How to Vet Affiliates Before You Approve Them

To vet an affiliate, review the website or channel they will use, check whether its audience fits your market, and ask how they intend to promote your offer. Verify claims that would affect approval, agree on permitted methods, and review the first conversions against that plan. If the traffic source remains unclear, keep the application pending.

The evidence you need will depend on the applicant. A comparison publisher can show relevant pages and website analytics. A YouTube creator can show videos and audience data. A consultant may recommend your product directly to clients and have little website traffic to report.

Use the application to establish how the partnership would work. Then investigate anything the applicant cannot explain or support.

Ask Where the Promotion Will Appear

An affiliate application should identify the proposed placements and explain how people will reach your product. “SEO and social media” gives you too little to review. Ask for the website, channel, newsletter, or community the applicant intends to use, along with an example of the planned promotion.

A useful answer might be: “I publish bookkeeping software tutorials for UK freelancers. I would add your product to my comparison page and record a setup tutorial.” You can open the page, watch previous tutorials, and judge whether the product belongs there.

For paid traffic, ask which advertising platforms the affiliate intends to use, which countries they will target, and whether visitors will pass through a landing page they control. If another publisher will supply the traffic, establish who that publisher is and how you will identify its activity.

These details also reveal a straightforward reason to decline: the proposed method may fall outside your program. If you do not accept coupon sites, an otherwise legitimate coupon publisher still needs a clear answer before investing time in a campaign.

Put these questions in the application form so the reviewer has something concrete to assess. Trackdesk supports custom registration questions, including required questions with text, yes/no, or selection answers.

Read the Website or Channel They Submit

Review the content most relevant to your product. For a publisher, open a few recent articles and the pages where your offer would appear. Look for useful explanations, accurate product descriptions, and a recognizable audience. Check whether readers can tell who runs the site and contact them.

A claimed product review deserves a closer read. Does the author explain what they tested? Are the screenshots and examples relevant? Would a reader understand the product’s limitations? Repeated factual errors or copied descriptions give you a reason to ask how the affiliate would represent your business.

For creators, watch or read several recent posts on the same topic. Look at the questions people ask and how the creator responds. A follower count with little visible engagement warrants a question, but it is insufficient evidence to label the audience fake.

Domain history can add context. Use ICANN’s registration data lookup to inspect available registration information. If the website is new, ask for previous work or evidence of the audience the applicant plans to reach. Give an older site the same content review.

For publishers relying on search traffic, a backlink check may help you understand the site. Inspect some of the pages linking to it and whether those links make sense in context. Keep any authority score in perspective: Ahrefs defines Domain Rating as a measure of backlink strength and advises against judging a website by that score alone.

Ask for Traffic Evidence That Matches the Channel

Check traffic claims against the part of the audience that could realistically buy your product. Total visits across an entire website may tell you little about the reach of the page where your offer will appear.

Suppose an applicant runs a large consumer technology site, while your product serves finance teams. Ask about the business software section and its audience. The site’s overall reach leaves that question unanswered.

Choose evidence according to the promotion being proposed:

Proposed channel	Evidence to request	What to check
Website or comparison pages	Analytics for the relevant pages, traffic sources, and audience countries	Whether the pages reach people in markets you serve
YouTube or another creator channel	Recent relevant content and platform analytics	Whether the claimed reach relates to the subject and format of the proposed promotion
Email newsletter	Recent issues and aggregate delivery and click reports	Whether the newsletter covers your category and readers click comparable recommendations
Paid advertising	Campaign outline, target countries, and proposed ads or landing pages	Whether the acquisition method follows your program rules
Consultant or agency referrals	Relevant services, an explanation of the client relationship, and examples they are permitted to share	How your product would fit into the advice or work they already provide

For an established publisher, the previous three months can be a practical reporting window. Use a different period when the site is new, seasonal, or has recently changed direction.

Similarweb’s traffic estimates can provide another reference point. Treat a large discrepancy as something to discuss. Similarweb also explains that “Not enough data” can reflect insufficient data for a reliable estimate; it does not establish that a site has no audience.

Ask applicants to include the property or channel name, date range, and relevant filters when sharing reports. Allow them to redact unrelated commercial information. If a screenshot leaves an important question unresolved, request a focused export or a brief walkthrough. A screenshot alone cannot authenticate the traffic.

