Watching successful bloggers on Instagram and TikTok advertising different products, people often develop a misconception that affiliate marketing is all about a fun viral video and a cute face. Little do they know that behind entertaining content there are many layers of technical and financial tasks requiring dedication, time, and focus. When done wrong, you end up losing commissions to small problems like outdated prices, broken affiliate links, pages that slowly lose rankings, etc.
Simply put, there are five workflows running your online affiliate platform, including keeping product data current, keeping links working, seeing which pages earn, staying compliant, and handling the money. Below, we have selected 11 tools to cover all these functions. Make sure to check them out!
Affiliate marketing tip: Not live yet? Start with how to build an affiliate marketing website, then come back to this list.
Which tools do affiliate marketers need after launch?
| Tool | Job | Best for | Free option | Paid from |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SpreadSimple | Website builder using Google Sheets as your database | Sites built on product tables and specs, incl. Amazon products and other affiliate programs | Yes | $12.90/mo billed annually |
| Keepa | Price history for Amazon products and an alert the moment the price drops. | Amazon-heavy niches | Yes | Keepa Pro $31/mo |
| Visualping | Alerts when a merchant or program page changes | Tracking commission terms and discontinued products | 5 pages, 150 checks a month | $10/month billed annually |
| Geniuslink | One editable link per product, localized Amazon links | Sites with international visitors | 14-day trial | $6/month plus $3.50 per 1,000 clicks over 1,000 |
| Ahrefs Webmaster Tools | Site audit and broken link checker | Any verified site | Yes | Free |
| Google Search Console | Rankings and queries per page | Every site | Yes | Free |
| Google Analytics 4 | Clicks on affiliate links | Every site | Yes | Free |
| MailerLite | Email marketing | Sites with returning readers | 250 subscribers, 2,500 emails a month | $12/mo |
| Canva | Comparison graphics and Pinterest pins | Visual niches | Yes | $123,50/year |
| Termly | Compliance suite to stay up to date and compliant with privacy laws like the GDPR, CCPA / CPRA, PIPEDA, ePrivacy Regulation, etc. | Every US affiliate site | Yes | $10,66/mo billed annually |
| Jupid | Bookkeeping, quarterly tax estimates, tax filing | Solo publishers with 1099 income | No; 30-day money-back guarantee | $50/month or $390/year |
If you are at an initial stage of becoming an affiliate, read our list of affiliate programs that covers some of the best brands to work with.
How do you keep product data current?
1. SpreadSimple: manage everything in Google Sheets
SpreadSimple is a no-code website builder that turns a Google Sheet into a website, with one row per product. A typical niche site sheet has columns such as Product, Price, Rating, Pros, Cons, Affiliate link, Last checked, etc. SpreadSimple turns each row into an informative item page, and the whole sheet becomes a modern-looking, mobile-friendly website that has all the necessary functionality an affiliate store needs: header and navigation menu, captivating intro section, content pages, categories, search, filters, and sorting, product grid and detail pages, related items, social media icons, footer, and more.
One of the biggest pros of going for a no-code builder like SpreadSimple is that its management doesn’t require additional staff expenses or long working hours: to add a website update, like a price change, you edit one spreadsheet cell, and every page that shows that product updates automatically. SpreadSimple also connects to Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager. To start from a ready-made layout, use one of the affiliate website templates.
2. Keepa: Amazon price tracker
Keepa (opens new window) shows the full price history of any Amazon product as a chart and sends an alert when the price drops below a level you set. For an affiliate site, the alert is the useful part. It helps you keep everything up to date.
Their Product Finder feature operates with data on billions of Amazon products allowing you to track sales rankings, monitor stock levels and find the most profitable products for your affiliate store.
3. Visualping: watch merchant and program pages
Visualping (opens new window) checks any web page on a schedule and notifies you when any changes occur. Visualping displays updates with an understandable before-and-after screenshot comparison, highlighting added and removed text. With this software, you can immediately find out about any changes on an affiliate program's commission page, a merchant's product page, or a brand's "discontinued products" list. Those rarely come with a notice to affiliates.
How do you keep affiliate links working?
4. Geniuslink: manage affiliate links in one place
Geniuslink (opens new window) helps boost monetization of your website by implementing link localization and automatic affiliation. The software is able to detect a buyer’s country, language, device, and more to route them to the best result. This mechanism works automatically for services such as Amazon, iTunes, and Microsoft. For any other affiliate program, you can customize the destinations. If an Amazon link breaks, or if any changes are added to a product you promote, Geniuslink will alert you so that you can take actions accordingly.
5. Ahrefs Webmaster Tools: a free broken link checker
Ahrefs Webmaster Tools (opens new window) (now Ahrefs Free) audits your site, provides backlink data and keyword tracking for free once you verify website ownership. Recognized globally as a very strong SEO tool, Ahrefs gives you valuable, real-time insights about your website’s traffic, its visitors, common technical and on-page SEO issues, as well as shows which pages and keywords bring the most organic traffic, and who links to your website.
Note: To research competitors' platforms, you will need a paid plan.
How do you see which pages earn?
6. Google Search Console: find pages to refresh
Google Search Console (opens new window) isn’t necessary to appear in Google Search, but it is a must-have tool to see why your web page isn’t ranking anymore, why Google isn't indexing some of your content, etc. It is hard to imagine a free tool that reflects a website’s SEO health more accurately than Google’s own creation.
