New Tools: Useful New Software For Affiliates, Apr 2017 Edition (9)
New Tools: Useful New Software For Affiliates, Apr 2017 Edition
I keep my eye out on a frequent basis for new tools that could be useful for affiliate work - and I thought I'd share some of my recent finds.
Some of these aren't new per se, just new to me - but chances are you'll not have heard of most of them!
Note: I've not tested all of these, just found them in my journeys. This should be considered a "hey, this looks potentially useful" level of recommendation, not an "I use this and it's awesome" recommentation, unless otherwise mentioned below!
Data Mining/Machine Learning: Orange
If you want to get going with some AI-assisted data analysis, but you're not a coder, this is my new favourite tool recommendation. It's a flowchart-based program incorporating just about every data-mining and machine-learning tool you could think of, from the simple (heatmaps, blob charts, linear regression) to the Proper Machine Learning (neural nets, Random Forest, etc).
It's not quite as powerful as something like Tensorflow, but it's also a lot easier to understand, and you can get a lot done with the tool very quickly. It's also rather fun!
Worth checking out if: you want to start using Machine Learning-type tools to analyse your campaigns.
Server Management: Commando.io
Commando.io is a Web-based tool for managing servers. It's more targeted at automation for large groups of servers than individual ones, and it's aimed at the more technical user.
However, if you need to do something like rapidly deploy Wordpress instances, set up new VPNs, or similar, this looks pretty awesome. Also great for running maintenance tasks, keeping security up to date, etc.
Worth checking out if: you run a bunch of servers and want a way to rapidly control them all at once.
Web Task Automation From Screenshots: Kantu
Possibly the easiest web automation tool I've ever encountered, using a really neat technique: it's based on screenshots of web pages. You take a screenshot, highlight the thing you want to click or fill out, and off you go.
Pretty much every affiliate has plenty of automation-friendly tasks in their workflow, and if you haven't gotten started with automation yet, this is a great place to do so.
It's also very usable for web scraping and data extraction.
Worth checking out if: you aren't a coder and want to get started with automation.
A New JPEG Encoder From Google: guetzli
Any new image encoder is usually worth a look if it comes from somewhere reputable, and this one's straight from the Big G.
Unlike most JPEG encoders, this isn't focused on making images as small as possible: instead it's focused on making them very high-quality, using perceptual image techniques.
I've found some evidence in the past that higher-quality images can boost CTRs more than reducing image file sizes, so this is worth a split-test, particularly on your landers or banners.
It's not packaged with a nice GUI tool, sadly, so at this point it's a coders-only option: but that means that if you can get over the hurdle and it offers improved CTRs, there's a barrier to entry for anyone else wanting to copy the technique.
Worth checking out if: you're a coder and you have landers or banners you've already highly optimised.
A Non-Techie Friendly Interface For Static Site Generators: Forestry.io
Static site generators are startlingly useful, quick, secure ways to build mini-sites for Adwords, SEO, FB, or whatever else you need - but they're pretty techie to use under normal circumstances.
Enter Forestry.io. It's essentially an interface builder: you give it the bare bones of a static site generator site, and it generates a Wordpress-like friendly frontend for it.
Great for outsourcers, employees, or just if you don't want the hassle of dealing with the techier side of static site generation.
Worth checking out if: you need to build a lot of mini-sites but the techiness of static site generators puts you off.
An Amazon Interface For Building Facebook Chatbots: Lex
Chatbots are the new hotness on FB, and there are a million ecommerce and affiliate-related uses for them: from lead generation to customer service.
This tool offers a simple way to build question-and-response chatbots with no coding. Real tip-of-the-iceberg stuff here: this could be hugely profitable.
Worth checking out if: you do anything on FB, pretty much.
One more I just ran across:
New web server with some interesting productivity features: Caddy
We're used to web servers being quite light and doing nothing but the basics these days (Nginx), but this new web server's taking a different approach.
It offers a lot of advanced features I've not seen anywhere else: very easy http/2 and https setup, Hugo interface, and most interestingly a built-in templating engine.
I've written about using templating engines for affiliate work before - they can be a major productivity booster if you need to test a lot of landers. And Caddy's templating looks simple and robust.
I'm definitely going to test this approach and may well write it up in a future article.
Worth checking out if: you want to use the latest Web connectivity features on your landers, https is important to you, or you'd like to set up a templating engine for your landers.
Here's a great tool for creating a Facebook chat bot: https://manychat.com/
Very nice suggestions Caurmen. I just checked Orange and looks very promising.
How would you use it in combination with
https://blog.biolab.si/2017/04/25/ou...traffic-signs/
Using that one for coming up with banner designs/combat banner blindness.
i like Commando.io 
am already using it .
dr_ngo thanks for sharing the tool .
@jrenzi - depends on how
Great share! will test a couple of those out for sure, I was just looking into custom CMS for static pages options
@Todor - cool! Let us know how you get on!
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