19 of the Top Performance Marketing Platforms and Software

Many of the best marketing strategies are performance-driven. Whether it’s a target conversion rate or number of newsletter subscribers, the focus is on the end result.

This is the idea behind performance marketing.

The Performance Marketing Association defines “performance marketing [as] a comprehensive term that refers to online marketing and advertising programs in which advertisers and marketing companies are paid when a specific action is completed; such as a sale, lead, or click.”

To keep track of all these actions, most companies rely on a performance marketing platform. We go over exactly what a performance marketing platform does, if it’s something that can benefit your business, and the best performance marketing software available today.

(Or you can skip straight to performance marketing platforms.)

What are performance marketing platforms?

A performance marketing platform is used to keep track of and analyze a campaign’s data points – leads, clicks, conversions, bounce rates, etc. By bringing everything together, it allows you to easily check performance, give proper attribution, and optimize your marketing efforts.

There are typically long lists of features in performance marketing software. However, not all platforms are the same. Some provide end-to-end solutions for various partner programs, while others are more specialized for specific types, like B2B marketing or affiliate marketing (a popular type of performance marketing).

The key is to choose the performance marketing platform that helps you get the most out of your campaigns.

Benefits of using performance marketing software

Performance marketing has been growing in popularity in recent years. It’s completely trackable, transparent, and very low risk. You only pay after the desired action is complete – no unclear, upfront costs.

Built-in analytics and customizable dashboards present a clear picture of how all your performance marketing campaigns are doing. And thanks to advances in tracking and attribution, performance marketing software can measure almost every action so you can see what’s working and what’s not.

There are many benefits to using performance marketing software for your campaigns:

• Brings important campaign data all in one place
• Accessible by the entire team
• Real-time data collection and tracking
• Automatic attribution and performance reporting
• Integration with other platforms and software
• Payout management
• Email notifications
• Fraud protection and added security

Of course, the exact features and benefits depend on the performance marketing platform. But by choosing one that streamlines and analyzes your campaign data, you can better optimize your performance marketing to increase results and ROI.

Is performance marketing software right for you?

Performance marketing can benefit almost every business. And if you’re currently running (or thinking of running) a performance marketing campaign, dedicated software is a big help.

Over the years, performance marketing has grown to encompass different media channels and payment models.

For example, affiliate marketing is a subset of performance marketing that gives commission for every sale an affiliate generates. Or a company can publish sponsored content on another site, and pay for every visitor who ends up booking a free trial.

Note: Performance marketing ties payments to measurable actions, like a lead, sale, or other conversion. While some marketing may be performance-based, like SEO or brand strategy, they aren’t technically performance marketing because you don’t pay for results.

If you’re more interested in software for other marketing campaigns, here are a few options:

• Top digital marketing software tools
• Advocate marketing software
• Referral software solutions
• Marketing automation software
• Team collaboration software tools

Our evaluation criteria

The top 19 performance marketing platforms

Using our evaluation criteria, we put together a list of the top performance marketing platforms. The table below lists down all the software we cover in this article. Click the tool to read more about the company and its most popular features below.

Note: The software is not listed in any order of rank or recommendation. Our aim is to put together a selected source of performance marketing platforms, and give a clear picture of all the available options.

Referral Rock

Referral Rock’s performance marketing platform gives you the flexibility to manage and automate all types of referral and partnership programs, including affiliate programs, channel partnerships, referral partnerships, and ambassador programs.

You can rapidly scale and measure the success of your partnerships by automating all key aspects of the affiliate process. Create personalized experiences for partners, track advocacy in real time, and keep partners happy with efficient performance payouts.

Plus, if you need assistance, the company’s top-notch support team is there to guide you through every step of setting up and refining your program. No matter which plan you choose, you’ll have a dedicated customer success manager.

Key features

• Manage and track partners and leads: Capture and track every purchase made from each affiliate or referral link, and automatically pay out affiliate incentives. With the platform’s dashboard, you and your partners can easily monitor campaigns and all KPIs in real time.
• Customize your affiliate experience: Personalize the program experience for affiliates or channel partners, and keep them engaged with customizable affiliate landing pages.
• Seamless integrations: Easily integrate your performance marketing program with Hubspot, Salesforce, Zapier, and plenty of other tools already in your marketing and sales stacks. Referral Rock also offers API integration and mobile app integration options.

