Equipping yourself with the proper set of affiliate marketing tools can make all the difference between stumbling in the dark and reaching affiliate success, especially if you’re a beginner.
However, if you’ve yet to start earning substantial affiliate commissions, you probably lack the required capital to invest in high-quality paid tools.
Fret not, I’ve got you covered.
In this article, I’ll share with you the 15 best free affiliate marketing tools to equip beginners like you with the functionalities needed to thrive in the competitive affiliate marketing landscape, even with a tight budget.
Let’s get started!
1. Google Analytics
Google Analytics is an invaluable web analytics service that provides valuable insights into website traffic and user behavior. For affiliate marketers, this tool is essential as it allows them to understand how users interact with their websites, identify popular pages, and analyze traffic sources.
Armed with this knowledge, affiliate marketers can optimize their websites to improve affiliate marketing results and increase conversion rates.
Best Affiliate Marketing Courses
Best Affiliate Courses
2. Semrush
Semrush is a powerful SEO and marketing tool that enables marketers to conduct keyword research, monitor rankings, analyze backlinks, study their competitors, perform audits to identify technical SEO issues that may impact website functionality, and much more.
This knowledge can help you optimize your affiliate site, increase search engine rankings, attract more visitors, and boost sales among other things.
Semrush is commonly used among agencies like Backlinks Digital, which help businesses with on-page and off-page SEO.
3. Mailchimp
Mailchimp is a highly popular affiliate marketing solution that allows businesses of all sizes to effortlessly create and send professional-looking email campaigns. With its user-friendly interface and drag-and-drop email builder, affiliate marketers can develop visually appealing emails.
Additionally, Mailchimp offers a range of capabilities such as list segmentation, automation, and extensive reporting, making it an effective tool for boosting revenue through email marketing.
4. Canva
Canva can help you create eye-catching graphics and professional-looking visual content (e.g., featured images, social media posts, banners, etc.) that appeal to your target audience and complement your brand even if you have zero design skills.
5. Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a comprehensive social media management platform that enables affiliate marketers to manage multiple social media accounts efficiently. It offers features such as post-scheduling, mention monitoring, and social media activity evaluation.
With Hootsuite, affiliate marketers can engage in real-time conversations with their audience, strengthen relationships with followers, increase website traffic, and boost affiliate revenue.
6. Buffer
Buffer is another excellent social media management tool that enables affiliate marketers to schedule posts and monitor their online activity. With its free plan allowing management of up to three social media accounts, Buffer facilitates content sharing across various platforms and simplifies the process of sharing web content through its browser plugin.
By leveraging Buffer, affiliate marketers can save time, increase website traffic, and optimize their social media presence.
7. Google Keyword Planner
The free Google Keyword Planner tool is a valuable resource for finding keywords relevant to a specific industry and target market. Users can explore terms, examine search volumes, and identify potential prospects.
Affiliate marketers can utilize Google Keyword Planner to optimize their content and improve search engine rankings, thereby attracting more visitors to their websites.
8. Bitly
Bitly is a URL shortener and link management tool that allows affiliate marketers to create short and branded links for their websites and social media profiles. With Bitly, users can monitor link clicks, analyze traffic sources, and enhance advertising efforts. The browser extension provided by Bitly facilitates quick URL shortening and sharing while browsing the internet.
By utilizing Bitly, affiliate marketers can monitor the effectiveness of their affiliate links, refine their marketing strategies, and drive more traffic and revenue.
9. ClickMeter
ClickMeter is an invaluable URL monitoring and link management application that enables affiliate marketers to track clicks and conversions on their affiliate links. This tool provides insights into traffic sources, campaign monitoring, and affiliate marketing optimization.
Real-time statistics and reports empower affiliate marketers to monitor their progress and make necessary adjustments. By utilizing ClickMeter, affiliate marketers can increase conversion rates and boost affiliate sales.
10. Trello
Trello is a versatile project management solution that facilitates team collaboration and task organization. With Trello, affiliate marketers can create boards, cards, and lists to keep track of tasks and deadlines. The calendar view feature allows for effective content strategy planning and timetable management.
By utilizing Trello, affiliate marketers can stay organized, efficiently manage their affiliate marketing tasks, and increase traffic and sales.
11. WordPress
WordPress, a popular content management system (CMS), offers a wide range of plugins and themes to enhance affiliate marketing efforts. Plugins like AffiliateWP or ThirstyAffiliates enable easy management and tracking of affiliate links within a WordPress site.
Additionally, various SEO plugins like Yoast SEO are available to optimize content for search engines and attract organic traffic.
12. Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a free tool that helps affiliate marketers monitor and maintain their website’s presence in Google search results. It provides valuable insights into search visibility, organic traffic, and indexing performance.
By regularly monitoring Search Console data, affiliate marketers can identify opportunities to improve website SEO and attract more targeted traffic to their affiliate links.
13. Grammarly
Effective communication is crucial in affiliate marketing, particularly when creating content for websites or promotional materials. Grammarly serves as a powerful writing assistant that checks for grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and style inconsistencies.
