Ever try to fix something without the right tools? I have.

The other day, the screw on my glasses started to come loose. In fear of losing the screw completely and without access to the right tool to fix it, I used my fingernail to try to put the screw back into place. And guess what: It worked!

For a while.

Two weeks later, I still haven’t found the right tool to fix my glasses, and every so often throughout the day, I find myself trying once again to put the screw back into place with my fingernail.

This is hardly what we would call a smooth fix to a simple problem. I’ve wasted way too much time with this “quick fix.” That’s time I could have saved by simply finding and using the correct tool on day one.

When it comes to affiliate marketing, smoothing out your process is one essential route to earning more revenue. If you’re trying to get by with “hacks” and “quick fixes,” you could end up wasting much more of your time than is truly necessary.

So, how do we fix this problem? How can you smooth out your marketing process and take advantage of the time you have to work?

You need to have the right tools.

Today, we’re going to discuss how WordPress plugins can make the lives of affiliate marketers much easier. Then, we’ll check out 15 different affiliate plugins for WordPress to help you save time and earn bigger affiliate payouts.

Why Use Affiliate Plugins?

Since WordPress.org is open source, almost anyone can create plugins to be used on WordPress websites. This means that many different minds are working on the tools that you need to succeed.

If you can dream it, there’s probably a plugin for it.

For example, one incredible thing that an affiliate plugin can do is localize your affiliate links. Let’s say you’ve written an article about camping gear and you include an affiliate link to Amazon.com for a recommended tent or camp stove. Now, suppose a reader comes along from the UK. When he clicks on your link, he’ll be directed to the wrong Amazon store (the American one) and likely won’t be able to have that product shipped to him (or the shipping will be ridiculously expensive). He could decide to not buy it, or even jump ship and search for the product on Amazon.co.uk. Either way, you’re losing a sale.

With a plugin that localizes links, your readers will be automatically directed to the correct Amazon store depending on where they are in the world. This will result in better sales for you!

Another ability that an affiliate plugin can give you is link cloaking. This is the practice of turning a long, cumbersome affiliate link (merchant.com/productID=919191_affiliateID=919191) into something that’s short, concise and pretty to look at (yourwebsite.com/go/affiliateproduct).

This practice has plenty of benefits for affiliate marketers, including safeguarding your affiliate commissions, increased click rates, increased email delivery rates and more.

However, it’s important for affiliates in the Amazon Associates program to keep in mind that this practice goes directly against the terms for Amazon Associates, meaning you’ll be susceptible to account closure if you cloak your Amazon affiliate links.

Other affiliate plugins will give you the ability to build content faster, create attractive coupons, see detailed metrics on your affiliate links, add your affiliate ID to links automatically and more.

Sounds good, right? Now it’s time to dive into the top affiliate plugins for WordPress that will instantly make your life easier.

The 15 Top Affiliate Plugins for Carefree, Hands-off Marketing

1. Content Egg

Get Free Plugin | Get Pro Plugin

This tool boasts itself to be an all-in-one plugin for affiliate marketing, providing some incredible features for those looking to step up their affiliate game.

Content Egg offers some great automation that will make your marketing process even smoother. For example, you can set this plugin to add your affiliate ID into your links automatically once you place them on a page.

Content Egg will also give you automatic updates on the prices of the products you recommend, as well as alert you when there’s a drop in the price. If you’re looking to stay even more hands-off, the Autoblog feature gives you the tools necessary to create comprehensive content quickly and easily.

Along with these features, this plugin will also localize Amazon affiliate links, add offers to existing posts, create price comparison charts and more! It works with over 20 affiliate networks and with any WordPress theme.

There’s a free version of the plugin with limited features, and the full version is available starting at $48.

2. ThirstyAffiliates

Get Free Plugin | Get Pro Plugin

If you’re looking for an all-around affiliate plugin that meets all of your linking needs, ThirstyAffiliates is a great option.

This plugin allows you to manage your affiliate links completely, to cloak or redirect affiliate links, to create DoFollow or NoFollow links and to add affiliate links without even leaving the WordPress editing screen!

ThirstyAffiliates also has some handy tools like the affiliate link picker, which allows you to search for affiliate links and quickly add them into posts and pages.

This plugin also gives you the option to include some interesting add-ons. The Google Click Tracking add-on places the Google Analytics Click Event code into all of your affiliate links automatically, allowing you to see more detailed metrics on your links. You can install the Geolocation add-on, which localizes your affiliate links, or the Scheduled Links add-on, which allows you to change the destination URL according to a schedule (great for sale events).

