The Affiliate Tracker Buyer’s Checklist

Choosing affiliate tracking software should feel calm and methodical, not like a coin flip. The right tracker becomes your operating backbone, from clean S2S postbacks to accurate payouts and readable reports. The wrong one adds guesswork, lost sales, and long nights. Use this practical checklist to compare vendors side by side and choose with confidence.

How to use this guide: for each section you will see what good looks like, questions to ask, red flags to avoid, and a quick test to run during a trial.

1) Accuracy and tracking methods

What good looks like

• First party tracking on your domain, cookie independent fallbacks, and reliable S2S postbacks
• Pixel support for simple cases, with mobile and app journeys handled through SDKs or deferred deep links
• Link decorators that keep SubIDs intact across redirects
• Clear handling of multiple conversion events such as lead, sale, upsell, renewal

Questions to ask

• Which tracking methods are native: pixel, S2S, API callbacks, app SDK?
• How do you deduplicate across pixel and S2S when both fire?
• Do you store raw event logs with request IDs for audits?
• How are iOS and privacy restricted browsers handled?

Red flags

• Only client side pixels with no robust server options
• No plan for app installs, in app purchases, or cross device journeys
• Vague answers on link integrity and parameter loss

Quick test

Fire a test click with a known SubID, then send a test conversion by S2S and pixel. Confirm a single conversion with the correct SubID and value appears within minutes.

2) Data model and APIs

What good looks like

• Events, payouts, reversals, adjustments, and notes are first class objects that keep history
• Human readable IDs plus stable unique IDs for joins in your warehouse
• Well documented REST APIs and webhooks with retries, pagination, and filtering by date and state
• Role based permissions and audit trails for every change

Questions to ask

• Can we pull raw click and conversion logs for a date range?
• How are adjustments represented, separate objects or overwriting the original?
• What are the API rate limits, how are they enforced, and can we request bumps?
• Do webhooks sign payloads and retry on non 2xx responses?

Red flags

• No adjustments object, only overwriting values
• Sparse API docs and no SDK examples
• Rate limits that throttle standard daily exports

Quick test

Create a payout adjustment in the UI, fetch the same entity via API, and confirm the ledger style history is intact.

3) Reporting depth and BI exports

What good looks like

• Near real time dashboards for daily action and scheduled exports for month end
• Cohort and time lag views, for example 7, 14, and 30 day conversion
• Placement level reporting via SubIDs and UTM joins
• Direct export or connector to your BI or warehouse

Questions to ask

• What is the reporting latency for clicks and conversions?
• Can we customise dimensions and save views by team role?
• Is there a native connector to BigQuery, Snowflake, Redshift, or a flat file push?
• Do you support spend ingestion to calculate ROI inside the tracker?

Red flags

• Daily batch only with multi hour delays
• No SubID visibility beyond a single free text field
• Manual CSV downloads as the only export path

Quick test

Push a test campaign live, generate ten clicks and two conversions across two placements, then check whether the report splits by SubID within five minutes.

4) Automation and workflows

What good looks like

• Rule based actions such as pause on low CR, boost commission by window, route by device or geo
• Webhook triggers on events such as new partner, cap reached, fraud flag
• Scheduled tasks such as rotate landers or send alerts, with logs
• A log for every automated action with the rule that fired

Questions to ask

• Which entities can rules target, partner, offer, geo, device, placement?
• Can rules stack with clear precedence?
• Do webhooks include signed payloads and retries?
• Is there a dry run mode to test rules before they go live?

Red flags

• Black box automation with no logs
• Only pause or resume actions, no routing or commissioning logic
• No way to test rules against historic data

Quick test

Create a rule that routes traffic by device, then verify in real time with two clicks from different devices and a log entry for the rule.

5) Fraud and compliance

What good looks like

• Privacy respecting device fingerprinting, duplicate click controls, velocity checks, anomaly alerts
• Coupon abuse detection where applicable
• Allow or block lists by partner, referrer, ASN, or geo
• Evidence trails for disputes and a fair appeals process

Questions to ask

• Which signals trigger alerts versus automatic quarantine?
• Can thresholds be tuned by offer or partner tier?
• How are incentivised traffic and brand bidding rules enforced?
• What is stored for audit, such as raw logs or hashed fingerprints?

Red flags

• One size fits all fraud score with no explanation
• No quarantine workflow, only hard blocks
• No coupon intelligence when coupons are central

Quick test

Simulate a velocity spike from a known IP range and verify the alerting path and quarantine behaviour.

6) Pricing and limits

What good looks like

• Transparent pricing with clear event caps, overage fees, and feature tiers
• Separate staging and production environments at sensible cost
• Predictable cost growth tied to tracked events

Questions to ask

• What happens at cap, soft throttle with alerts or hard stop?
• Are webhooks, API calls, and warehouse exports counted against caps?
• Any premium add ons for fraud, automation, or support?
• Can unused volume roll over during seasonality?

Red flags

• Opaque pricing with essentials behind custom quotes
• Hard stops at caps with no grace window
• Charges for accessing archived data

Quick test

Model steady, peak, and growth scenarios. Ask the vendor to map volume to invoice line items for each.

