consistency.
This article was written using their desktop app.
Hemingway App
Price
Online Version: Free
Desktop Version: $19.99
Overview
Using colour coded pointers, the Hemingway app highlights the area of your writing that needs improvement.
Users will need to sign up for the paid version to be able to save documents and export them in various formats.
But, for most affiliate marketers the free version should suffice.
Overall, the app helps you to create shorter punchier sentences that are easier to read. Ideal in this world of short attention spans.
DulpiChecker
Price
FREE
30,000+ Words From $10/Month
Overview
If you want some additional writing features but don’t want to pay for them, Dulpi Checker is a great tool for any affiliate marketers.
Copy and paste your content into their app and it will flag any plagiarised writing that you should change.
Google hates duplicate content, so use DupliChecker to easily check to make sure no errors occur.
Networks
In order to promote great affiliate programs, you need to find them. This list of affiliate networks covers some of the biggest and best in the industry.
There is a good chance if you want to work with a brand, that they will be on one of these networks.
ShareASale
Acquired by Awin in 2017, ShareASale is probably the biggest affiliate network in the US.
With a broad range of advertisers and tools to help monetise your content. I would recommend them as your first stop in the search for affiliate programs to join.
Awin
The largest affiliate network in the UK, Awin offers the chance to work with a wealth of brands in different verticals.
Be aware that there is a charge of £5 for any publishers to join the network. This covers the cost to verify your bank details and is a barrier for any fraudulent sites wanting to join the network.
The £5 is refunded to your publisher account when you track your first sale through the network.
If you really don’t want to pay it, reach out to an affiliate manager at a brand you want to work with. They can ask Awin for a code that will waive the signup fee for you.
CJ Affiliate
Formerly Commission Junction, CJ Affiliate has a good foothold in both the US and UK market.
With a stringent approval process, the quality of publishers on the network should be strong. As a website looking for brands you can work with the likes of Dell, Argos or Wayfair on there.
ClickBank
Your website might be better suited to promoting your non-traditional retailers and brands.
Clickbank is a marketplace that is perfect for finding digital products to promote.
Commissions can be as high as +70% on Clickbank, it might just take some digging to find the best converting products.
Should you want a greater view on the best affiliate networks in the UK to work with, you can read another of my articles.
The Best UK Affiliate Networks
Social Media Tools
Any website these days needs a strong social presence. But, each platform typically needs a tailored approach, so it is important to keep updated on what your audience is consuming through a feed tracking platform.
Traffic from social is essentially free, it just takes the time to create the content and make sure it gets posted.
A social media tool will help you monitor brand or keyword activity and automate your posts to land when your audience is most engaged.
Hootsuite
Price
Professional: £39/Month
Team: £99/Month
Business: £520/Month
Overview
Hootsuite makes it easy to view multiple social feeds in one dashboard. As an affiliate marketer, this can be vital in reducing time spent flicking through multiple apps.
Most brands or individuals will have a strong presence on many different platforms. So, being able to see how all your posts are performing in one place is extremely helpful.
Scheduling your social posts is a secret weapon for maximising your exposure on various platforms. Pick a day and build out a week or two’s worth of content at one time.
Using a scheduler will also help you remain consistent with your posts. Stick to a particular time or day and watch your followers grow.
Hootsuite offers a FREE 30-day trial
Buffer
Price
FREE
Pro: $15/Month
Premium: $65/Month
Business: $99/Month
Overview
With a mix of publishing, engagement and analytics tools, Buffer is a nice alternative to Hootsuite.
Trusted by over 75,000 brands, Buffer allows you to visually plan and schedule content across different social channels.
Feeding back metrics for each individual post, affiliate marketers will get a better sense of what is engaging better with their audiences at any given time.
Buffer offers a FREE 14-day trial
Landing Page Tools
No one wants to get a user onto their site, only for them to click straight off again.
As soon as someone lands on your site, show them an informative and visually pleasing landing page.
If you include clear calls to action on this landing page, it will help affiliate marketers guide potential customers down a crafted sales funnel.
The end goal for affiliates is to earn a commission. A quick loading landing pages with all the information they initially need will help start guiding them through your funnel. Hopefully leading to a commission at the end.
For affiliate marketers looking to create these landing pages, it is important to use a specialist tool. Landing page partners have a host of high converting templates as standard, with built-in functionality such as split-testing.
Here are some of my favourites.
