Ambassador Affiliate Tracking: Features, Integrations and Pricing

Ambassador is an affiliate tracking tool with a special focus on word-of-mouth marketing and customer loyalty programs for medium- to large-sized businesses and enterprises. Not only do they allow for Ambassador applications for affiliates to promote your brand, but they also help you transform happy customers into affiliates via their referral marketing program. 

The platform covers your standard affiliate software features like affiliate tracking, flexible commissions, and a general dashboard for bird’s eye views of your progress. If you’re interested in exploring Ambassador as a potential affiliate software for your program, keep reading. We’ll walk through the platform’s best features, reviews, and limitations, and present Tapfiliate as an alternative. 

Ambassador Affiliate Tracking Tool

Ambassador Features

So, what can you do with Ambassador? We’ll break it down with this feature highlight. 

Flexible Payment Options

Brands have a wide selection of payment options for their affiliates including gift card compensation, ACH transfers, direct bank transfers, exclusive offers, or even swag. They also recently introduced PayPal as an integration. While the platform allows for rewards and payments to over 40 countries, pricing plans only indicate one language to start with, which could pose some accessibility barriers to your potential affiliates.

Just be sure to select a compensation method that you’re confident your affiliates will appreciate. While merch and gift cards save you money, you could miss out on potential affiliate sales if your partners prefer monetary compensation. 

Advanced Fraud Protection

Ambassador provides brands with customizable permission controls to foster more privacy and security. However, the pricing plan page indicates that you won’t access the platform’s fullest security capabilities unless you’re subscribed to the Enterprise plan. 

Personalized Rewards

Rewards help brands incentivize and engage affiliates to improve performance. Ambassador allows subscribers to personalize rewards based on messages, amount, and affiliate segment. This is also a great tool for maintaining loyal customers-turned-affiliate relationships due to referral marketing. 

Ambassador also lets you award high-performing affiliates with coupons, vouchers, gift cards, and swag. 

Ambassador Affiliate and Referral Tracking

Ambassador offers clients full tracking capabilities for 1-6 marketing campaigns, depending on your subscription tier. Its customer loyalty section tracks various customer actions with consequent abilities to reward those actions. Furthermore, Ambassador lets you schedule rule-based campaigns based on that tracking data to help you maximize your impact.  

Customization

Ambassador offers a few customization features to brands like adjustable reward tiers. Another notable customization capability is their personalized landing pages, which you can use to support affiliates in how they share information about your offerings. You can also customize the software itself with white-labeling, which helps you maintain cohesive branding across the board. 

You can also use webhooks to build custom elements if you don’t have the developer skills to use their API. 

Could the platform’s customization features be improved? Yes, according to Jenny L.:

I wish there was a little more customizability in campaign structure.

Analytics

Ambassador’s user-friendly reporting page helps brands view their affiliate stats at a glance, like numbers of all-time clicks and shares, referrals, and percentage increases to help visualize progress. They also display comparative dashboards to display influencer performance based on new customers. Plus, you can filter by affiliate segment to see how specific partners are performing. 

Unfortunately, some customers share dissatisfaction with Ambassador’s reporting and analytics capabilities. This Verified User in the Food and Beverage Industry elaborates:

“Reporting is sometimes unclear, features have been broken with no explanation.”

Another user echoes similar concerns:

Native reporting is relatively limited.

Ambassador Integrations

Ambassador offers a wide range of integrations with email marketing, billing, ecommerce, and CRM software like:

• Hubspot
• Salesforce
• Stripe
• Shopify 
• Magento
• PayPal 
• WooCommerce

The platform also offers an API to help you build custom integrations that you might not see on the list above.  

Ambassador Pricing

Ambassador’s three subscription tiers all start with one language and one currency. They also provide brand marketers with gift card rewards and coupons, general support, basic integrations, and a dedicated onboarding manager. The tiers vary when it comes to the number campaigns you can manage at one time, and number of contacts (affiliates). 