It offers suggestions to enhance content clarity and readability, ensuring that the affiliate marketer’s message resonates with the audience.
14. Google Trends
Staying updated with the latest trends and topics gives affiliate marketers a competitive edge. Google Trends allows them to explore the popularity and search interest of specific keywords over time.
By identifying trending topics related to their niche, affiliate marketers can create timely and relevant content that resonates with the target audience, thereby driving more traffic to their affiliate links.
15. Evernote
For successful affiliate marketing, keeping track of ideas, research, and inspiration is essential. Evernote, a note-taking app, enables affiliate marketers to capture and organize their thoughts, articles, and resources in one place.
The creation of notebooks, tagging of notes, and synchronization across multiple devices makes it easy to stay organized and access valuable information that fuels affiliate marketing strategies.
Affiliate marketing FAQs
Affiliate marketing is an online business model that involves promoting products or services created and distributed by third-party online merchants in exchange for getting paid a commission for each sale you refer.
In layman’s terms, affiliate marketing is the process of being compensated for helping businesses sell to more customers.
Here’s a bird’s eye view of how affiliate marketing works.
- You join a merchant’s affiliate program
- The merchant gives you a unique affiliate link that points to their e-shop
- You promote your unique affiliate link online (blog, forums, social media, paid ads, etc.)
- Every time someone clicks on your unique affiliate link and makes a purchase on the merchant’s e-shop, the merchant pays you a commission
There are thousands of successful affiliate marketers all around the world. Some of the most well-known ones are:
- Pat Flynn
- Matt Diggity
- Matthew Woodward
- Doug Cunnington
- & more
You can check out a roundup of my 17 favorite examples of affiliate success and their backstories right here.
- Billion-dollar industry
- Very low startup & operational expenses
- Huge income potential
- Flexible & versatile
- Passive income
- Simple to implement
- No technical background
- No customer support
- No physical setup
Affiliate marketers can be divided into five main income groups:
- Total beginners: $0 – $20,000 per year
- Low-level affiliates: $20,000 – $50,000 per year
- Intermediate affiliates: $50,000 – $100,000 per year
- High-level affiliates: $100,000 – $500,000 per year
- Super affiliates: $500,000+ per year
According to PayScale, the average annual income for affiliate marketers in the US is over $54,000 per year. Statistics reveal that 13% of affiliates earn more than $75,000 per year.
Some of the factors that influence how much you earn as an affiliate marketer include:
- seniority
- target niche
- available resources
- previous experience
- marketing efforts
- & overall mindset
Here’s a rough income growth timeline of a typical affiliate marketing business:
- months (0-3): no earnings
- months (3-6): first affiliate sale
- months (6-12): $100-$500 monthly
- months (12-18): $1000 monthly
- months (18-24): $3000+ monthly
This timeline isn’t a guarantee of future performance but rather a mere approximation of the income growth of an average affiliate business. Your own timeline could be shorter or longer than projected.
Over the years, I’ve seen aspiring affiliates striking a gold vein just a few months into the industry. On the other hand, I personally know people who’ve been struggling to grow their affiliate revenue to $1000 per month for several years.
Affiliate marketing is one of the most affordable money-making models out there.
Here’s a breakdown of everything you need to get started as an affiliate marketer along with their associated costs:
- web hosting & domain name: $2.95/month (Bluehost)
- keyword research tool: $49/month (Jaaxy)
- expert guidance: $49/month (Wealthy Affiliate)
- email autoresponder: Free for up to 1000 subs (MailerLite)
Please note that on top of expert guidance, Wealthy Affiliate also provides free access to hosting and a keyword research tool so you don’t have to purchase them separately.
Yes, you can do affiliate marketing without a website by promoting your affiliate links on other marketing channels, such as:
- Social Media
- Paid Ads
- YouTube
- Podcast
- etc.
The process of getting started with affiliate marketing can be broken down into the following four simple steps:
- Pick a niche
- Launch a blog
- Build an audience
- Promote affiliate products
No, you don’t.
Affiliate marketing is very simple to get started with by virtually anyone regardless of age, education, background, available capital, tech-savviness, professional network, etc.
In fact, most 6-figure affiliate marketers were no more experienced than you currently are when they first ventured into the affiliate marketing industry.
Nonetheless, being knowledgeable in fields like marketing, sales, content production, business management, etc., could help you reach your financial goals somewhat faster.
Conclusion
Having the right tools at your disposal is crucial to maximizing your chances of success throughout your affiliate marketing journey.
While getting your hands on the ideal tools as a beginner can be rather costly, there are dozens of free affiliate marketing tools that can help you level the playing field, overcome obstacles, and make informed decisions that’ll drive you closer to accomplishing your business goals.
Always keep in mind that affiliate success is not solely determined by your budget but also by your ability to harness the right affiliate marketing tools effectively.
Do you have questions or require further help?
Leave a comment right below or contact me right here, and I’ll do my best to get back to you as soon as possible.
All the best, and stay safe,
Harry, Founder & Creative Director at dearboss-iquit.com
