Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular ways to make money from your website, and WordPress affiliate marketing plugins help you more effectively run your affiliate marketing efforts.
In this post, we’ve identified some of the best plugins available to help you get started. Some plugins help you more effectively manage and promote your affiliate links, while others can help you create your own affiliate program.
We’ll start with a brief discussion about how you can earn additional income using affiliate marketing plugins. Then, we’ll compare six different solutions and make some recommendations as to which one could be right for you.
🥳 Let’s begin our hunt to find the best WordPress affiliate plugin!
A quick introduction to affiliate marketing 🤑
For the uninitiated, affiliate marketing is the process of promoting a company’s products in exchange for a commission. As such, with a solid online presence or popular blog, you can monetize your WordPress website as a means to earn additional income.
As far as implementing your affiliate marketing, there are a number of ways to go about it. For starters, you can promote products that resonate with your audience organically throughout your content, write reviews for these products, and promote them with a carefully crafted call to action (CTA) or two.
However, whatever your techniques, you’re going to need the tools to pull them off effectively. In other words, let’s get on with it!
Six best WordPress affiliate marketing plugins 🏆
The following plugins enable you to do almost everything relating to affiliate marketing, such as adding affiliate links to your content and even starting your own affiliate program. For each, we will break down its key features, who it would be suitable for, pricing, and more.
1. ThirstyAffiliates
ThirstyAffiliates is one of our favorite affiliate marketing plugins. It’s lightweight and provides the tools you need to integrate affiliate marketing links into your WordPress website. In addition, it makes it easy to insert links into your blog posts, pages, and comments.
ThirstyAffiliates also provides a way to manage your affiliate links too. For example, you can split them into categories or arrange them in myriad ways.
Additional features ⚙️
- Provides a simple link management system.
- Offers safe redirects to prevent malware from damaging your links.
- Lets you add images to affiliate links.
- Includes link tracking reports.
- Allows you to easily customize the URL structure of your cloaked affiliate links.
- Gives you the option to automatically mark your affiliate links with the
nofollowattribute.
With the paid version, you can even automatically insert affiliate links based on keywords.
Overall, ThirstyAffiliates is suitable for anyone who wishes to employ affiliate links on their website. Furthermore, compared with other options of this kind, it is the most highly-rated and effective plugin available.
Pricing 💸
- Free
- $159 – single site
- $259 – five sites
- $399 – ten sites
Though they often have deals on these plans, so if you’re not in a rush, you can periodically check their pricing page until a discount offer pops up.
2. Amazon Auto Links
For those wanting to make additional income on their website with affiliate links, Amazon Auto Links is another possible option. This WordPress affiliate plugin can be used to automatically fill your content with affiliate links to Amazon products for sale.
A really nice feature of this plugin is that it allows you to turn on geotargeting automatically:
Geotargeting for Amazon product affiliate links can be an effective way to increase your conversion rates and provide a personalized user experience for visitors to your website. By directing visitors to the appropriate Amazon website for their location, you can display products that are relevant and available in their region, potentially increasing the likelihood of a purchase. Geotargeting can also promote products that offer higher commission rates in specific countries.
Additionally, the great thing about Amazon Auto Links is that it keeps your links up to date, including newly-available products.
Additional features ⚙️
- Supports all types of Amazon Associates accounts.
- Provides filters for unwanted products.
- Includes customization options to create your own templates.
- Converts Amazon links on your site to affiliate links automatically.
As you can see, this is a handy tool for those who use Amazon Associates frequently on their website. Moreover, it can save you time from having to insert every link by hand, although it only works for Amazon affiliates.
Pricing 💸
- Free
- $47.98 – single site
- $77.98 – five sites
- $237.98 – unlimited sites
3. SliceWP
SliceWP stands out due to its features tailored for ecommerce. Offering a seamless integration with plugins like WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads, it allows online store owners to effortlessly manage affiliate programs directly within their WordPress website. The plugin tracks not just referrals but also successful conversions, providing a granular understanding of affiliate performance.
In terms of customization, SliceWP takes the lead by providing dynamic commission structures. Users can set up tiered commissions, time-sensitive bonuses, or even personalized rates for specific affiliates, tailoring the system to match the unique needs of their business model. This flexibility extends to payout methods as well, with support for various payment gateways.
Additional features ⚙️
- Automatic commission reversals for refunds or chargebacks.
- Multiple currencies.
- Creates automated affiliate links (via smart link generation).
- Real-time analytics and advanced reporting tools.
- Lets you customize your affiliate dashboards with personalized tracking and easy access to promotional materials.
- Coupon codes.
- Setup wizard.
The plugin also ensures that affiliates receive fair compensation for their efforts. This precision, coupled with a user-friendly interface, makes SliceWP a great tool for ecommerce businesses looking to maximize the potential of their affiliate programs.