Best of all, the basic version of the plugin is free. The add-ons aren’t free, but it may well be worth the cost to streamline your affiliate tasks with them.

3. EasyAzon

Get the Plugin

This linking tool was created specifically for Amazon Associates.

It allows you to maximize your earnings from Amazon by giving you complete control over your affiliate links. It allows affiliates without coding knowledge to customize their links easily and without fuss, and it automatically localizes your Amazon links no matter where your users are coming from (once you’ve entered some key information).

EasyAzon also has unique features for Amazon Associates, including the product popup. This means that whenever a user hovers over one of your Amazon affiliate links, they’ll see a small popup with details on the product itself. You can enable this feature site-wide with a single click.

Affiliates can also prompt users to add products directly to their shopping cart on Amazon, getting readers right to the last part of the marketing funnel!

When you purchase EasyAzon, you’ll also get the Ultimate Amazon Guide, an affiliate marketing course that’s updated yearly to bring you the most relevant advice for success as an Amazon Associate.

This plugin is available from $47.

4. Easy Affiliate Links

Get Free Plugin

As the name implies, this affiliate plugin is an easy-to-use solution for link cloaking.

It allows users to easily track and modify the affiliate links on their website, all from one simple dashboard. You can create short links for your affiliate links, with complete customization for the URL slug.

Easy Affiliate Links allows you to assign categories to your affiliate links, import and export links to or from XML, keep track of monthly and lifetime clicks, and even access your links whether you’re using the visual or HTML editor in WordPress.

This affiliate plugin is still being developed, which means new features are continuously being released. Upcoming features include link localization and A/B testing for the text connected to your link.

All this can be yours for the very low price of free! If you love having data to work with, you can pay for their Statistics add-on.

5. Rel NoFollow Checkbox

Get Free Plugin

This simple yet powerful plugin is an extremely useful tool for affiliate marketers.

Attaching a NoFollow tag to outbound links from your site prevents search engine bots from following that link. This means that you aren’t giving away credit that could boost the ranking of other websites.

There are multiple reasons why you would want to use NoFollow tags in your affiliate links, and this plugin makes it very easy.

You know that link popup that WordPress has when you add an outbound link to your post or page? Right below the checkbox that allows you to open the link in a new tab, Rel NoFollow Checkbox adds another checkbox, allowing you to easily add the NoFollow tag to any outbound link.

This is yet another great affiliate plugin available for free!

6. Floating Banner Ad Rotator

Get Free Plugin

Have you ever wanted to A/B test the banners that you put on your website? This affiliate plugin allows you to do just that with a very simple mechanism.

You can add as many different banners as you want, although it’s recommended that you use no more than five, in order to really test these well. Once you’ve uploaded the different banners, this plugin will automatically alternate them each time a user visits your page.

In the dashboard, you can see clear statistics for each of the banners, easily comparing how each one performed in A/B testing. You’ll be able to compare metrics such as views, clicks and click-throughs.

Since it’s another open-source plugin, you can download this handy tool for free.

7. Advanced Ads

Get Free Plugin | Get Pro Plugin

With over 40,000 active downloads and almost 300 5-star ratings, this affiliate plugin is clearly a winner.

It’s packed to the brim with all the features you could possibly need to create, manage and test the ads that appear on your website.

Using the standards of WordPress, Advanced Ads has made creating and testing adds just as easy as creating and editing posts on your website. With their intuitive features, you can easily insert code from any affiliate network or ad network. You can completely customize where and when ads are displayed based on certain conditions (such as post type or age, author, category, etc.) or based on the user (their location, whether they’re using mobile or desktop, if they’re logged in, etc.).

Beyond that, this plugin makes it easy to A/B test ads on your website by automatically changing the ads that are displayed. In the pro version of this app, you can also test the placement of the ads on your website. The pro version also includes features such as displaying certain ads depending on the day of the week, the browser language, the device size and more. You can also display ads by country, city or continent.

While Advanced Ads is free, Advanced Ads Pro starts at $35.

8. AdRotate

Get Free Plugin | Get Pro Plugin

Another highly successful affiliate plugin, AdRotate has over 50,000 active installs. This plugin allows users to place ads almost anywhere on their site and test which placements seem to work best. AdRotate also allows you to group ads together, so you can see metrics not just on individual ads, but also on groups of ads.