Here are some more details about each plan under the Referral/Affiliate:

• Starter: $250/month. 2,500 contacts, 3 campaigns maximum, 
• Pro: $400/month. More integrations,
• Enterprise: Custom. Better security features, concierge support, unlimited campaigns, and up to 500,000 contacts

You can also access Ambassador’s customer loyalty (+loyalty) features for an extra $150 each month on the starter plan or an additional $350 each month on the pro plan. This enhanced plan provides more contacts and the ability to track orders, additional forms and widgets, lifecycle and task-based reward triggers, and greater communication capabilities with your affiliates on the starter and pro tiers.

Overall, Ambassador is a pricey affiliate software compared to others on the market. One business owner, Jason V., shares his thoughts on the pricing:

The software is priced at a premium and the percentage referral commission share is the only drawback I see at the current time. I wouldn’t mind paying a larger monthly fee, versus annual subscription, for the plans that remove the referral commission share. Maybe even a lighter version would help, especially for start-ups that don’t have too much cash to play with.

Ambassador Customers

Ambassador serves many industry leaders in their respective niches, from ecommerce and fashion brands like Bench to finance software companies like Bill.com and ZE Money Transfer. Here are a few more of their customers and verticals:

• Education: Strayer University, KUMON
• Energy: Gas South, Green Mountain Energy
• Telecom: Verizon Connect
• Billing Software: Chargify, Bill.com
• Beauty: eSalon, JLO Beauty

Ambassador Reviews

Most of Ambassador’s reviews are positive, with review sites citing 4+ average star ratings. The company’s G2 profile shows an average 4.5-star rating with positive notes about the platform’s commission and reward functions, results like ROI, and a dedicated dashboard. However, some reviewers see Ambassador’s pricing uncompetitive. While they offer a wide range of features, many of them require you to purchase them as an add-on. This Verified User in the education industry elaborates: 

The company’s reviews on Capterra indicate similarly high average ratings. Positive comments center on its strong customer service ambassadors and intuitive dashboards for transparency. However, Capterra reviewers lament Ambassador’s lack of accessibility when it comes to set up, as most brands will need a developer to to themselves onboarded. 

Questions You Need to Ask Before Purchasing Affiliate Tracking Software

Overwhelmed by all your options for affiliate software? We get it. That’s why we put together this handy list of questions to help you pinpoint the best contenders.  

What do you need?

Don’t start with a feature and integration list just yet. Think about what you need this affiliate management tool to solve for your business at a high level. Should it help you scale your affiliate program with more affiliates or referrals? Or would you prefer a simple tool to segment affiliates and provide performance incentives accordingly. 

Other goals for your affiliate program might include increasing average order values, boosting affiliate sales, or streamlining your affiliate marketing tasks to give you back more time in the day. 

What’s available?

Our advice? Start with a quick Google search: affiliate software for X (your pain point). Once you have a loose list of affiliate software on the market, drill things down with your network. Ask your colleagues or professional connections if they use an affiliate program. If they do, which one—and why do they like or dislike it. 

You might also refer to affiliate niche industry publications and reports to discover affiliate tools that can impact your business.  

Which Features Are a Must?

If we listed every affiliate software’s features, we’d be typing for hours. While each one usually has the same bare-bone features like basic tracking and attribution, others might offer an edge that proves most valuable to your business. 

For example, a SaaS brand might value recurring commissions to save them time in the payout process. Similarly, a brand with a new affiliate program might appreciate extra onboarding support and training sessions. Consider which features are important to you and don’t be shy to inquire with each software company about how they leverage those features to drive revenue. 

Is the Software User-Friendly?

Affiliate marketing software can’t do anything for your program if you can’t use its features. User experience is vital in affiliate software. You should feel comfortable navigating the various sections, from tracking selections and affiliate onboarding to report filters and creative asset sharing. 

Check out testimonials for each software’s customer base and industry ratings to find out if a particular affiliate software is intuitive, or if it has a high learning curve. Does the latter mean you should disqualify it? Not necessarily; however, you should be on the lookout for positive customer support reviews to mitigate a high learning curve. 

What do You Need it to Integrate With?

If Zapier makes your business go round and round, look for affiliate software with a Zapier integration. The same rings true if you’re an ecommerce brand that can’t live without Shopify, or a course provider that delivers lessons through Teachable. The best affiliate software makes your existing processes smooth and seamless, even with the added tech to your stack. 

