Understanding Affiliate Fraud
Affiliate marketing is a powerful way for businesses to expand their reach and drive sales. However, it also comes with risks—most notably, affiliate fraud. Fraudulent activity can drain marketing budgets, distort analytics, and damage trust between advertisers and affiliates. Understanding the types of fraud and how to prevent them is crucial for any affiliate program.
Common Types of Affiliate Fraud
1. Click Fraud
What it is: Click fraud occurs when an affiliate artificially generates clicks on their referral links without genuine customer interest. The goal is often to inflate traffic numbers or commissions.
How to prevent it: Monitoring repeated clicks from the same IP address or device, and comparing attributes between clicks and conversions, can help detect suspicious activity.
2. Conversion Fraud / Fake Conversions
What it is: Conversion fraud happens when an affiliate tries to register fake sales or sign-ups to earn commissions. This can include submitting false customer information or reusing IDs to claim multiple commissions.
How to prevent it: Checking for duplicate conversions using identifiers such as external_id or customer_id ensures that each sale or lead is legitimate.
3. Self-Referral / Cookie Stuffing
What it is: Some affiliates attempt to earn commissions by referring themselves, often exploiting tracking cookies or making purchases through their own links.
How to prevent it: Self-referral detection identifies when an affiliate’s IP matches a conversion, allowing advertisers to approve or reject suspicious commissions.
4. IP / Domain Abuse
What it is: Fraudsters may repeatedly use the same IP addresses, domains, or other identifiable attributes to trigger commissions or game the system.
How to prevent it: Blacklisting known suspicious IPs, domains, or other attributes can stop fraudulent activity before it impacts your program.
5. Duplicate / Multiple Account Fraud
What it is: In some cases, a single individual creates multiple affiliate accounts to claim commissions multiple times from the same conversion or action.
How to prevent it: Attribute comparison techniques prevent the same conversion from being registered more than once, ensuring commissions are only paid for legitimate actions.
Tapfiliate’s fraud prevention methods
Tapfiliate uses a combination of automated checks and monitoring techniques to detect and prevent fraudulent activity from affiliates and their traffic or conversions.
Key methods include:
Attribute Blacklisting: Certain values such as IP addresses, domains, and other key attributes can be blacklisted to prevent suspicious activity. Reach out to our Customer Success team to get this set up.
Attribute Comparison: Tapfiliate compares attributes between clicks and conversions to detect anomalies. Using external_id and customer_id values, Tapfiliate prevents duplicate conversions from being registered.
Self-Referral Detection: If an affiliate uses their own link to make a purchase, and their IP matches the conversion, Tapfiliate flags it. The advertiser can then decide whether to approve or reject the commission.
Important: No system can guarantee 100% fraud prevention. Tapfiliate tracks traffic and conversions only on the website where tracking scripts are installed. Activity outside your website is beyond Tapfiliate’s control.
Advanced Anti-Fraud: Detailed API Click Reporting
For high-volume programs and Enterprise-level security, standard dashboard monitoring may not be enough. This is where our Advanced Anti-Fraud Mechanics via the REST API come into play.
Why go custom with API reporting?
Standard tracking catches "the usual suspects," but sophisticated fraud requires a more granular, data-driven approach. By using our Detailed API Click Reports, you can export raw data into your own BI tools or security stack to identify complex patterns that are unique to your niche.
Availability: This advanced functionality is a core feature of our Enterprise plan, but it is also available for purchase as a standalone add-on for other plans.
Common fraud patterns you can detect with this data:
Unrealistic click velocity
Multiple clicks from the same affiliate in seconds/minutes.
Thousands of clicks per hour/day from a single link.
Device or browser anomalies
Same browser/OS combination for hundreds of clicks.
Very old or uncommon browsers (bots often use outdated Chrome or emulate).
Inconsistent device info (e.g., mobile user agent but desktop referrer).
Suspicious geolocation
Clicks from countries where your target audience is not present.
Sudden spikes from a country with historically low traffic.
Referral spam / fake referrers
Clicks coming from sites that aren’t relevant or look suspicious.