ClickFunnels
Price
Standard: $97/month
ClickFunnels: $297/month
Overview
This is an all-in-one suite of tools for affiliates to market, sell and deliver products or services online.
Click Funnels’ has a simple drag and drop webpage editor that helps you build high-converting templates for landing pages.
Want to create a more in-depth sales funnel? Then their tools also include apps for increasing upsells and developing a follow-up funnel.
All of this is provided to affiliates without the need for design or development expertise. The sole purpose of Click Funnels is to help you scale your online business with practised sales funnels.
Click Funnels offers a 14-day FREE trial
InstaPage
Price
Business: $199/Month
Enterprise: Custom plans available
Overview
If you are an affiliate marketer that is using any kind of paid ads to drive traffic to their site. Then you know how vital conversions are for maximising your ROI.
By efficiently creating dedicated landing pages for each individual ad, Instapage boasts that they can boost your conversions by up to 400%.
This will help to reduce the estimated 96% of advertising budgets wasted by post-click page experiences as a result of ads.
Even if you don’t use paid ads. We all want our affiliate traffic to convert as highly as possible. Using specific landing pages has been proven to increase the percentages of that happening.
LeadPages
Price
Standard: $37/Month
Pro: $79/Month
Advanced: $321/Month
Overview
Lead Page is a website and landing page software aimed at small businesses.
With an easy to use drag-and-drop builder, they help companies find new customers and grow their business online.
Effectively implement A/B testing to hone your page into converting at a higher rate. While their other tools will help to convert visitors throughout your site with pop-up and alert bars to generate more leads.
Unbounce
Price
Launch: $80/Month
Optimise: $120/Month
Accelerate: $200/Month
Scale: $300/Month
Overview
Take the guesswork out of building a high-converting landing page with the Unbounce platform.
You can create a landing page in minutes using their vertical-specific templates as a foundation. So, no matter whether you want something that is more agency, Saas, or eCommerce looking, there is a design to support it.
All templates have been made with user experience in mind. That way they will offer a greater chance of conversion based on industry best practices.
Unbounce offers a 14-day FREE trial
Lead Generation Tools
Expand your conversion optimisation tools from just a landing page to all areas of your site.
Potential customers will land on a variety of different pages of your site. So, as an affiliate marketer, you need to be able to engage and convert no matter the page they land on.
Create a deeper connection with your visitors by getting them to subscribe to your email list. When they buy into who you or your brand is, they are more likely to follow your product or service recommendations.
This is where lead generation tools come into play.
ConvertKit
Price
Free
Creator: $29/Month
Creator Pro: $59/Month
Overview
With ConvertKit you can use their customisable templates to build beautiful pop-ups and action bars in just minutes.
Coding and design resource can be expensive for affiliates. ConvertKit doesn’t need any coding know-how and gives you access to GDPR compliant designs that look great on all devices.
Why not take your lead generation tools even further. ConvertKit can sync with landing pages and a CRM system to scale your marketing to the next level.
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OptinMonster
Price
Basic: $14/Month
Plus: $30/Month
Pro: $47/Month
Growth: $80/Month
Overview
Convert your traffic with the powerful optimisation tool from Optin Monster.
Not content with just providing pop-ups, this tool gives you access to innovative software such as gamification, exit-intent detection and geo-location targeting.
Optimise your lead-gen further with actionable insights and A/B testing to make sure everything is performing at the highest level it can.
More than 1.2m websites use OptinMonster and with a WordPress plugin to boot, it has never been easier to start converting your traffic.
KyLeads
Price
Monthly: $50
Yearly: $500
Overview
KyLeads offers flexible tools that help grow your email list, segment leads and generate sales.
Using quizzes can help you gather more information about your customers during the sign-up process. You can then use that information to better segment and subsequently optimise better to convert long term.
Personalised targeting can help affiliates target the right visitors at the best time possible for conversion. While insights can offer feedback on what is working and what isn’t so you can tweak creatives where needed.
KyLeads offers a 14-day FREE trial
Design Tools
Affiliate marketers need to design content for all different types of mediums. From social posts to onsite creative, there is always a requirement for engaging content.
But, securing the service of a specialist designer can be expensive. In addition, they might not always know your brand vision and how to best execute it.
The below tools can help speed up your content creation while saving you a fortune in design personnel or software costs.
I personally have used all three of these tools and continue to use them in my daily work life. They have honestly made it much easier for me to maintain a consistent branding across all my channels and sped up my execution of content.
