We believe there are better options available in this category, read below to learn what this software does well, and what they could do better. ⤵
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The referral category deserves a bit of an explanation because we continually see confusion arise when it comes to the competitors in this space. You'll often hear terms like "affiliate", "referral", "link tracking", and "partner portals" all used interchangeably.
And with that, not all referral tracking tools are created equal, nor are they focused on the same needs. They can actually be broken up more into 5 main sub-categories:
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Dub is the modern link attribution platform for you to create short links, track conversions, and run affiliate programs.
Whether you're looking for a full-fledged affiliate/partnership tracking platform (Dub Partners), or you're just looking for the most modern link shortener on the market, Dub is the answer for both.
Dub Partners is a product that their team has been building in stealth and just dropped. It's the most modern and powerful affiliate and referral tracking platform on the market. Because Dub originated as a link tracking platform, they've thought through how to give the most robust and solid tracking of any of the other platforms on the market.
With Dub Partners, we know exactly what content we post across our site and YouTube is leading to the most revenue for our partner companies. Once you experience this, you can't live without it (as a creator or the software company). They automatically handle all the tax compliance and global payouts, no manual admin work required (unlike half-baked affiliate platforms like Rewardful).
While PartnerStack used to be our favorite affiliate platform (as an affiliate partner), Dub Partners has taken our top pick spot as it's just everything PartnerStack was, and more, at a better overall price as well. It's abundantly clear that they've worked directly with top affiliates to build what the software companies need to excel, as well as the creators/influncers. This can't be said about any other platform on the market (from our experience at least).
Read this post around starting an affiliate program to see exactly where Dub Partners fits into the affiliate tracking space when compared to the best affiliate & referral platforms out there, the leading platforms in the space are quite flawed when you actually start looking more deeply into it.
Get 20% off your first 3 months of Dub Partners.
Let us save you the time and research: whether you're a creator, marketer, or a company looking for a link infrastructure there is no better solution than Dub—trust us, we've tried them all.
Dub is the most modern link shortening/analytics platform. If you've tried to use Bitly's analytic dashboards (or Short's), but they are horrendously kludgy 🙈 So much so, that they cause dread to even go into the back-end.
Dub on the other hand, provides a minimal UI, providing you with the analytics in crystal clear dashboard. With Dub you can easily spin up short links, QR codes, add tags for organization, and even enable things like password protection, expiring links, or geo-targeting.
All of this, AND they have the most generous free tier of all the tools out there to try it out. If you're looking for a new link shortener, Dub is hands down the best on the market.
An affiliate tracking tool for large B2C eCommerce businesses like GAP and Honey (not for B2B SaaS companies)
If you are a B2B SaaS company, stay away from Impact. Let me explain: Impact was initially built specifically for large B2C eCommerce brands like GAP and coupon sites like Honey (does that sound like you?).
That said, they've saturated that market and saw the B2B SaaS space as another market to go after. Because of that, they updated their branding to include the SaaS space (largely due to getting a few big-name SaaS companies like HubSpot and ClickUp but don't let that fool you).
There's a reason why the leading B2B SaaS affiliate & referral tracking companies only work with B2B SaaS. Managing affiliates for physical product purchases from an eCommerce store and managing store coupons is a completely different beast than the recurring revenue model of SaaS.
An analogy would be someone that wants to build a web app using a tool like Shopify, all with absolutely no use for an eCommerce store. Shopify has mastered eCommerce. The software that even integrates with Shopify is eCommerce solution-focused. Using Impact for your B2B SaaS affiliate program is using the wrong tool for the wrong job.
If you're a software company, you should use one of the best affiliate platforms that was built for B2B SaaS on day one. In-fact, they actively avoid working with eCommerce companies, because it makes sense, right?
Our recommendation? Dub Partners (it's our top pick), as it was built for recurring revenue models (you know, 3–4 "SKU's"), so they actually understand the concept of free trials, extended onboarding, and subscription tracking, with deep analytics, all without trying to retrofit an archaic platform (Impact).
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