Google Search Console revolves around metrics such as position in search results, clicks, and Core Web Vitals (CWV), measuring user experience. This lets you notice issues and optimize your online platform’s performance.
These two reports are worth checking monthly:
- Pages losing clicks: compare the last 28 days with the previous period and sort by the drop in clicks.
- Queries in positions 8 to 20: these pages already rank on page one or two, and an updated section or table often moves them up.
7. Google Analytics 4: track affiliate link clicks
As the name suggests, Google Analytics 4 (opens new window) is an analytics tool allowing users to measure traffic as well as engagement on their sites and apps. It is essential for an affiliate store, since the Enhanced measurement feature shows you which pages and products send readers to merchants. Additionally, the software can generate reports and export public data using the Data API; configure your accounts, properties, and data flows with the Admin API; send offline and server-to-server interaction events with Measurement Protocol, and more.
Quick tip: Compare the clicks data with your network reports. A page with many clicks and few sales may be sending readers to a merchant that converts poorly. This might be a good reason to reconsider posting the product on your website.
How do you bring readers back?
8. MailerLite: price-drop emails
MailerLite (opens new window) offers various effective digital marketing tools to grow your audience and boost your revenue. It has beautiful, customizable templates that actually work. All you need to do is choose the suitable design and customize it in their drag & drop editor. MailerLite provides mindful pop-ups based on their customer behavior analysis so that shoppers aren’t annoyed at this experience. For example, the playful lead generation process with spin the wheel templates collects user emails while rewarding them with discounts and other perks in exchange.
Once you have leads, you also have an ultimate key to bringing people back to your site by sending a persuasive email. Use MailerLite and its rich functionality to create compelling messages with price-drop and other hot updates shoppers are always interested in.
9. Canva: comparison graphics and pins
Canva (opens new window) is one of the best tools bridging the gap between people who have great ideas but lack design skills. Create alluring visuals, comparison cards, and Pinterest pins. This tool is especially useful for products with strong visual aesthetics: think clothing, beauty products, home decor, plants, stationary, etc. that get traffic from Pinterest. Canva also has an intuitive video editor and AI tools, and you can use its multiple features not just for your affiliate website, but also for content creation across your social media platforms.
How do you stay compliant with the FTC?
10. Termly: an affiliate disclosure
According to the FTC, you must inform the shoppers if you gain profits from their purchase. Also, the disclosure must be placed where people actually see it before clicking any product links. Amazon requires you to add the statement “As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases” plus a clear and conspicuous link-level disclosure.
Termly's free disclaimer generator (opens new window) creates an affiliate disclaimer, including a version for the Amazon Associates program. It also generates a privacy policy, which you need once you collect emails or run analytics.
How do you handle taxes on affiliate income?
11. Jupid: bookkeeping and taxes made easy
Everyone is used to a scenario where words “accounting” and “easy” would never be used in one sentence. Rest assured, that’s not the case anymore. Connect your reliable AI assistant, Jupid (opens new window), a bookkeeper and tax filer for self-employed people in the US, which is what a solo affiliate publisher is in the eyes of the IRS.
Why use Jupid as a niche site owner?
- It connects to US bank accounts and Stripe, and sorts each transaction into a Schedule C line, with a question in WhatsApp or iMessage when a charge is unclear.
- It flags deductible costs. For a niche site, these include hosting, domain, phone, Internet, every paid tool on this list, equipment, home office, etc.
- It estimates the tax to set aside each quarter as commissions arrive and notifies you before each deadline.
- It prepares federal and state returns with review by a CPA.
If you are a solo publisher whose commissions have grown into noticeable passive income, consider using Jupid as an efficient way to manage your financial tasks without mistakes and headaches.
Please note: This section provides general information for educational purposes only and should not be considered tax advice.
FAQ
What tools do affiliate marketers need?
A live niche site needs a way to update product data, a broken link checker, Google Search Console and Google Analytics, a disclosure page, and a way to track income for taxes. Free tools cover most of this. Paid link management and bookkeeping tools are worth adding once a site earns steadily.
Do affiliate marketers pay taxes?
Yes. In the US, affiliate commissions are self-employment income, reported on Schedule C, with self-employment tax on top of income tax. If you expect to owe enough, the IRS expects estimated payments each quarter rather than one payment in April.
How do I keep affiliate prices up to date?
Keep prices in one place and get alerts when they change. Keepa sends Amazon price-drop alerts and Visualping watches other merchants' pages. If your product data lives in a Google Sheet published with SpreadSimple, each price change is a single cell edit.
Do I need an affiliate disclosure?
Yes. The FTC requires a clear disclosure that you earn from links, placed near the links rather than only in the footer. Amazon Associates also requires its own statement. A generator such as Termly can write the text for you.
Starting an affiliate career, like any other new endeavor, is a multifunctional, tough task, requiring you to control every aspect of the project (especially if you work alone). We hope that our list of tools for affiliate marketers might help you automate some parts of the process by smartly utilizing the benefits of the latest technologies.
Looking for an easy-to-start way to join affiliate marketing? Create your first affiliate store with SpreadSimple. For more tips to earn from the same traffic, see how to monetize a website.