Affise

Affise is a performance marketing platform built to manage, track, analyze, and optimize online advertising campaigns in real-time. Operating across industries, from ecommerce to finance to gaming,

Affise is a full-scale technology solution that can be customized for your needs. You can easily create a unique affiliate platform to align with your processes and drive your business forward.

Key features

• Robust analysis: Access to 50+ data breakdowns, custom comparison reports, and IP intelligence (by Digital Element).
• Optimization tools: Use AI smartlinks, anti-fraud protection, CR optimization, and automatically transfer offers to make sure your advertising campaigns are running smoothly.
• Extensive customization: Introduce any needed custom integrations, with a tailored UI design, feature-rich API, and third party integrations.

Anytrack

Anytrack is plug-and-play a conversion data platform built for performance marketers. The software automatically tracks conversion data across all your marketing and analytics channels, while simultaneously building remarketing audiences for you.

The marketing platform offers instant integration with the apps and ad networks you use everyday, helping you grow and scale no matter what your digital marketing strategy.

Key features

• AutoTrack and AutoTag: Automatically tag and tracks events, like outbound clicks and forms submissions – without writing code – to guarantee seamless funnel attribution.
• One tag: Connect your entire marketing ecosystem to the same conversion data and leverage analytics across multiple platforms.
• Run smart campaigns: Build custom audiences and granular data to run the right campaigns to the right audience at the right time.

LeadDyno

Since 2014, LeadDyno has been providing affiliate tracking software and marketing automation for businesses of all sizes. The platform is simple enough for those just getting started, with more advanced options for businesses wanting more out of their programs.

LeadDyno’s affiliate tracking software can be set up in minutes so you can grow and monitor the performance of your marketing efforts – all from one dashboard.

Key features

• One-click integration: Your affiliate portal is automatically set up when you sign on, and integrates with 25+ platforms, including ecommerce, payment processors, and CRM, so you can start tracking immediately.
• Multiple affiliate tools: Preload shareable content for your affiliates and automatically assign links, coupon codes, and specific URLs to track individual affiliates.
• Automated marketing and recruitment: Keep affiliates up-to-date with current product offerings, news or other updates by sending them newsletters straight from the dashboard.

PartnerStack

PartnerStack was founded with a mission to connect companies and partners together to create incredible growth. The partner management platform accelerates recurring revenue for every kind of partner, all at once. Plus, the software does more than performance marketing work – it helps you build new revenue channels by empowering all your partners to succeed.

Key features

• Scale multiple channels: Close more deals, generate new leads, bring traffic to your next campaign, and more – all at once on one platform.
• Maximize partner performance: Create custom experiences with unique onboarding and marketing assets for each of your partner channels.
• Automate your partner payouts: Save time by automating partner payments, receiving a single monthly invoice, and integrating with Stripe or PayPal.

AffiliateWP

AffiliateWP provides advanced affiliate and referral tracking, integrated seamlessly into your WordPress site. You can create a full-featured affiliate program with a dashboard, real-time reports and graphs, and an easy payout system.

Easy to set up and packed full of features, you can use the performance marketing platform to rank higher, boost traffic, and increase sales.

Key features

• Easy setup and integration: Your affiliate program will be up and running in minutes, with simple installation and activation on the popular WordPress platform.
• Accurate affiliate tracking: Tracks affiliate referrals, earnings, and registrations (even on servers with aggressive caching) in real-time with no delay.
• Performance-ready on WordPress: Thoroughly tested and built with speed in mind, performing beautifully on all WordPress sites, no matter what size or industry.

Tapfiliate

Tapfiliate allows you to “tap into affiliate marketing today.” Their cloud-based marketing platform facilitates easy creation, tracking, and growth of affiliate and referral marketing programs for ecommerce and SaaS companies. By integrating seamlessly with your site in just minutes,

Tapfiliate can help you launch affiliate marketing programs, reward brand ambassadors, and begin boosting sales.

Key features

• Affiliate autopilot: Set up a personal, branded affiliate dashboard that can onboard affiliates quickly and easily, and give them access to all the assets they need to promote your business.
• Plug-and-play integrations: An all-in-one, customizable solution with 33 easy copy/paste integrations, from 3Dcart to Zapier.
• Variety of rewards: Incentivize your best affiliates and partners with performance bonuses and recurring commission, whether fixed or percentage-based, per product category.

Impact

Impact aims to transform the way enterprises manage and optimize their marketing partnerships. Using science and technology to create transformational growth, the platform helps you scale every type of partnership – affiliates, influencers, strategic business partners, and more.

