6 Best Affiliate Marketing Plugins for News Publishers and Bloggers

Affiliate marketing is a rapidly growing lucrative revenue stream for bloggers and publishers. Influencer Marketing Hub reported that 55% of affiliates make less than $10K, while 16% earn between $10K-$50K annually. 

It is the next profitable revenue-generating strategy after ads. E-commerce brands continue to invest billions in affiliate programs to increase brand awareness and sales, especially during promotional events such as Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Fall sales, etc., 

Even half of the affiliate publishers surveyed by Forrester reported affiliate marketing as the source of 20% of their annual revenue. 

If you’re a news publisher or blogger with a consistent stream of traffic, this is the right time to enroll in an affiliate program. Not to forget, Black Friday, Christmas, and Fall are nearing; hence, you can easily find profitable deals and commissions.

However, directly hyperlinking affiliate links in your blogs will not give you access to your readers' preferences and activities, restricting you from maximizing your revenue. Hence, using affiliate marketing plugins becomes essential to understand your visitors and plan your affiliate strategy accordingly. These plugins are designed to simplify link monitoring and embedding. 

In this article, we will explore the beginner-friendly affiliate marketing plugins available for bloggers and news publishers. 

Whether you are a seasoned blogger or just starting your affiliate marketing journey, these plugins can help you effectively manage your affiliate links. 

What is Affiliate Marketing?

In simple terms, affiliate marketing is a performance-based marketing strategy where bloggers and news publishers link to products or services on their platforms and earn a commission for every sale made through their affiliate links. This is a win-win model as it allows bloggers to earn commission while covering relevant products or services, and readers can easily access discounts and deals, whereas merchants gain exposure and sales. 

What is NOT Affiliate Marketing? 

Affiliate marketing is not a pyramid scheme or a multi-level marketing (MLM) scheme. It does not require affiliates to recruit others or invest a large amount of money upfront. It is purely performance-based, rewarding affiliates for their efforts in driving sales or leads to the merchants, i.e., e-commerce brands. 

How Can Bloggers and Digital Publishers Earn Additional Revenue via Affiliate Marketing?

Selling ad space in blogs is one of the common ways to monetize traffic. Besides ads, affiliate marketing is the next best revenue stream if you own or manage a website that drives significant traffic and attracts active readers. 

Despite many digital publishers opting for affiliate marketing, only a few could see better ROI for their efforts. However, a well-planned content strategy and legit affiliate programs can help you earn profitable commissions. Here are a few ideas {with examples] that can help maximize your affiliate revenue. 

• Round-up Articles

Here’s how Wirecutter (from The New York Times) uses listicles to embed affiliate links.

Creating a listicle that provides product suggestions is one of the best ways to incorporate multiple affiliate links in one article while providing rich insights to the readers. 

For instance, if you're writing about the latest tech gadgets, including affiliate links to purchase those gadgets from an online retailer is an effective way as it allows readers to check out a product in just a click. 

Further, when you include a pricing and feature table in the listicle, it lets readers compare different products easily. They are more likely to click your affiliate link if you simplify their decision-making process by providing all the necessary insights they need to make a smart purchase. 

• Write Product Reviews

Here’s how Verge Media is using the latest launches to earn affiliate commission

Instead of reviewing multiple products in one article, you can create an in-depth product review where you discuss the features, benefits, and drawbacks of a particular product or service. 

For Example: The recent launch of the Google Pixel 8 and 8 Pro caught the attention of geeks. Curating an individual review about the product or comparing it with competitors like Apple and embedding an affiliate link will help you convert those readers who are on the verge of buying a smartphone.

• Comparison articles

Here’s how Techradar is using comparison articles to earn affiliate commissions

Creating comparison articles highlighting the difference between two or more products or services against each other will help you gauge readers who are juggling between two options and looking for solid reasons to choose one over the other. 

When you convince your readers why one product is better than the other, you increase their likelihood of clicking your affiliate links attached to these comparison articles. 

• Promote Product Deals 

Retailers offer huge discounts and exclusive deals on various products during events such as Black Friday or Amazon Prime Day. News bloggers can write articles showcasing these deals and include their affiliate links within the content.

