Affiliate marketing can be a great way to monetize your website. You already have the traffic and readership, but you don’t have something to sell. Instead of spending all that time creating a product, you can recommend similar products to your audience and receive a commission for each sale.
Best of all, if you’re dealing with digital products, then the commission you receive will be much higher than the typical commission that’s offered from most physical product retailers.
Yet, you might be struggling to find out the best ways you can actually sell and promote these offers to your audience. Luckily, WordPress has your back. There are a slew of great plugins you can use that’ll simplify your affiliate marketing efforts.
Below we highlight five different plugins you can use to bolster your affiliate marketing efforts, or help to get them off the ground.
Note: Whenever using third-party plugins, be thoughtful of your resource usage to avoid any surprises from your hosting provider.
1. WordPress Referral
In some cases you might not be interested in promoting and selling others’ products, but instead have recruited people to promote and sell your own digital courses and guides. In this case, you’re going to need a way to track and manage the sales of your own affiliates.
The WordPress Affiliate and Referral plugin will enable you to easily manage the affiliates who are promoting your products. This plugin has features like:
- The ability to manage and track affiliate performance
- PayPal integration to easily pay affiliates
- Integration with your existing eCommerce system, such as, WooCommerce
- The ability to setup referral banners and links for promotional use
2. EasyAzon
If you’re planning on selling Amazon products for an affiliate commission, then you need to be using this plugin. EasyAzon will save you a ton of time when you’re trying to create a link for the Amazon product.
This plugin is a must-have if you’re promoting Amazon products, just look at a few of the features this plugin has to offer:
- Add Amazon affiliate links to your pages and posts without leaving the WordPress dashboard
- The links will automatically adjust to the visitor’s geographic region
- The plugin allows readers to automatically add a product to their cart, which can increase conversions
3. Thirsty Affiliates
Thirsty Affiliates can be seen as an all-in-one affiliate solution. Essentially, it’s a link-cloaker, which allows you to create affiliate links that don’t look like affiliate links.
This increases the chances of your visitors clicking on the link, as it doesn’t resemble a spam link, or a link from an untested source.
Some additional features of this plugin include:
- A tool to choose the correct affiliate link for your product
- Allows you to add media files to your links, such as images or video that pop-up when the link is hovered over.
- An automatic link-shortening feature
- A lot more, there are additional add-ons that can be purchased to extend the functionality of this plugin
4. Pretty Link Lite
Pretty Link Lite allows you to shorten and cloak any affiliate links you’re using across your entire site. This is a very small and simple plugin that does this task incredibly well.
Plus, there’s a nifty tracking feature built into this plugin, so you can see which links are garnering you the most clicks and if any links are underperforming. Since this plugin isn’t specifically created for affiliate website it has other useful features like:
- Allows you to create 301 and 307 redirects
- Can export the link data into a CSV file to more easily analyze
- Automatic creation of URL slugs for each link
5. Custom Sidebars
If you have a sidebar ad that you’re trying to use to sell affiliate products, then the Custom Sidebars plugin will help you reach your goals. Most affiliate programs will come with a set of image-based ads you can use to promote their products.
All you have to do is install the plugin, upload your ad images with a tracking code, and you’re all set to begin generating revenue. This plugin comes equipped with a ton of useful features including:
- Display custom widgets and sidebars depending on page or post type
- Easy WordPress integration
- Well-coded, so it won’t slow down your site
WordPress is a great choice when you’re building an audience to sell and promote products to. The plugins above will help to more easily manage and promote your digital goods.
Did you know? HostGator has an award-winning affiliate program! If you’re interested in earning up to $125 per qualifying signup, click here to learn more.
What WordPress affiliate plugins do you recommend? Share your favorites in the comments below.
Kevin Wood writes about technology and human potential. You can find him at his virtual homes Wooden Writing and Counter Culturist.