Impact’s performance marketing platform has a suite of products built for partner management, business development, and optimizing every stage of the partnership life cycle.

Key features

• Impact partnership automation: Orchestrate all forms of referral partnerships by automating actions through the unified framework of the partnership life cycle.
• Gain new partners: Discover and connect with global partners using enhanced content-based discovery, and add them to your partnership program with ease.
• Partner engagement tools: Keep your partners engaged and measure their performance with proactive messaging and automated workflows.

Refersion

Refersion was designed to make performance marketing easy. By providing all the necessary tools to help you quickly create and launch your own promotion network, the platform leaves you free to focus on growing your revenue and business.

Refersion is known for being extremely user-friendly and easy to set up in six minutes or less. From there, you can customize the performance marketing platform to suit your marketing needs.

Key features

• Track all digital sales: Integrate with your ecommerce platform and instantly start tracking all digital sales from anywhere in real-time.
• Automated commissions: With unlimited commission structures and automated affiliate commissions, you can save time and manage your marketing through recurring performance reports.
• Improved affiliate relationships: Make the most of your partnerships with a personalized affiliate portal, an analytics performance dashboard, and commission payment visibility.

ClickMeter

ClickMeter’s goal is to help marketers better manage their marketing links and maximize their conversion rates. With a suite of online tools available, you can monitor, compare, and optimize all your links on a single performance marketing platform.

ClickMeter can also be customized for your specific program, whether you’re an agency, advertiser, publisher, or managing an affiliate program.

Key features

• Visitor analytics: Assess visitor’s click-through-rates on your ads and marketing links using a variety of metrics, and route them to the landing page where they yield the best conversion rates.
• In-depth tracking: Collect all kinds of data from clocks on your links, including geolocation, browser and device type, visitor type, and more.
• Easy analysis: Discover at a glance how your marketing campaigns are going with trend reports, conversion comparison tables, and detailed data point reports.

Scaleo

Scaleo brings more than 10 years of experience in tracking technologies and building affiliate software. The result is a cutting-edge “affiliate marketing software you’ll finally love.”

Built for affiliate networks, advertisers, and media buyers, Scaleo is a simple interface with lightning-fast performance, yet still packed with unique AI and machine learning features.

Key features

• Anti-fraud logic: In-house Anti-Fraud Logic™ combines and analyzes dozens of internal and external measuring points to detect and eliminate fraud traffic in real-time.
• Lightning-fast interface: Enjoy a seamless user experience with an intuitive interface, dozens of convenient filters, blazing-fast data reports, and redirection tracking.
• Advanced targeting options: Add up to 10+ advanced targeting rules to reach the right target audience and achieve the best results.

Voluum

What kind of ads do you run? Voluum controls all your campaigns from one ad tracker. Its quick reporting can easily monitor over 30 metrics per visit, click, and conversion from all your traffic sources in real time.

As a cloud-hosted tracking software, your entire team can access data analytics insights and AI-powered optimization tools wherever they are.

Key features

• Traffic distribution AI: Quickly find the most profitable combinations of ads and landing pages that are proven to work for your specific audience.
• Automizer: Connect the platform to your traffic sources via API integration, allowing you to create auto-rules, change bids, and perform other actions on your campaign.
• Anti-fraud kit: Automatically analyze your traffic in real time using 10 different metrics to identify suspicious behavior in your traffic.

CAKE

Revolutionizing the performance marketing space, CAKE empowers organizations with the insights to measure the impact of their marketing effort and make intelligent marketing decisions. The company strives to make its product simple, so you can easily manage, monitor, and optimize performance marketing in real-time.

CAKE’s performance marketing platform brings clarity to your campaigns and makes the most of your digital ad spend.

Key features

• Multichannel marketing: The attribution software provides performance marketers with the tools needed to measure digital campaigns holistically across marketing channels.
• Intelligent lead routing: Capture, validate, and distribute leads in real-time, and measure closed-loop performance to optimize acquisition efforts.
• Secure, dependable data: All data is safe, with an enterprise-grade platform and world-class infrastructure that are subject to ongoing GDPR efforts and additional security regulations.

TUNE

TUNE helps you “partner the way you want to,” with a flexible SaaS platform for managing marketing partnerships across mobile and web.

As one of the first cloud-based platforms to support affiliate marketing, TUNE has grown to support the expansion of every performance partnership that marketers and their teams want to manage. In addition to affiliate marketing, you can maximize ROI of business development relationships, influencers, content marketers, networks, and other types of partnerships.