For example, you can write an article about the best tech deals during Black Friday, including affiliate links that redirect your visitors to Amazon to purchase the mentioned product. 

Amazon has the largest affiliate associates network, holding 47.3% of the affiliate market share. During sales season, leveraging Amazon Affiliate Programs to display the best deals in your content is a smart way to start affiliate marketing. 

• Offer Exclusive Discounts 

News bloggers can collaborate with brands and negotiate exclusive discounts or coupon codes for their audience. This helps you to drive new traffic and increase affiliate revenue during launches and sale seasons. 

For example: As Black Friday approaches, TechRadar gathered all the Black Friday deals offered for different products, from home appliances to accessories, to attract readers who are on the lookout for discounts. 

This type of listicle blogs is not confined to one category like laptop or smartphone recommendations. You can cover multiple products or services targeting a vast set of readers in one blog.  

Remember to maintain transparency and disclosure by clearly stating that your content contains affiliate links. This builds trust with your audience and ensures compliance with FTC guidelines.

Best Affiliate Plugins for WordPress

If you’re a news blogger or publisher using WordPress CMS, affiliate marketing plugins can eliminate manual tasks and provide you with in-depth insights about your affiliate link performance. 

I’ve curated the top 6 Easy-to-use WordPress affiliate marketing plugins that simplify the process of adding, shortening, and managing affiliate links without requiring advanced technical knowledge.

1. Prettylinks

Prettylinks is a popular affiliate link management plugin that helps bloggers and publishers shorten, manage and track their links. 

You can customize the URL slug as you wish using the free Prettylinks link shortener. It supports 301, 302, and 307 redirects, but with the advanced version, you can access Cloaked redirects, JavaScript redirects, Meta-Refresh redirects, Tracking Pixel redirects, and Geographic redirects.

The Prettylinks plugin allows you to manage all your links under one tab and track their performance metrics like overall clicks and unique clicks. You can also export the clicks count as a CSV and customize reports for easy data interpretation. 

The free version meets the needs of novice affiliates efficiently, while the Prettylinks Pro is ideal for seasoned affiliates who require more control over the affiliate product display, automation, and link management capabilities. 

Pricing

Beginner - $99.60

Marketer -$ 149.60 

Super Affiliate - $199.60

2. ThirstyAffiliates

ThirstyAffliates is a link cloaking and management plugin enabling digital publishers to add shorter links to the keywords using 301,302, and 307 redirects. It also allows you to track affiliate link performance and group links based on different categories for easy management. 

It offers advanced link customization options like image attachment to links, auto-link keywords, geolocation URLs, link scheduler, etc.; you can also embed affiliate links to your blog posts with a click as you build your link database on ThirstyAffiliates. 

Along with all the above features, the free version also provides access to in-built reports reflecting your affiliate links' performance to know what works best on your site. 

ThirstyAffliliates offers some unique pro features like URL redirects based on geolocation, integration with Amazon Product Advertising API, notification about link performance, auto-link health checker to find broken links, etc., 

Users looking for advanced link customization and management options with Amazon integration will find ThirstyAflliates more effective than Prettylinks. 

Pricing

Beginner - $99.60

Marketer -$ 149.60 

Super Affiliate - $199.60

It has the same pricing as Prettylinks but offers advanced features, link-cloaking functions, and additional affiliate website link management. 

3. MonsterInsights 

MonsterInsights is a comprehensive affiliate link-tracking software that helps businesses and affiliates run and manage affiliate programs. 

This WordPress plugin offers powerful integration with Google Analytics, allowing bloggers and publishers to track their link performance without slowing down their websites. 

One of the key advantages of using MonsterInsights is that it brings all the stats, reports, and metrics you need to track to determine the success of your affiliate campaigns under one tab. 

Using MonsterInsights, you can find the number of clicks and traffic you send to affiliate websites and embedded products. This lets you know which products earn you more affiliate commissions and allows you to focus on what works for your brand. You can also use PrettyLinks to cloak your affiliate links and track them with MonsterInsights.