Canva
Price
FREE
Pro: £11.99/Month
Enterprise: £24 per person/Month
Overview
Canva was founded so that anyone could create and collaborate on amazing graphic design.
Simple drag-and-drop layouts make it easy to customise the wealth of templates available or to create your own.
Make anything from social media posts to ebook covers or presentations with their handy-sized artboards ensuring the right size is already optimised for the chosen outcome.
PicMonkey
Price
FREE
Pro: £12.99/Month
Overview
Like Canva, Picmonkey is a photo editor and graphic design tool.
Their powerful software makes it simple to edit photos or build graphics without the need for more expensive alternatives.
It doesn’t matter what you are building for, PicMonkey helps affiliate marketers create standout visuals that make a point, express a view, and leave a lasting impression
The simple interface and access to a ton of free stock images reduce the heavy lifting sometimes needed to create jaw-dropping content.
Affinity
Price
£49.99
Overview
If you like the advanced features that Adobe’s suite of software tools have but don’t want to pay the monthly fee. Then Affinity offers a fantastic alternative.
Available for Windows, Mac and iPad, Affinity Designer is an award-winning vector graphics software available for a one-off fee. Dependent on your personal requirements, there is also Affinity Photo and Affinity Publisher.
It offers much of the software you would find with Adobe software apps and if you need some guidance there are a load of help guides and videos to support.
Email Tools
After using your lead generation tools to optimise landing pages and engage visitors on your site it is time to communicate effectively with those that have signed up.
Mailboxes are overflowing with emails, so you need to ensure that your communications stand out from the rest.
Like with email marketing, affiliate marketers should be segmenting and personalising their emails to get a better response.
To be able to efficiently do this at scale, you need email tools that will sync with your existing lead generation software.
GetResponse
Price
Basic: $15/Month
Plus: $49/Month
Professional: $99/Month
Enterprise: $1,199/Month
Overview
GetResponse is an inbound marketing software that kind of does it all.
Their suite of tools covers everything from engaging visitors on-site and sending targeted communications to hosting knowledge webinars.
Offering a lot of the features you would find in the individual lead generation and CRM tools they build on this with marketing automation.
Additional tools allow you to find, engage and sell to potential leads whether you distribute products, courses or other items.
This software comes highly recommended by some of the best online marketers around.
Mailchimp
Price
Basic: Free
Essentials: $9.99/Month
Standard: $14.99/Month
Premium: $299/Month
Overview
Mailchimp is the all-in-one integrated marketing platform for small businesses, to grow their sales on their terms.
Starting from a free account, you can scale up as your email list grows or you need to send more targeted communications to a greater number of people.
It doesn’t matter what you are trying to sell, MailChimp makes it easy to build and send a single campaign or a larger tailored workflow of emails. Just use their simple drag-and-drop email templates or upload your custom HTML one.
Campaign Monitor
Basic: $9/Month
Unlimited: $29/Month
Premier: $149/Month
Overview
Campaign Monitor can help you drive better results from your email marketing.
Using their tool will assist you in gaining loyal customers and subsequently managing their journeys with a best-in-class email campaign.
Affiliate marketers need software that will do the heavy lifting for them. Campaign Monitor’s visual journey designer makes it easy to create more timely emails that keep your audience engaged with beautiful designs.
Their smart segments and data approach to emails will result in higher conversion rates from your communications. Which is the goal of all email marketing activity.
Email Template Tools
Sometimes, the templates offered by the CRM tools are not fitting with your brand.
To create more complicated designs that allow for more customisation, then you might need email template software.
These template tools allow for creating and exporting designs in different formats so they can be uploaded to your different CRM platforms.
BeePro
Price
FREE
Freelancer: $15/Month
Team: $30/Month
Agency $120/Month
Overview
With direct integration with various email service providers, BeePro reduces email production time with smart design tools and review/approval features.
Whether your affiliate team is a single or multi-person collective, BeePro software can make it easy to plan email projects and execute branded designs.
I use BeePro for my affiliate activity, partly because it allows the flexibility to create my branded designs. But. also because of the ability to insert merge tags, unsubscribe links, and other special links compatible with my email software.
SEO Tools
The behemoth that is Google can make or break an affiliate website.
Get it right and you can get a steady stream of free traffic onto the site, ready for you to engage and convert.
Fail to rank and you are left scrambling around on social or paid ads to get a foothold in your niche.
Thankfully there are a ton of resources and SEO tools to help you spy on competitors and gain a competitive edge to outrank them in Google.
Yoast
Price
FREE
Premium: £89