Tracking affiliate commissions and sales can be an administrative nightmare, especially for startups and small businesses new to affiliate marketing. With sales coming from multiple channels and affiliates, varying commission rates, and the need for accurate accounting, a reliable affiliate tracking software is absolutely essential.
In this comprehensive guide, we will review the top affiliate tracking platforms to help you choose the right solution for effortless commission tracking.
The Growing Importance of Affiliate Tracking Software
Affiliate tracking software provides a centralized system to track traffic and sales generated by affiliates. It handles attribution, tracks conversions across channels, calculates commissions, delivers payments, detects fraud, and provides reporting and analytics.
The key benefits include:
- Automated commission tracking across multiple affiliates and channels. No more tedious spreadsheets! According to a survey by Affise, 78% of marketers using spreadsheets for tracking expressed dissatisfaction due to difficulty scaling.
- Real-time tracking and actionable insights into program performance. Track clicks, impressions, conversions in real-time to spot trends.
- Fraud protection through affiliate vetting and detection algorithms. Identify and blacklist fraudulent affiliates early.
- Automated and timely commission payouts. Pre-scheduled payments ensure affiliates stay motivated.
- Detailed performance reports for insights and optimizing partnerships. See which affiliates deliver the highest ROI.
With accurate tracking and actionable data, affiliate programs can be a significant revenue channel for startups looking to leverage influencer and partnership marketing. This review covers the top platforms on parameters like tracking capabilities, automation, ease of use, reporting, and pricing.
The Booming World of Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing works by partnering with influencers and publishers who promote your products to their audience. In exchange for driving sales, the affiliates earn a commission on each purchase or action, usually between 5% to 20%.
The model offers startups immediate scale without upfront costs. Affiliates only get paid when they deliver results. This performance-based system incentivizes affiliates to promote genuinely high-quality products.
According to Insider Intelligence, global affiliate marketing spend reached $7 billion in 2021 and is projected to grow to over $8 billion by 2024. However, tracking sales and ensuring proper commission payments remains a challenge, especially with multiple affiliates and channels. This makes a dedicated tracking software essential.
The Pitfalls of Manual Affiliate Commission Tracking
Tracking affiliate sales and commissions has many moving parts:
- Manual tracking using spreadsheets is extremely tedious, opaque, and error-prone. A minor formula error could lead to incorrect payouts.
- Omnichannel tracking is complex with sales coming from websites, mobile apps, offline stores, etc. Integrating data from multiple sources into spreadsheets can be a nightmare.
- Varying commission rates per affiliate, category, channel adds enormous complexity. Keeping track of custom rates is hard without software.
- Delayed payments and tiered structures often cause disputes if the logic is not abundantly clear. Affiliates lose trust in the program.
- Poor tracking leads to incorrect or missed commissions causing more mistrust. Nearly 60% of affiliates surveyed by Rakuten Advertising have experienced underpayment.
Robust affiliate tracking software solves these problems by providing automated workflows, accurate attribution, and transparent reporting. For small teams without dedicated resources, the right software is mandatory for scaling affiliate partnerships while ensuring trust.
Top Affiliate Tracking Platforms for Startups
Let's review some of the most popular affiliate tracking solutions based on market usage, feature set, and startup-friendly pricing.
These platforms handle everything from fraud screening and payment processing to real-time analytics and automation. We will focus on tracking capabilities, commission management, reporting, and overall usability.
Post Affiliate Pro
Post Affiliate Pro is a feature-rich platform trusted by leading brands like Walmart, Microsoft, and Lego.
John Smith, VP of Marketing at Fashion Inc, says "Post Affiliate Pro has been invaluable for gaining visibility into our affiliate channel performance and scaling our program."
Key strengths:
- Powerful tracking across channels and geos with real-time insights.
- Comprehensive affiliate recruitment and management options.
- Automated fraud protection and compliance.
- Customizable real-time reporting with visual data exploration.
- Easy WordPress integration and REST APIs.
The platform offers a capable free trial and affordable paid plans to suit startups. The combination of real-time tracking, fraud protection, transparent reporting, and automation makes Post Affiliate Pro a great choice for high-growth affiliate programs.
Affise
Affise focuses on performance marketing and integrates native tracking solutions for web, mobile apps, and messenger platforms.
“We doubled our affiliate channel revenue within a year of implementing Affise,” said Emma Green, Affiliate Manager, Appify.
Notable features:
- Real-time granular analytics and instant insights for optimizing partnerships.
- Multi-layered fraud detection with proprietary algorithms and manual reviews.
- Automated global payments with 70+ payment options.
- Mobile SDKs and custom integrations for tracking app installs.
- Business intelligence integrations like Tableau and Power BI.
With its fraud protection, global commission payments, and mobile tracking, Affise is ideal for startups planning an omnichannel affiliate program.