Pricing

Plus - $99.50 per month 

Pro - $199.50 per month 

Agency - $399.50 per month 

4. EasyAzon 

EasyAzon is an affiliate marketing plugin specially designed to help affiliates who earn commissions via Amazon products by simplifying link creation and tracking. 

This WordPress plugin supports three different types of affiliate links: Image affiliate links, Product Information blocks, and Calls to action links. Users can also enable links to open in a new tab for readers’ convenience. 

One of the standout features of EasyAzon is that it automatically detects the user's location and redirects them to location-relevant Amazon products and links. The link localization feature helps you redirect international visitors to the relevant Amazon products and saves you from wasting gathered traffic. 

You can also find all the affiliate Amazon products in the EasyAzon WordPress dashboard, track link performance, and easily allow visitors to add products to their cart.  

Its additional benefits include Amazon Affiliate training, automated link cloaking, and multiple geolocation support, and pop-ups to hook readers' attention and generate more commission. 

Overall, EasyAzon is ideal for bloggers who earn substantial commissions via Amazon. However, EasyAzon does not offer advanced traffic functions like MonsterInsights, PrettyLinks or ThirstyAffiliates. 

Pricing

• Free 

5. Betterlinks 

Betterlinks is a link cloaking and management plugin that provides simplified analytics of all your links and relevant analytics in one place. This is ideal for beginners as it boasts an intuitive interface and a simple integration process. 

You can find all the affiliate links that are embedded in your website and their respective metrics like clicks, redirect types, browser and blog source, date published, title, and shortened URL version - all under one tab. Multiple filtering options like sorting by clicks, categories, and dates allow you to search and view all your affiliate links easily. 

You can also categorize and view all your links based on tags, simplifying your affiliate link management and analysis process. Moreover, you don’t have to use different plugins to cloak your affiliate link. Betterlinks has an inbuilt feature that allows you to edit the title, description, redirects, shortened links, and add target URLs from its analytics interface. 

Some of the unique customization features of this plugin are its ability to exclude the bot clicks from analytics, auto-linking, multiple link options like no follow, sponsored, parameter forwarding, tracking, and link prefix to personalize your links view. 

The plugin also supports team collaboration by offering role management options where you can define the permission for each user who uses your WordPress account. You can run a scheduled broken link to ensure your readers are redirected to the target URL. 

Along with the advanced feature, the plugin also helps you to set a status like an expiry date, activate, schedule, etc, and other dynamic redirects based on rotation, geography, device and time. 

Overall, this plugin proves to be comprehensive as it provides various link management options and detailed analytics. If you’re using a different affiliate plugin, you can easily migrate all the data to Betterlinks in just a click.

Pricing

Individual - $74 

Business - $186

Agency (Lifetime) - $299 

WP developer agency bundle (lifetime) - $599 

6. Auto Amazon Links 

Auto Amazon links is a WordPress Plugin that helps you to find and add Amazon products from WordPress in just a few clicks. 

Bloggers can bulk-generate product lists using category filters or manually search for specific keywords within WordPress to find Amazon affiliate products quickly. 

It also offers customizable template options for users who have coding knowledge. Users can also import bulk product links from Amazon links and view the links in WordPress in just a few clicks. 

Additional features like clickable buttons enable you to increase the chances of readers clicking your affiliate links. You can also access auto link insert capabilities to embed relevant links to your posts easily. 

Bloggers and publishers who use Auto Amazon Links are quite familiar with coding.  So, if you’re looking for a no-code plugin, it’s best to choose the above-mentioned plugins. However, if you have coding knowledge, Auto Amazon Links is ideal as it gives you better control over how affiliate links appear on your websites. 

Pricing 

Free - $0 

Pro - $47.98 

Extended -$77.98 

Unlimited - $237.98

Conclusion

Whether you are a beginner or an experienced affiliate marketer, these plugins offer a range of functionalities to enhance your earning potential and streamline your affiliate marketing efforts. 

Integrating these plugins into your website allows you to track and optimize your affiliate links, manage commissions, and increase conversions. Don't miss out on your opportunity to leverage affiliate programs happening this sales season. 

If you are looking to add more functionality to your WordPress website, check out of our list of the best 14 WordPress Plugins for your blog.