Managing an affiliate program isn't always the easiest thing to do.
After all, you're going to be tracking a decent-sized amount of metric for a lot of different affiliates.
This can be tough to do if you are trying to figure out how to juggle it all on your own, and if you don't have a proven and effective system for tracking and measuring all the data that you'll be taking in.
You're going to save yourself a lot of time and lost profits in the long run if you invest in some high quality affiliate management software from the start.
Now, there are a lot of people who start out and feel like they can manage their affiliate program on their own, without spending a little bit of money on management software.
A lot of times these people feel that they will be starting out with a small network of people, and that they can handle a small network of people on their own without any help.
Often people feel like they will just start this way, and then get some software or outsource the management once they have grown sufficiently or once they have earned enough money from their network to purchase the software.
While it's true that most people can probably manage their network pretty easily from the beginning, this is not a good approach.
But if you don't have a proven system or piece of software from the beginning, you're only going to be hurting yourself.
There are two major problems with this "start small" approach.
First, you are going to be limiting your growth because you won't be working with a scalable system.
If you have any success with your affiliate program, than there's a good chance that it's going to be able to grow beyond any sort of easy management pretty quickly.
If you don't have a system in place that works just as well for 2 affiliates as it does for 200, then you are going to be stuck in the smaller end of that scale until you purchase a system that can easily handle a large amount of affiliates.
It's better to just have a scalable system in place so that your businesses' growth isn't limited by your home-made system's limitations.
Companies with affiliate programs need to create scalable systems to manage their affiliates from the beginning if they want to maximize their growth.
Second, you're going to be developing bad habits from the beginning.
Affiliate management software works because it has been constructed with an in-field understanding about what works and what doesn't.
No matter how talented or intelligent you are, there's a good chance that left to your own devices you're going to make a lot of mistake in your affiliate management simply due to lack of experience.
These mistakes are going to be built into the system that you develop, and you are going to develop a lot of bad habits as you grow your business.
It's a LOT easier to simply start with good habits than it is to change your habits well after you're already set deep into your ways.
Overall, it's just a lot wiser (and more profitable!) to make an early investment in affiliate management software.
It will keep you from handicapping your growth, and it will instill in you the correct habits for success from the get go.