In this article, we are going to give you a list of tools that affiliates use to organize and streamline their work processes. Rather than touching upon automation (we have already posted three articles on this subject: the first, the second, the third), we intend to focus on trackers, hosting solutions and spy tools.
CPA Trackers
Tracking software is used to manage traffic flows. It allows you to track the user’s ID, GEO, device, browser and other information necessary for effective targeting. In addition to this data, you’ll also be able to see your click-through-rate, as well as the number of clicks and conversions you have generated.
Besides, tracking solutions also have a score of other functionalities. For instance, all the trackers we have listed below enable you to redirect your competitors and moderators to a safe page that is shown to all those who are not supposed to see the page you’re actually using (this is one of the cloaking options).
There are two types of tracking software — self-hosted and cloud-based trackers. Your choice will depend entirely on your working style.
Self-hosted trackers are installed on the user’s server. One of the major advantages of this solution is that you can maintain your data on-site for higher security. The second strong point is that you pay only for a license and thus your tracker costs won’t depend on your traffic volumes.
The downside is regional limitations. What we mean is that if you want to start driving traffic to other GEOs, be sure to take into account that the loading speed will go down, which will directly affect your conversion rate.
Cloud-based trackers. All the data is stored on cloud servers, and so you don’t need to bother about installing and managing your own hosting solution.
This a perfect option for those who drive traffic to multiple GEOs. Cloud-based trackers are not bound to a particular region and therefore provide a stable loading speed.
The key drawback is that you have to account for tariff plan limitations. If you exceed the set traffic volumes, you will have to pay extra.
Here are our picks for the top four most popular CPA trackers.
They are united by the three things that we consider necessary for a good tracker:
- broad functionality;
- intuitive and user-friendly interface;
- attentive support team.
Each of these trackers has a free trial period, and so you can test all of them and choose the best.
Self-hosted trackers
Binom is one of the most popular affiliate trackers out there. It’s widely praised as a high-speed tracking solution for working with huge traffic volumes. By the way, the Man works with this tracker.
Features
- The average click processing time is 5 ms.
- High speed of report generating.
- Flexible traffic distribution system.
- The ability to add multiple users and grant them different access rights.
- Round-the-clock support team that can set up and install the tracker for you.
- English-language interface.
Price: $69 a month.
Another affordable tracking solution developed by Russian coders.
Features
- The average click processing time is 15 ms.
- Perfectly works with all traffic sources.
- Keitaro is compatible with all types of offers.
- Flexible traffic distribution system.
- You can create your own action scripts, filters, and macros to automate your work process.
- Link protection from bots and competitors.
- English-language interface.
Price: $25-70 a month.
Cloud-based trackers
The key advantage of this tracker is broad functionality and a score of built-in optimization tools. The major drawback is high prices.
Features
- Fraud detection to protect your campaigns from bots.
- 30 data points for each visit you record.
- Real-time tracking.
- Voluum supports all ad formats and traffic types.
- Voluum Mobile App allows you to manage your campaigns while on the move.
For more information, be sure to check out our interview with Wioleta, Head of Product at Voluum.
Price: $69-$299 a month.
RedTrack is a SaaS tracking solution for webmasters of any experience. In terms of its functionality, it’s not inferior to Voluum.
Features
- Flexible traffic distribution system and postback settings.
- Automated ad campaign optimization based on AI.
- Campaign analysis at the impression level.
- Great manual with video lessons.
- New functionalities can be added on customers’ requests.
Price: $69-$339 a month.
Hosting Services
Web hosting services are your gateway to the World Wide Web. Web hosts provide space on a server for your website to reside and make it accessible via the Internet.
There are several important characteristics of web hosting solutions that determine your conversion rate and the speed of redirects. Let’s figure them out.
Essential features of web hosting
Bandwidth. As a rule, affiliates have to work with multiple sites simultaneously and process huge data volumes. The more audiovisual content there is on your website, the higher the bandwidth of your web hosting solution should be.
Reliability. If you don’t want to lose your data or deal with a website crash, you should choose the most reliable hosting solution there is. Don’t let yourself be fooled by cheap prices and false promises of great opportunities. It’s better to pay extra for hosting services rather than see your conversion rate crumble.
Scalability. Scalability stands for an opportunity to grow the number of your web resources by switching to another tariff plan. For instance, you’ve decided to launch your second website and you don’t have enough server space — so just buy more gigabytes.
