What an Audit Actually Is
An affiliate program audit is a structured review of everything running in your program, publishers, commission rates, traffic quality, attribution patterns, coupon code usage, and payout accuracy. The goal is to surface what your platform dashboard does not show: where commission spend is being wasted, where fraud is quietly eroding performance, and where the program has room to grow.
Most brands resist audits because the program appears to be working. The revenue is coming in. The publishers are active. What is there to audit? In almost every program I have reviewed, quite a lot.
An audit is not a verdict on whether your program is working. It is a map of the gap between what your dashboard shows and what is actually happening.
The Four Most Common Findings
What Audits Reveal. Every Time
1
Commission Rates
Rates that have not been reviewed since launch
Commission rates set at launch and never revisited are almost always misaligned by year two. Either they are below the category benchmark — quietly making your program less attractive to quality publishers — or above it, eroding margin unnecessarily. An audit benchmarks your rates against current vertical standards and flags where the gap is costing you.
What to look for: your rates compared against current category benchmarks by publisher type, and whether any custom rates exist only in old email threads.
2
Coupon Codes
Coupon code misuse
An audit maps where every active coupon code is being used. What it frequently surfaces is codes circulating on unauthorized sites, generating commission payouts to publishers who played no role in driving the sale — while the brand also absorbs the discount. The brand pays twice: the margin hit and the commission.
What to look for: coupon codes appearing on domains outside the approved publisher list, and transactions where both a discount and a commission were applied to a direct or paid session.
3
Traffic Quality Fraud
Artificial click volume masking near-zero conversions
Some publishers route traffic through interstitial ad networks or push notification platforms to inflate click volume against your program without generating any real purchase intent. The click numbers look like growth. The conversion rate, when measured against the program average, tells the real story. During one audit, we identified a publisher doing exactly this — click volume had spiked dramatically while conversions barely moved. The publisher was removed from the program entirely.
What to look for: a publisher showing a sudden click spike with a conversion rate significantly below program average, with no credible content or audience explanation.
4
Attribution Anomalies
Unusually high AOV pointing to last-click interception
When a publisher or publisher category consistently shows average order values well above the program average — particularly on new customer transactions — it warrants investigation. This pattern can indicate a browser extension or similar tool inserting itself into transactions already in progress, capturing last-click commission credit on high-value purchases it had no role in driving. The revenue looks real. The attribution is not.
What to look for: a specific publisher type showing AOV 40 to 60 percent above program average on new customer transactions, without a credible audience explanation for attracting higher-intent buyers.
The Bottom Line
Every Program Has Something to Fix.
In thirteen years of managing and auditing affiliate programs, I have not conducted a single audit that found nothing worth addressing. The programs that look healthiest on the surface often have the most interesting findings underneath. because the dashboard metrics that suggest everything is fine are exactly the ones that fraud and misattribution are designed to influence.
Work With Me
Want to know what is actually happening in your program?
A program audit covers commission benchmarking, traffic quality, coupon code usage, fraud signals, and publisher mix. And delivers a prioritized action plan, not just a list of problems.
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