Affiliate programs have 2 choices they can make when it comes to creating their affiliate program.
- Build their own custom affiliate program
- User an affiliate software platform
If you look at our affiliate programs list then you'll often see "proprietary" as a common software name. We always list the software associated with an affiliate program because this is useful for affiliates.
Many affiliates have preferences for the software they want to work with. Often affiliates are looking for lists of affiliate programs by software such as MyAffiliates, ReferOn, Cellxpert, Trackier and RavenTrack as a few examples.
In a recent poll I made on LinkedIn, I had 140 people vote with 81% of respondants saying they prefer an established platform over proprietary.
- 113 voted established platform
- 27 voted proprietary (in-house)
Here is our main list of software by affiliate program platforms
- MyAffiliates
- Cellxpert
- ReferOn
- RavenTrack
- Trackier
- Income Access
- NetRefer
- The Affiliate Platform by Smartico
- MAP
- Post Affiliate Pro
- Intelitics
- Mexos
- IREV
- Gofiliate
- Everflow
- Dench
- Alanbase
- Affise
- Affelios
- Affarea
- Omarsys
- Cake
- Sarah Enterprises
- Scaleo
- Wynta
- XM
- EveryMatrix
What are features that affiliates are looking for in an affiliate program?
Affiliates don't just expect a lot from their partner programs, but there are a few things that are required for a great partnership. Affiliates need trust in the tools they have available, a product that converts and retains, and great tracking technology.
Here's a short list of must-haves in today's world of affiliate marketing.
- CSV data export
- API data export
- Postbacks
- Dynamic variables
- Daily data
- Campaign creation & management
- Real-time data
- Affiliate CRM
When should you consider creating propriety affiliate program software
Many affiliates would likely say you should never do this.
Why?
Because it is rare that the custom made affiliate platforms work the best. Simply put, making your own affiliate program platform will cost any company a lot more money than it would in using an out of the box software.
So why does any affiliate program create proprietary software?
The answer really comes down to data privacy and ownership of the data. Many affiliate programs would rather go through the pain of making their own software all the the ultimate goal of not having their sensitive data shared with anybody else.
Which affiliate program software is the best?
If you're looking at selecting an affiliate program, you can contact us for help.
There are 2 groups of experts that you should ask for choosing a software.
- ask affiliates
- ask stats aggregators
Affiliates can tell you which platforms they prefer to work with and quite often the choice of platform can be a symbol of trust.
Companies like ours at StatsDrone or our competition like Routy.app, Affilimate, We Can Track and CPV Lab are also experts.
Why?
Because we do integrations all the time to support affiliates getting their data. Quite often we can find errors in various reports.
At StatsDrone, we have built a working relationship with many of the platforms listed on this page so we can be on top of changes and improvements made to the software.
Migrating affiliate program software
Affiliates are commonly noticing many affiliate programs change software and usually it is for a good reason. That is, the programs are looking for more advanced tracking tech.
The biggest and also fastest growing affiliate platform software on the market feature the likes of MyAffiliates, Affilka, Cellxpert and RavenTrack. Some of the rising stars that are taking more market share are ReferOn, Trackier and Everflow.
In a recent panel at the iGaming Club conference by AffPapa, there was a panel I was on called "Affiliate Platform Migration, What Are The Pain Points, How to Solve Them?". In this panel, the panelists talked about the inconvenience it is at first for affiliates but affiliates know these things are usually done for good reasons.
If the affiliate program is making changes and improvements, then it is a welcome update.
For operators, migrations can take many months and become a headache for any affiliate manager. That said, most affiliate platforms today have migration tools to make this job easier. Now we are seeing more companies switch and some of the beneficiaries of late have been companies like MyAffiliates, ReferOn, Cellxpert and RavenTrack.
Podcasts featuring affiliate platforms
In the past year, the Affiliate BI podcast has featured numerous guests from these companies.