Avoid using a fixed bounce-rate cutoff to approve affiliates. In Google Analytics 4, bounce rate measures sessions that were not engaged. Interpret the metric alongside the page’s purpose and measurement setup. It cannot establish whether an applicant will refer suitable customers.

Confirm Who Controls the Account

Establish who is applying, their relationship to the submitted channel, and which person or business would receive payment. An agency employee applying on behalf of a publisher should be able to explain that arrangement.

If control of a website or channel is uncertain, ask for confirmation through a contact route already published there. A reply from the website’s listed business address can help resolve whether the applicant represents it.

Ask about discrepancies directly. A personal email address, a business registered abroad, or a payment account under a company name may have a reasonable explanation. Record that explanation where the next reviewer can find it.

Search the applicant’s name and business name for relevant public history. If you find a complaint, check whether it concerns the same business and whether there is evidence behind it. Use the underlying evidence when deciding whether it should affect approval.

Decide Whether to Approve, Ask More, or Decline

Approve an affiliate when the proposed promotion fits your program and the evidence is sufficient for the activity you are authorizing. An applicant with a modest, relevant audience may be suitable even without a long operating history.

Keep the application pending when a specific question remains unanswered. Ask for the missing item: the proposed landing page, the relevant audience report, or confirmation of who controls the channel. A precise request is easier to answer than “send more proof.”

Decline when the audience is outside your market, the intended method is prohibited, or the applicant cannot substantiate a material claim after a reasonable opportunity to respond. Record the reason. Poor fit and misleading information should remain distinguishable in your records.

If you confirm that an applicant is impersonating a publisher or has falsified reports, reject the application and preserve the evidence.

Some credible applicants will have limited evidence. You can agree to a small initial campaign, review its results, and decide whether to expand. Define the placement, scope, and review point before the campaign starts.

With manual affiliate approval in Trackdesk, new applicants remain Pending until reviewed. Pending affiliates cannot log in, and traffic on their tracking links is not collected. An approved test therefore needs an enabled account; leaving it pending will not provide test results.

Agree on the Rules Before Traffic Starts

Give affiliates written terms that address the promotion they will run. Specify permitted channels and markets, your policy on brand keyword bidding, use of coupon codes, self-referrals, and any requirement to approve ads or landing pages. Prohibit misleading claims and attempts to claim referral credit without a qualifying referral.

Define what earns commission. For a lead program, state the qualification criteria. For sales, explain how refunds, cancellations, and duplicate transactions affect eligibility. Include the review period and payout schedule so affiliates understand when a recorded conversion becomes payable.

Disclosure belongs in that conversation too. For promotions subject to US rules, the FTC’s guidance on affiliate marketing disclosures says the relationship should be disclosed clearly and conspicuously, close to the recommendation. The FTC also warns that “affiliate link” alone may not explain that the publisher earns a commission. Check the requirements applicable to the markets and channels involved.

If an affiliate later adds a new advertising platform, publisher, or promotional method, review the change against those terms before expanding the campaign.

Review the First Customers They Refer

After approval, compare the affiliate’s actual activity with the agreed plan. Start with the source of the traffic, the countries reached, and whether the resulting leads or customers meet your qualification criteria.

Investigate patterns in context. A short click-to-purchase interval should prompt you to examine the placement and customer journey before deciding what happened. A high conversion rate needs enough traffic to make the comparison useful. A sudden traffic increase calls for an explanation of the campaign or placement that produced it.

Compare similar affiliate types where possible. A coupon placement and an editorial tutorial reach customers at different points in a purchase, so applying one program-wide conversion benchmark can produce misleading judgments.

Follow the outcome beyond the recorded conversion. For a subscription product, check whether referred accounts activate, pay, and remain customers. For ecommerce, review refunds and cancellations. For a lead campaign, ask whether the sales team can contact the leads and whether they meet the agreed criteria.

Set an early review date when approving the affiliate, then adjust the frequency to the campaign’s volume and results. Record what you checked and any follow-up agreed with the partner. If the affiliate changes the traffic source, revisit the review.

Once the initial activity meets your criteria, focus on helping the partner produce more of it. Trackdesk’s guide to scaling a B2B SaaS affiliate program covers onboarding, activation, and partner development after recruitment.