Web hosting types
Shared web hosting. This is the most cost-effective option (from $2 to $15 a month), which is perfect for newbies.
Your website is hosted on a server shared by hundreds of other websites. Shared hosting has a number of disadvantages. For instance, you can use only certain software types when working on a server. Your provider takes care of the key server settings.
Shared web hosting is not suitable for large-scale projects. If you are actively growing, then you’ll have to switch to another hosting solution very soon.
VPS hosting. A VPS or virtual private server is a more costly solution (from $20 to $100 a month) for those who have outgrown shared hosting.
A VPS is a stepping stone between shared hosting and a dedicated server. Virtual private servers still share one server but act like separate machines.
VPS hosting allows users to manage their file streams, install there own software and customize it the way they need.
Dedicated web server. A perfect solution for sophisticated affiliates who run multiple ad campaigns. The prices are rather high: from $100 to $500 a month. If you have a dedicated server, you’re basically renting one physical server from a hosting company.
You have full control over a server and you can set it up the way you want without any limitations. If you’re considering a dedicated server, you should also think about hiring a system administrator to take care of the technical details.
Our choice for the best affiliate hosting solutions
Here are our picks for the most reliable hosting services used by top affiliates.
One of the best cloud-based web hosting solutions. It’s reliable and has numerous functionalities and affordable tariffs. What’s more, the Man works with this hosting service.
Digital Ocean is a great choice for beginner affiliates with a limited budget.
Features
- High performance rate.
The servers are equipped with SSD disks and powerful Xeon processors. - Wide OS compatibility.
Digital Ocean supports Ubuntu, CentOS, Debian, Arch Linux and Fedora. - Scalability.
You can increase or decrease the processing power at any moment without turning to a support team. - Auto-backups.
Weekly auto-backup costs 20% of the monthly server cost. The snapshot costs only $0.02 for a gigabyte and is generated in approximately two minutes. Data storage is free of charge.
Price: $5-$640 a month.
Namecheap is a US-based hosting company and one of the largest domain registrars.
Features
- Prices start from $2.88 a month
For this price, you get 20 GB of server space. You’ll be able to manage three domains. At the time of writing, you can get 50% off shared hosting plans, which is available only to first-year purchases. This means that you will have to pay only $1.44 a month. - Website builder tool
Over 200 design templates and numerous plug-ins and solutions tailored for E-commerce. - Free website transfer from a certain hosting service to Namecheap.
- All tariffs allow an unlimited number of parked domains.
Except for the cheapest tariff that has a limit of three domains per account. - Round-the-clock technical support.
Price: $2.88-$157.88 a month.
Spy Tools
Spy services are yet another important tool in the affiliate’s arsenal. They allow you to spy on what your competitors are running to follow the market’s cutting-edge trends. The choice of a spy tool depends on a vertical you’re working with.
These are one of the best spying solutions in today’s market.
Anstrex is a versatile spy platform for push and native ads. And the Man finds it truly helpful!
Features
- 38 ad networks and 92 countries.
- Excellent search and filtering capabilities.
- Broad functionality: you can rip and customize a landing page on a server.
Price: $79.99-$124.99 a month.
A well-know spy-tool for affiliates providing a variety of options. It can spy on pretty much anything.
Features
- Mobile: there are 75 available GEOs to spy on, some of the ads that are run on mobile carrier networks still visible in this service.
- Native: spy on the ads in 7 biggest native ads networks over 32 GEOs and more than 100 affiliate networks
- Desktop: discover ads promoting affiliate offers from more than100 different networks. From the user interface, you can download any landing page.
- E-commerce: with Adplexity E-commerce solution you’ll be able to access data from over 100,000 E-commerce stores, and analyze all their most profitable products. That will allow you to browse through more than 70,000,000 different products
- Push: 10 largest global push sources to spy on in more than 80 countries.
Price: from $0 to $249 for a lifetime subscription. With ZorbasMedia promocode you will receive a discount.
We hope that this list will come in handy for affiliates looking to start their career or for the ones who have significant experience and looking for new and better tolls to work with!
Good luck and positive ROI to you all!
If you want to reach new GEOs and audiences, maybe it is all waiting for you on Telegram? We’ve prepared some material about Telegram audiences. What are the messenger’s users like this year? How old they are, what they do, and what they are interested in!