Check online reviews as well and search for any mentions of the integrations you plan to use. Are they simple, one-click integrations? Or do you need an API to integrate. If the latter, just make sure you have a developer on-hand to implement things correctly. 

Is it Within Your Budget?

Affiliate tracking software comes at a wide range of pricing. Some can cost under $100 per month, while others cost thousands of dollars in their more custom, enterprise tiers. On one hand, you might argue that a high cost is worth it for the anticipated new sales and conversions. Still, startups and small businesses can’t afford to waste precious budget dollars on software that doesn’t turn a profit fast enough. 

Consult your finance department to stay budget-aligned, as well as software reviews on the platform’s “value for money.” 

Is There a Free Trial?

A free trial is the final test an affiliate software has to pass to secure your business. It reveals all the nuances behind the software’s stated offerings on their website. Navigate the platform and consider how easy (or difficult) it is to make full use of its features. 

If you find yourself coming to a blank on vital functions like report filters or affiliate bonuses, or notice the commission tiers weren’t as customizable as you thought, you might consider alternative affiliate tracking software.

What Security Measures Are There?

Ever noticed a conversion that just didn’t feel right? A closer look shows that it came from the same IP address as your affiliate. Affiliate software offers this valuable knowledge when it’s system catches it—a great way to protect potential customers like yourself from rampant affiliate fraud. 

Check the platform’s security settings and webpage and look for qualifiers like:

• Key attribute blacklisting
• End-to-end encryption
• Deduplication
• Flags for suspicious clicks and conversions

What if you notice a potential affiliate software with less robust security features and a lower subscription price? Our advice is to go for the high-security one—you’ll save yourself the headache of starting over after a data breach. 

How is Customer Support?

Customer support equals customer retention. And an affiliate management software company should deliver the finest to keep your business. We’re talking 24/7 access via live chat, prompt email replies, and customer reps who understand the software and your business needs intimately. 

Consider your unique communication style as well. Is your marketing team more receptive to phone calls over Team chats? Then it’s likely you’ll need an affiliate tracking software that offers phone support too (ps: Tapfiliate does on our Pro and Enterprise plans). 

A Powerful Alternative to Ambassador: Tapfiliate Affiliate Tracking Software

Tapfiliate serves over 2,000 ecommerce, SaaS, and dropshipping brands with robust, real-time tracking and attribution, flexible customization, and affordable pricing. If Ambassador feels too expensive or limited in catering to small businesses, Tapfiliate might offer a leading edge as a worthy alternative for your program. 

Manage and scale your affiliate program with Tapfiliate’s affordable plans, real-time reporting, and laser-sharp tracking capabilities. 

Integrations With a Wide Variety of Solutions

Tapfiliate offers over 34 plug-and-play integrations to help businesses maintain productivity and workflow consistency. Some of our integrations include ecommerce platforms like Shopify, payment software like Stripe, and e-learning tools like Campfire. And if you don’t see your favorite tools in our direct integration list? Enlist a developer to use our Rest API and create your very own custom integration. 

Recruit Your Customers to Promote You

Referral marketing is one of the most effective marketing strategies to drive immense sales for your brand. That’s why Tapfiliate created our automated referral program—to help you sign on the most qualified affiliates to your program. Cater to potential new affiliates from across a wider audience with recruitment in six different languages.

Provide Flexible Commissions for Your Affiliates

Flexible commissions can be the difference between a high-performing affiliate staying with your program or leaving you out to dry. With Tapfiliate’s flexible commissions, brands can decide on unique commission structures for individual affiliates or segmented groups. 

Pick the commission structure that works for your business: perhaps its percentage-based across the board, or higher flat commissions for specific products. You might incentivize affiliates with lifetime commissions, or automate commission increases based on performance milestones.

Automate Your Work

Did your affiliate reach an important performance milestone? You can set up a custom triggered notification through our automated workflows. Pair that with automatic dispute handling for refunds and auto-approved affiliates for the established affiliate program? 

We know a thing or two about customization. Our Zapier integration helps you maintain your standard of productivity and extend that into your affiliate program with automated complex workflows and webhooks. 