You can also control schedules and restrictions, see daily, monthly and yearly stats, track click-through ratios, show multiple ads together in a grid and so much more!

This affiliate plugin also has a pro version which allows you to see a live preview when creating advertisements, optimize for mobile adverts, geotarget more specifically to certain countries, cities, or states and see more detailed statistics.

The price for AdRotate Pro starts at $35.

9. TablePress

Get Free Plugin

This free plugin allows you to easily create tables in WordPress. It requires no HTML knowledge and allows you to create product comparison tables in a way that’s organized and clean. You have full control of the style and colors within the table, allowing it to match your own website design.

Of course, the information will have to be input manually, which is the only real downside of this plugin. However, you also have the option to import tables from Excel files, CSV, HTML and other formats.

10. WP Product Review

Get the Plugin

Creating product review posts can be a pain, but this plugin makes the process even smoother.

You can create clean and attractive review tables, complete with a section for pros and cons, affiliate buttons, user reviews and more. You can completely customize everything inside the review table, including colors, border and width. You can even customize the rating icons, choosing from stars, hearts or any of the 10 other options!

WP Product Review also allows you to easily create comparison tables. Once you’ve created review tables, this plugin will automatically use those to create a comparison table. It’s that simple! You can also import product information from Amazon, making your job even faster.

Pricing for WP Product Review starts at $75.

11. WP Coupons

Get the Plugin

Made by affiliate marketers for affiliate marketers, WP Coupons boasts itself as the #1 coupon plugin for WordPress.

Their easy-to-use dashboard enables users with limited coding experience to still get the most out of this tool. It’s easy to create attractive coupons to place within your website using the built-in templates and styles that are provided.

Another great advantage of this affiliate plugin is that all coupons are mobile-friendly with very lightweight code and are compatible with all themes and plugins on WordPress.

Pricing for WP Coupons starts at $34.95.

12. Affiliate Coupons

Get Free Plugin

This free affiliate plugin is another fantastic option for placing affiliate coupons on your site. You can input vendors and predefine the affiliate links that go with them, making the coupon linking process much smoother. Also, you can display coupons directly inside posts using shortcodes. You can customize exactly how the coupons are presented, as there are multiple options to filter and sort them.

With a smooth design for coupons on your website, this plugin will have you boosting sales and getting greater revenue in no time!

13. GreedyCoupon

Get Free Plugin

Another free affiliate plugin for placing coupons, GreedyCoupons includes a custom coupon post design, as well as SEO compatibility. You can feature multiple coupons on the same page or even create a slider that rotates different coupons.

It’s true that these last two options don’t have as many features as WP Coupons. However, they’re both available for free and are great for affiliates who want to try using coupons on their website.

14. Pinterest

Get Free Plugin

This plugin is a must-have for affiliate marketers. Pinterest is one of the largest social media sites currently available to use and it’s imperative that you make your content shareable to Pinterest.

The Pinterest Plugin for WordPress allows you to automatically add a “save” button to any media on your page. You can also add widgets that display pins, boards or your Pinterest profile and customize the language that’s displayed.

This free affiliate plugin lets you set up social media sharing to Pinterest quickly and easily, allowing your readers to do promotion for you!

15. Yoast SEO

Get Free Plugin | Get Premium Plugin

For affiliate marketers who are concerned about SEO (as we all should be), this plugin is absolutely vital.

With over 40 million downloads, this is the cream of the crop for SEO plugins.

With the help of Yoast SEO, you don’t need to hire an SEO expert (or be one) in order to optimize your site for search engine ranking. Instead, this plugin gives you step-by-step assistance, helping you optimize each page and post for the specific keyword(s) that you want to rank highly for.

You’ll see how many times you’ve used your target keywords, how readable your post is, how your post will appear in Google searches (including metadata optimization help) and a text link counter. Yoast will even take care of the technical SEO stuff, like robots.txt, sitemaps and other complicated subjects. That way, you can relax and focus on the content.

Yoast SEO has a free and a paid version which starts at $69. I recommend using the free version first to see whether you really need the paid version.

 

Obviously, having the right tool for the job not only saves you time, but will also save you the frustration of a complicated affiliate marketing process.

Once that process is smoothed out using the affiliate plugins we mentioned above, you’ll see your revenue increase at the same rate that your frustration decreases.

With these affiliate plugins, you’ll be able to get more done in less time and boost your affiliate earnings.