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Affiliate tracking software is a software that allows the affiliate merchant/owner to keep track of publishers and gives information regarding where the sales came from and who is to be compensated for the sale. Affiliate tracking softwares use complex algorithms and play the most important part in an online affiliate program.

Affiliate tracking software options

The major question before an affiliate merchant owning an affiliate program is to choose between the two available choices of affiliate tracking software. The two choices being.

In-house affiliate tracking software

This option involves you to actually buy the affiliate tracking software and install it in your server permanently. Although this can be seen as a good option in terms of security, it can prove to be a costly affair as you have to do all the paper work, run affiliate sales report, recruit affiliates and also pay them. The place to look for affiliate tracking software is in directories. Yahoo and google web directories have a host of listings.

Going for an affiliate network company

This option involves making use of a third party affiliate network company that will take care of every thing from procuring affiliates to tracking sales and paying them so the merchant company can stay easy. The only problem being, the lack of control and payment of commissions to network companies. Some websites that offer affiliate network solutions are Commission-Junction, BeFree, ClickTrade, CashPile, ValueClick.

Both these options have their own drawbacks and benefits and to decide one over the other takes lots of calculation and depends mostly on the type of affiliate program being run, number of affiliates needed, volume of business etc. All these calculations have to be done on the basis of long term results to the company.