Affiliate Operations
Part of Affiliate programme reporting
Measuring active publishers rather than registered accounts
Define and count live and referring affiliate publishers without mistaking enrolled accounts for active placements.
Count active publishers from evidence of relevant activity during a defined period, then show that number beside enrolled accounts. Registration only says a relationship exists. It does not say the publisher has put the offer in front of readers or sent a usable referral.
Choose a definition before counting
Separate three states:
| State | Suggested evidence | What it does not prove |
|---|---|---|
| Enrolled | An accepted, current programme relationship | That the offer has been published |
| Live | A current, relevant placement verified on the stated property | That anyone has clicked or bought |
| Referring | At least one recorded referral meeting the report’s click definition in the period | That the referral earned an approved sale |
Use live publishers as the main activity measure if your aim is to see whether recruited partners have launched. Use referring publishers if you need a measure visible in tracking data. Report both where possible; they answer different questions. Call a publisher “selling” only under a separate definition tied to approved orders.
Set the period and the counting unit. One partner may operate several sites or accounts, while one network account may represent several properties. Decide whether the report counts commercial partners, platform accounts or individual properties. Keep the mapping so a migration or duplicate account does not look like new publisher growth.
Make the evidence inspectable
For each partner, keep its enrolment date, declared property, proposed placement, live URL or other placement evidence, first verified live date and most recent review date. Record tracked clicks and approved orders separately. For a newsletter or private placement, retain the relevant issue or a supplied copy rather than assuming a public URL exists.
A platform’s own “active” label may use a different rule.
Awin’s Publisher Performance report gives a view of how each partner is contributing and can be used to compare partner performance and track key metrics. impact.com’s partner report supplies clicks and actions by partner; those fields can support a referral-based measure when the account’s data is available.
Exclude internal test clicks from a referral count where they can be identified. If a click source is uncertain, mark the publisher for review rather than declaring its placement live. A low click count can be genuine, especially for a newly published specialist article; do not turn an arbitrary threshold into a judgement about partner quality.
Top Platforms for Tracking Publisher Activity
- AwinPublisher Performance Report – shows contribution per partner, tracks key metrics
- impact.comPartner Report – supplies clicks and actions by partner; supports referral-based measures
Report movement, not just a snapshot
Show how partners moved during the period: enrolled but not live, newly live, continuing live, referring and no longer live. Keep the denominator explicit.
A launch rate could be newly live partners divided by partners accepted in that recruitment cohort. A current-activity rate could be verified live partners divided by current eligible partners. These rates should not be compared unless the period and denominator match.
Break out a cohort of recently accepted partners. They have had less time to publish than established partners, so a single program-wide percentage can mislead. Note placements that are scheduled but not yet live and those temporarily unavailable because a product or offer changed.
This does not explain why an individual publisher stopped or whether a credited sale was additional; those are separate investigations.