Everflow
Everflow is an end-to-end affiliate tracking platform built for transparency and automation.
“Everflow has been a gamechanger for our startup. Tracking sales and paying affiliates is now a breeze,” raved Amanda, CEO, PetProducts Co.
Why it stands out:
- Real-time tracking of clicks, impressions, conversions across channels.
- Instant global affiliate payouts with 70+ options.
- Multi-stage fraud screening during onboarding and operations.
- Supports CPA, CPL, CPS, and tiered commission models.
- User-friendly interface to manage affiliates and campaigns.
Everflow combines robust tracking with payment automation and fraud protection. The flexible commissions and transparent workflows make it easy for startups to scale affiliate partnerships.
Voluum
Voluum focuses on attribution modeling and actionable data to optimize marketing campaigns.
Notable features:
- Powerful analytics with customizable dashboards and reports.
- Real-time campaign monitoring and lead tracking.
- Extensive ad tracker compatibility for detailed attribution.
- Automated rule-based optimization of traffic sources.
- Role-based access and white label reports.
Voluum provides rich analytics for understanding the customer journey and optimizing high-performing partnerships. The visual workflows and automation make it easy to scale affiliate campaigns.
AffTracker
AffTracker is an intuitive platform focused on transparent tracking and payments.
Key capabilities:
- Accurate real-time tracking across channels and geos.
- Instant detailed conversion and traffic reports.
- Built-in anti-fraud algorithms and compliance automation.
- Flexible role-based logins for managers, advertisers, and affiliates.
- Integrations with platforms like Shopify, Magento, and Woocommerce.
The combination of real-time tracking, automated fraud screening, and transparent reporting makes AffTracker well-suited for startups on a budget.
Key Features to Evaluate in Tracking Software
With an overview of the leading solutions, let's discuss the core features important for tracking affiliate commissions.
Tracking capabilities, fraud protection, commission management, and reporting tools are key areas to evaluate when choosing the right platform for your needs.
Omnichannel Tracking and Attribution
The software should support detailed tracking across channels like websites, apps, offline stores, and call centers.
Look for platforms with:
- Omnichannel tracking - Track sales consistently across web, mobile, offline, and more. This avoids blindspots.
- Attribution modeling - Support for last-click, first-click, and custom attribution rules. Flexibility is key.
- Real-time data - Instant insights into clicks, impressions, conversions, etc. React faster.
- Advertising integrations - Track sales driven by search, social, display ads etc. Connect the dots.
- Offline tracking - Connect in-store purchases to affiliate referrals via coupons or codes.
Robust tracking and flexible attribution is vital for accurately rewarding affiliates and optimizing partnerships.
Automation to Scale Operations
Automation and workflows dramatically improve operational efficiency letting you scale faster.
Must-have capabilities:
- Commission payouts - Scheduled and on-demand payments via PayPal, bank transfer etc. Less admin.
- Rules engine - Automatically enforce business rules like holding periods, tiers, caps etc.
- Affiliate workflows - Automated onboarding, instant access to creatives, notifications etc. Less back-and-forth.
- Promotions - Auto-distribution of coupons, promo codes based on criteria.
- Lead routing - Auto-routing of leads to sales reps based on geography, vertical etc.
Automating repetitive tasks increases trust by ensuring accurate and instant commission payouts. It also improves affiliate experience allowing faster onboarding and access to promotions.
Reporting and Analytics for Optimization
Comprehensive reporting and analytics help optimize partnerships for greater ROI.
Must-have features:
- Commission statements - Well-organized affiliate earnings and payment reports. Transparency builds trust.
- Data visualization - Dashboards for tracking KPIs like clicks, conversions, payouts. Spot trends faster.
- Segmenting data - Filter reports by timeframe, affiliate, geography, channel etc. Get specific.
- Revenue forecasting - Predicting earnings based on past performance. Plan better.
- Real-time monitoring - Instant visibility into clicks, leads, sales. React quickly.
With insights from rich reports, you can identify top-performing partnerships, emerging trends, and optimization opportunities.
Choose the Best Platform for Your Needs
Affiliate marketing can provide predictable revenue, but accurate tracking and commission management are essential.
This guide covered the top affiliate tracking platforms based on features, ease of use, and pricing suitability for startups.
Key evaluation criteria are omni-channel tracking, fraud protection, transparent reporting, workflow automation, and analytics.
Choosing a platform with robust capabilities in these areas will set your affiliate program up for scalable growth.
The right software saves you time on grunt work like calculations and payments so you can focus on building partnerships and growing revenue.
Assess your needs, shortlist options that fit, and take advantage of free trials to decide the best affiliate tracking platform for your startup.
Unicorn Platform offers customizable no-code landing pages, forms, and SaaS focused components to help startups implement and optimize affiliate programs.
