Basic Affiliate Marketing Tools
Affiliate marketing has become one of the most popular ways to make money online. One big reason for this is the number of tools available that take the tedious work out of it for you. The more you can automate and make use of these tools, the easier it will be for you to promote successful campaigns that bring you continued profits. Here are 5 of the most basic affiliate marketing tools to help you get started.
Keyword Research Tool
Having a good keyword research tool is considered to be vitally important for affiliate marketing. Not only does the tool help you find a profitable market, but also helps to determine just how much competition there is within it.
You can either use Google AdWords Keyword Planner (https://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner) which requires that you sign-up for an AdWords account (the planner is free to use) or use a premium service or software program.
The difference is that while Google’s free tool gives you an idea of search volume and related keyword terms, that’s pretty much all you get. With software programs like Market Samurai give you a wide range of different features to help your laser-target your market, including the ability to analyze your competition.
At first, you can use Google’s tool to keep your costs to a minimum since it works well enough for most types of campaigns at the beginning. Once established, you can then invest in a program when you have a better idea of what you want to do.
Analytics Tracking
Affiliate tracking software provides means to help you manage your affiliate promotions and measure results. The Internet is full of products that can help you do this. However, before purchasing anything, invest some time reading reviews and checking out forums. There are a large number of people to give you recommendations.
It’s also important to know that there is a difference between web analytics software and affiliate marketing tracking software. The biggest difference is that web analytics programs track performance only but offer no tools to help you manage your affiliate campaign. This is why Google Analytics, for example, isn’t sufficient enough to do the job over the long run.
Link Redirect Tool
URL redirection is kind of like call forwarding. Visitors land on your page and are automatically sent elsewhere. It’s a way for you to control what your links look like when a visitor hovers over them.
It also allows you to switch out different affiliate offers without having to change links on your site. Also, link redirects are important for protecting your affiliate ID that is found within those links. This is what helps you get paid. You can find a variety of link redirection tools that help you do this.
Autoresponder
An autoresponder is another essential tool to have for affiliate marketing. This is usually a third-party service that manages your email subscription list and sends messages to your subscribers on a scheduled or immediate basis.
It also tracks your email marketing results like open rate and other metrics. Using an autoresponder, you can send one message out to thousands of subscribers or send a preloaded series of emails that starts with message 1 for each subscriber when they sign up.
Webhosting Service
Online marketers don’t realize that web hosting services offer special features like Inmotion Hosting that can help you with your affiliate marketing. Most all offer built-in templates for niche websites and even monitoring tools. Many offer an all-in-one solution.
Hosting services also often have site builder tools (like WordPress) that allow you to create niche sites quickly and easily. If you haven’t signed up with a web hosting service for your domain(s) yet, check out what kind of affiliate marketing tools they offer beforehand.
In Closing…
By placing these tools within your affiliate toolbox, you will find most of what you need to help you succeed with your affiliate marketing campaigns and endeavors.
Let me know what you think! I encourage you to leave a comment or question about anything you felt was not covered adequately or left out.
