The Role of Tech in Affiliate Marketing

Future-proofing an affiliate program looks different for every company, but it often centers around your use of technology. For the panelists, AI can save time and alleviate the burden of repeatable tasks, including reporting, content optimization, and affiliate recruiting.

That doesn't mean AI will make affiliate marketing managers and their teams obsolete, however. As Carmen Barakat, Global Head of Online Partner Marketing at Google explains, "AI won't replace humans. Humans with AI will replace humans without AI."

Simplifying Affiliate Management With Generative AI

Generative AI platforms like ChatGPT are among the best-known AI tools on the market, with a variety of applications for affiliate marketing teams.

Jasper assists with long and short-form copy creation. You can use it to generate newsletters, blog posts, and articles to support your partners, or for your internal content. Jasper is also automated to optimize content for search engine optimization (SEO).

You can also use generative AI to find potential partners. For example, you might prompt Gemini with a set of criteria that you want it to consider, such as brand, target audience, and market considerations, and ask the bot to suggest sites or companies that are a good fit for those criteria.

5 Additional AI Tools for Affiliate Marketing

While generative AI captures a lot of headlines, it's not the only kind of tool available for affiliate marketing. Our panelists also described a number of other options that can grow and strengthen your business, including…

Cleverly

Cleverly can send personalized messages to contacts on LinkedIn. Eli Saas, leader of Global Affiliates and Partnerships at General Assembly, uses this tool to build nurture sequences that go out to 500 contacts per month. When someone accepts a connection, Cleverly's AI nurtures that prospect until they're ready for a call from the sales team. It offers a relatively inexpensive way to increase connections and response rates.

NotebookLM

NotebookLM is similar to ChatGPT in that you prompt the chatbot to respond. However, unlike ChatGPT, it allows you to upload documents and provide URLs to relevant sites. When you enter a prompt, it references those specific pages or documents before answering.

For example, imagine you've just finished a campaign and have documents describing metrics, overviews, and performance. Rather than looking through those documents manually, you can upload them to NotebookLM and ask it to give you a summary of actionable insights, freeing up time to focus on more strategic tasks.

Croissant

Red Barrington, Affiliate Specialist at Cambridge Satchel, uses Croissant, a buy now, sell later checkout app that promotes sustainability and brand loyalty. When a customer makes a purchase, they receive an instant offer to resell their item in a year. When they sell the item, they receive a voucher to make a new purchase through the original seller.

Intent.ly

Technology and AI tools can also help with the customer service side of affiliate marketing. Intent.ly has a plug-in that serves in the role of customer service representatives by responding to discount code issues. For example, if a customer tries to use a code and it fails, the plug-in can automatically recommend a different, functioning code so the buyer doesn't have to reach out to the support team.

Guidde

Eli Saas recommends Guidde, an AI tool that creates training videos. He explains that these videos are beneficial for teaching new affiliates about important topics, such as how to get paid. Rather than walking each partner through this process individually, you can send them to a Guidde video to get their questions answered quickly.

Stay on Top of the Latest Tech With Affiliate Summit

The experts at Affiliate Summit East 2024 only scratched the surface when it comes to AI tools. Some of the other items they mentioned include:

• Affistash, a recruitment tool that scrapes the web for competitor pages and uses AI to search for affiliates
• Commenter.ai, which uses an AI bot to post comments on sites like LinkedIn,
• Affiliate.ai, which gives you fast access to affiliate information and performance so you can immediately share updates with clients

If you're struggling to find an affiliate marketing tool or want to learn more about the tools the panelists discussed, attend Affiliate Summit West. This event in Las Vegas February 2025 is a prime opportunity to get all the details on the latest and greatest affiliate marketing tools.