Pricing 💸
- Free
- $169 – single site
- $259 – ten sites
4. Pretty Links
Pretty Links is a WordPress affiliate plugin best known for its ability to shorten links using your own domain name. However, it can also be used to optimize your affiliate links. Simply give Pretty Links your affiliate information, and it will spread these links throughout your content automatically in the best places.
Even better, Pretty Links saves you time so that you don’t have to go through the tedious process of placing and managing all of your affiliate links manually.
Additional features ⚙️
- Provides link cloaking functionality.
- Shortens your affiliate links.
- Supplies tracking data.
In other words, Pretty Links is a powerful plugin comprised of several tools, some of which can benefit your affiliate marketing efforts. Of course, there are several available options for shortening and cloaking your links, but Pretty Links is the perfect all-in-one solution.
To top it all off, it is one of the most user-friendly affiliate marketing plugins available. As soon as you install and activate it, you get a really easy-to-follow, step-by-step tutorial on how to get started:
Pricing 💸
- Free
- $99.50 – single site
- $149.50 – two sites
- $199.50 – five sites
5. Affiliates Manager
With these last two plugins, we’re pivoting to plugins that can help you set up your affiliate program to recruit other people to promote your products.
First up, we have Affiliates Manager.
Affiliates Manager is a plugin you can use with your WordPress website to set up and manage your own affiliate marketing program. It enables you to register new affiliates and organizes the entire process from start to finish.
What’s more, it tracks referrals that your affiliates send to your site and reports on the sales and traffic they bring in.
Additional features ⚙️
- Integrates with many popular ecommerce solutions, such as WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Lets you add practically an unlimited number of affiliates.
- Provides options for paying your affiliates.
- Lets you create unlimited ads and banners.
- Offers you the chance to customize affiliate registration and messages.
All in all, Affiliates Manager is among the best affiliate marketing plugins for small to mid-sized businesses looking to start and implement their own affiliate marketing program. Although it may not be as flexible as other options (such as the next plugin we’ll talk about in a minute), it does offer a solid system for newbies and niche marketers.
Pricing 💸
- Free
- $39 – single site
- $97 – unlimited sites
6. Affiliates
Our second plugin to help you set up an affiliate marketing program within WordPress is Affiliates. This solution is designed for affiliate managers who expect their program to grow over time, offering a number of tools to do help, such as an intuitive dashboard and flexible management options.
What’s more, developers can use it as a framework for creating customized solutions and features.
Additional features ⚙️
- Integration with many different types of platforms, including ecommerce, lead generation forms, and membership websites.
- Automated affiliate registration.
- Unlimited affiliates.
- Real-time reporting.
- Premium extensions available, such as coupons and affiliate accounts.
Affiliates is ideal for many different types of businesses, such as ecommerce shops and monetized blogs. It is relatively easy to set up and offers the tools you need for both small and larger marketing programs, as well as provides customization opportunities for developers that other similar plugins do not provide.
Pricing 💸
Depending on the number of sites you wish to use it on, pro pricing ranges from $49 to $159.
How to decide which affiliate marketing plugin is right for you 🤔
Of course, which plugins you decide to use will depend largely on what you are trying to do. For example, if you are trying to set up and manage an affiliate marketing program, Affiliates Manager, SliceWP, and Affiliates will do a great job.
On the other hand, if you want to place your own affiliate links, you’ll be better off with a WordPress affiliate plugin like ThirstyAffiliates, Pretty Links, or Amazon Auto Links.
Overall, Pretty Links is our winner if you’re engaging in affiliate marketing yourself. Its versatility and ease-of-use make it a top choice for managing affiliate links on your WordPress website. However, they’re all going to serve a purpose, so each one should be considered, based on your overall goals.
Final thoughts on affiliate marketing plugins 💭
There are many great ways to make some extra money by building an affiliate marketing website and becoming an affiliate marketer. For starters, using the right promotional techniques and tools can help you to be successful.
The good news is that WordPress makes it easy to implement your strategies using affiliate marketing plugins.
🖱️ This piece has compared six affiliate marketing plugins, as well as weighed up their pros and cons. To quickly recap, they are:
- ThirstyAffiliates: An effective solution to monetize your blog.
- Amazon Auto Links: A plugin to more efficiently implement Amazon affiliate links.
- SliceWP: A plugin that lets you create and manage affiliate programs within your WordPress site.
- Pretty Links: It intelligently places affiliate links throughout your content.
- Affiliates Manager: This plugin can help you manage an affiliate marketing program.
- Affiliates: Great for running a successful affiliate marketing campaign.
Do you have any questions about affiliate marketing or any of the featured plugins? Fire away in the comments section below!
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