7) Support, SLAs, and success

What good looks like

• SLAs for uptime, webhook latency, and support response times
• Named success contact with regular check ins for 90 days
• Runbooks for failed postbacks, parameter loss, and reporting delays

Questions to ask

• Published SLAs and credits for breaches?
• Support channels, ticket, chat, phone, emergency pager?
• Onboarding packages and migration help?
• How are critical incidents handled out of hours?

Red flags

• Email only support with no response targets
• No post incident summaries or root cause analyses
• Upsells without adoption plans

Quick test

Open a non critical ticket during your trial. Measure response time, clarity, and follow through.

8) Onboarding and migration

What good looks like

• Assisted setup for domains, SSL, postbacks, and event mapping
• Import tools for partners, offers, and historic conversions
• Parallel tracking guidance and comparison reports during cutover
• A clear rollback plan

Questions to ask

• Can we backfill 30 to 90 days of conversions?
• How are postbacks validated before switch over?
• What training is available for partners?
• Can access be restricted by role during rollout?

Red flags

• No import tooling, only manual spreadsheets
• No plan for parallel runs or reconciliation
• Partners left to figure out new link formats alone

Quick test

Import a small partner list and two offers, then run a two day parallel test. Compare deltas and reconcile with the vendor.

9) Security and privacy

What good looks like

• SSO, granular roles, IP allow lists, audit logs, and secrets management
• Regional data residency options and clear retention policies
• Signed webhooks, TLS everywhere, and strict key rotation
• Compliance posture that matches your obligations

Questions to ask

• Do you offer SAML based SSO and SCIM provisioning?
• How long are raw logs retained?
• Where is data stored and can we choose region?
• How are credentials and API keys stored and rotated?

Red flags

• Shared logins or weak role controls
• No retention policy or single global region only
• Unsigned webhooks or plain text secret exchange

Quick test

Enable SSO for your trial, create two roles such as marketing and finance, then confirm access boundaries work as intended.

10) Roadmap and vendor stability

What good looks like

• Shareable roadmap, recent releases, and a healthy cadence of fixes
• Reference customers in your vertical or region
• Transparent communications for incidents and maintenance

Questions to ask

• Last three major releases and why they mattered?
• How often do you ship fixes or improvements?
• How are customer requests collected and prioritised?
• Release process and rollback policy?

Red flags

• No visible movement for months
• Roadmap that shifts with every sales call
• Maintenance windows colliding with retail peaks

Quick test

Ask for release notes from the last six months. Look for quality of changes, not just volume.

Scorecard you can copy

Assign an importance score to each category from 1 to 5. Score each vendor from 1 to 5. Multiply, then total.

Keep the completed scorecard inside your RFP pack so decisions stay objective.

RFP snippet you can paste into emails

We are evaluating affiliate tracking software and will run a two week trial. Please confirm: supported tracking methods (S2S and pixel), reporting latency, export options to our BI, fraud controls and tuning, automation capabilities, API rate limits, support SLAs, migration tooling, and pricing at 100k, 500k, and 1m monthly events. Include a short plan for parallel tracking and a named success contact for onboarding.

Red flags that often surface late

• Hard caps that silently block events during peak periods
• No staging environment which forces risky tests in production
• Adjustments that overwrite rather than append which ruins audit trails
• Reports that cannot split by SubID or placement
• Support queues with no escalation path during critical incidents

Spot them early with the quick tests above.

Pulling it together: a three week evaluation plan

Week 1: fit and foundations
Shortlist two vendors, connect a staging domain, set postbacks, and verify S2S with readable SubIDs. Run smoke tests for accuracy.

Week 2: real traffic
Send 5 to 10 percent of traffic through both trackers in parallel. Exercise rules for routing, simple automation, and fraud alerts. Start daily exports to your BI.

Week 3: numbers and people
Validate reporting latency, reconcile totals, and check support responsiveness with one planned ticket and one unplanned question. Run pricing against real event counts.

Choose the vendor that keeps your team calm while surfacing the numbers you can act on.

FAQs

How many trackers should I trial at once?

Two is plenty. You get a comparison without splitting focus.

Do I need developers to choose affiliate tracking software?

A developer or technically comfortable marketer helps during setup. After that, the best trackers let non technical teams run the day to day.

What reporting latency is acceptable?

Clicks should appear within a minute. Conversions within a few minutes. End of day reconciliation can run on a schedule without blocking daily decisions.

Should I prioritise automation or reporting?

You need both. Start with accuracy and reporting, then layer automation once you trust the numbers.

Where do support SLAs sit in the decision?

High. Incidents happen. Pick a vendor that answers quickly, explains clearly, and fixes root causes.

Summary

Start with accuracy, finish with operations. A good affiliate tracker gives you trustworthy S2S tracking, a clean data model, near real time reporting, and automations that rescue time rather than create work. Fraud controls protect margin. Pricing is transparent. Support SLAs mean help arrives when you need it. Use this checklist, run a calm parallel test, and choose software that lets your team focus on partners and revenue.

If you are also looking for custom developed affiliate tracking system, contact Cusenware.