Customize Your Affiliate Program

When your brand voice, values, and appearance feel cohesive, potential affiliates take you more seriously—including the highest-performing affiliates. That’s why we created customizable web elements like branded signup pages, custom domains, and customizable affiliate portals. Our clients also share satisfaction with the ease in which we allow for branded, personalized email communications via our platform as well as easy creative assets for affiliates to share with their target audiences.

Stellar Customer Support

We’re proud to combine technical excellence with an unwavering human element through our excellent customer support and service. Our skilled technicians are experts in all things affiliate marketing, trained with the latest affiliate trends and knowledge to inform their impeccable service. They know our platform inside out and are happy to assist you with your inquiries 24/7.  

Tapfiliate Pricing

Tapfiliate’s three tiers of pricing make our services accessible to smaller and larger businesses alike. Each subscription gives you access to multiple commission types, real-time reporting, click and conversion tracking (up to a certain number), triggered notifications, and one-click integrations. 

Here’s a quick look at how each plan differs:

• Essential: $89/month. Basic affiliate plan that gives you everything you need to start tracking affiliate activity and sales. 
• Pro: $149/month. Additional conversion and click tracking, along with more robust features like performance bonuses, custom domain, and custom onboarding fields to recruit new affiliates
• Enterprise: Contact us for pricing. Our most customized and comprehensive subscription tier with custom verbiage, premium support, and unlimited conversion tracking.

Ambassador Affiliate Management vs Tapfiliate Affiliate Management

Pricing

Tapfiliate offers more competitive pricing to suit both large and smaller businesses. Starting at $119 a month, our plans offer brand everything they need to launch, manage, and scale their programs for an investment under $120 monthly. Ambassador has a relatively reasonable basic pricing tier at $250 per month; however, that bare minimum price doesn’t even cover tracked orders, multi-tiered programs, or the platform’s PayPal integration. 

Tracking

Ambassador and Tapfiliate both offer link and coupon code tracking to support affiliate management. However, Tapfiliate stands out with its real-time performance reporting and advanced segmentation and filters to help you drill down into even more specific insights from your tracked data. 

Affiliate program management

Both Tapfiliate and Ambassador offer a wide range of affiliate management features like branded assets for social media posts and landing pages, tiered commission rates, personalized rewards, and automated communications. The main difference is the price point—Tapfiliate offers pretty much all the same features for a fraction of the price. 

Support

Ambassador offers general support via email and a dedicated service rep as an add-on for an additional price. Some reviewers cite an excellent, friendly customer support team, while others have negative comments about unresponsive team members. 

Reviews

Both Tapfiliate and Ambassador share generally positive reviews across review sites. However, Ambassador has more negative reviews when it comes to pricing and value for money, with particular disdain for its many add-on features that brands must pay extra for (on top of the subscription fee). 

FAQs About Ambassador Referral Tracking Software

What is Ambassador

Ambassador is an affiliate tracking software that offers solutions for affiliate, partner, and referral marketing. Their clients include medium-sized businesses in the fintech, ecommerce, energy, education, and ecommerce spaces. 

What are the Limitations of Ambassador?

Ambassador’s biggest limitations are its expensive pricing and lack of compatibility with smaller businesses. The platform’s consistently “add-on” status for features often included in other affiliate software plans make pricing inaccessible for brands just starting out. 

Who Are Ambassador’s Competitors?

Ambassador is a well-known name in the affiliate management space, but certainly not the only one. Here are a few more affiliate management tools that compete with Ambassador: 

• Tapfiliate: A cloud-based affiliate marketing platform that supports small and large businesses in SaaS, ecommerce, and dropshipping verticals with launching, managing, and scaling their affiliate programs at an affordable price. 
• Affilae: An affiliate management platform with link and coupon tracking, reports and analytics, as well as an affiliate and product marketplace to help brands scale their programs. 
• RedTrack: Affiliate and ad-tracking software with a novel conversion path analysis on top of standard management features like tracking, reports with filters, and customization capabilities. 
• UpPromote: An affiliate marketing software created exclusively for ecommerce Shopify store owners.
• AffiliateWP: A WordPress plugin that offers affiliate management capabilities like tracking and adjustable commissions at a reasonable price.

Looking for more alternatives to Ambassador? Check out our alternatives page.

Want to get started tracking affiliate sales? Try out Tapfiliate’s 👉 free 14-day trial.