Key features

• Branded partner experience: Powerful tools to integrate, manage, and compensate your marketing partnerships, plus over 650 endpoints to personalize and differentiate your business.
• Intelligent tools: Advanced automation tools to streamline workflows and minimize risk, as well as real-time reporting and data streaming power better decision-making.
• Secure controls: High standards in safeguarding the data of your business and end users, with SOC 2 Type II and SOC 1 Type II certification, GDPR compliance, proactive fraud prevention, and more.

Post Affiliate Pro

Post Affiliate Pro helps run your entire affiliate program from top to bottom. Its dashboard is built for both merchants and affiliates, with over 170 CMS and payment gateway integrations.

Offering personalized commission structures and settings, Post Affiliate Pro’s performance marketing platform is intuitive, fast, and infinitely expandable – allowing it will grow with your business.

Key features

• Tracking methods: Implement multiple unique tracking methods, with support for all types of affiliate links and matrixes, which results in the most accurate affiliate tracking software on the market.
• Various commissions: Assign the best commission for every partner you work with, including commissions per action, commission groups, assign lifetime commissions, or multi-tier commissions.
• Advanced tracking tools: Using what’s called SubID or ad channels tracking, you can know exactly which of your promotions efforts are bringing in the best results.

Everflow

Everflow was created to provide a cutting-edge platform that addressed the complexities, scale, and functionality required by modern marketers. Its “smarter partner marketing platform” helps businesses drive performance from every partnership: affiliates, influencers, referring customers, media buying partners, and more.

With robust features that are constantly updated to suit your marketing needs, Everflow helps make partnership marketing your best channel.

Key features

• Track performance without using links: Go past traditional tracking links that drive more performance from more types of partners, including direct linking, tracking code URLs, and impression tracking.
• EverXchange curated partner marketplace: Connect with partners driving performance through social media platforms, native advertising, SEM, and more.
• Deep reporting and analysis at scale: Easily break down partner performance by each placement, with drill-down reporting that’s fast and in real-time.

HOQU

HOQU is a SaaS performance marketing platform for creating networks and managing, tracking, and optimizing online advertising campaigns. The software is built for a number of partner relationships, including affiliates, affiliate networks, and advertisers.

No matter what plan you chose, HOQU gives full access to all core features. This allows anyone to easily manage, measure, and optimize for the highest performance and take their affiliate marketing to the next level.

Key features

• Platform management: Unlimited users and offers, with the ability to accommodate multi-currency, different time zones, custom domains, invitations codes, and more.
• Robust tracking: includes S2S integration, pixel tracking, multi-events, advanced targeting, caps, and traffic-back.
• Advanced reporting: Real-time data is used to create multi-functioned reports, CSV analysis, and comprehensive log.

Partnerize

Partnerize helps brands unlock the full potential of their partnerships, elevating the channel into a primary business driver. Its partner automation platform is an end-to-end, SaaS-based solution for forming, managing, analyzing, and predicting the future results of your partner marketing programs.

Partnerize delivers the performance marketing software and tools to automate workflows, optimize performance, and maximize your return on media investment.

Key features

• Partner discovery: Leverage the AI-powered partner discovery tool that individually analyzes all active partners and recommends those that can drive great scale for your campaigns.
• More commission options: Set partnership management commission terms that align to specific KPIs, like acquisition, reactivation, AOV, and LTV.
• Track every customer action: Track every buyer action, from first-click to conversion, and pair events with no limits.

Fintel Connect

As suggested by the name, Fintel Connect specializes in driving growth and innovation in the financial services space. Its mission is to support clients, partners, and publishers with the right tools and insights to help grow digital acquisition in a scalable and efficient way.

The fintech platform helps financial brands save time and money, while optimizing their digital acquisition.

Key features

• Data at your fingertips: Have the transparency you need to easily track, monitor, manage, and scale your campaign results, all in one place.
• Expert affiliate management: Leverage a team of expert performance marketers to support affiliate channel growth and stay on top of mind with your partners.
• Next gen marketing tools: Optimize your marketing efforts with ease, with self-serve dynamic marketing tools, product feeds, animated banners, text links, widgets, and more.

Choosing the right performance marketing platform

Performance marketing combines strategy and technology to help you get the most out of your campaigns. It’s completely measurable and trackable – down to every click. Using a performance marketing platform can help you manage all your ongoing partnerships and campaigns. Done right, performance marketing can deliver win-win opportunities for all parties involved.