Empty or manipulated referrer strings.
Landing page inconsistencies / cloaking
Affiliate sends traffic to a page other than your intended landing page.
Traffic is redirected through multiple URLs (often bots trying to hide the source).
Affiliate anomalies
Affiliates generating clicks with no conversions.
Affiliates consistently generate “fake” high CTRs with low-quality traffic.
Same affiliate account used by multiple IPs with inconsistent patterns.
Duplicate clicks
Same click IDs or same metadata appearing multiple times.
Can indicate bot loops or click inflation schemes.
How to set up custom fraud monitoring
To start auditing your traffic for deep-level fraud, follow these steps:
Generate an API Key: Ensure you have an active API key from your Tapfiliate settings.
Request Raw Click Data: Use the endpoints below to fetch a list of all clicks within a specific timeframe.
3. Analyze for Patterns: Look for the specific "red flags" listed below, such as unrealistic click velocity or outdated browser versions.
4. Automate Flagging: Most users set up a cron job (automated script) that pulls this report daily and alerts their affiliate manager if an affiliate’s "Click-to-Conversion" time is impossibly fast or if 90% of traffic comes from a single IP.
API Reference: Extracting Click Data
1. List all clicks
Use this method to get a high-level overview of traffic for a specific program or affiliate.
Method: GET
Endpoint: https://api.tapfiliate.com/1.6/clicks/
Parameter | Type | Description |
program_id | Optional | Your unique Program ID (found in Advanced Settings). |
affiliate_id | Optional | Filter by a specific affiliate to audit their traffic. |
date_from | Optional | Start date (YYYY-MM-DD). |
date_to | Optional | End date (YYYY-MM-DD). |
Example Request: https://api.tapfiliate.com/1.6/clicks/?program_id=my-business&date_from=2025-01-01&date_to=2025-01-31
2. Get detailed information for a specific click
Once you identify a suspicious click ID from the list above, use this endpoint to see the full technical fingerprint of that user (IP, User Agent, Referrer).
Method: GET
Response Example:
{
"id": "ded3f4be-aa8e-11f0-8664-a90a6859c602",
"created_at": "2025-10-16T12:51:44+00:00",
"details": {
"landing_page_url": "https://mysupersite.com/signup",
"platform": "iPad",
"os": "iOS",
"os_version": "11.6",
"browser": "Chrome Mobile",
"referrer": "https://suspicious-site.com"
},
"geolocation": {
"country": "United States"
},
"affiliate": {
"id": "craigstanford",
"firstname": "Stanford",
"lastname": "Craig"
}
}
How you can prevent fraud
While Tapfiliate provides robust tracking, fraud can sometimes occur before a user reaches your website. Here are strategies to minimize risk:
Enforce Affiliate Terms and Conditions
Clearly communicate rules and expectations.
Notify affiliates whenever terms are updated, and set a deadline to ensure compliance.
Screen and Vet Affiliates
Collect company, address, and website information to filter potential affiliates.
Use custom onboarding fields to gather additional insights.
Leverage Data for Fraud Detection
Monitor patterns in traffic and conversions to detect suspicious behavior.
Pay attention to referrers that may indicate paid traffic campaigns.
Monitor Traffic Sources
Tapfiliate retrieves click and conversion referrers whenever available.
Referrers like facebook.com or google.com may indicate the affiliate is running paid ads.
Communicate with Affiliates
Maintain open communication to understand their promotional methods.
Regular check-ins foster trust and help identify issues early.
Advanced Measures
Inspect user agent strings for bot traffic.
Configure your tracking code to block bot clicks while still recording valid conversions.
Additional Resources to check in our blog:
FAQ
❓Why are conversion referrers showing google.com or facebook.com?
The referrer represents the last page a user visited before arriving at your site. If it shows Google or Facebook, the affiliate may be using paid ads. Some companies allow this, but often it’s discouraged since it competes with organic traffic. Contact the affiliate to clarify their traffic sources.
❓Why does the referrer not show an affiliate link?
This may be due to link cloaking, which hides the original traffic source. While common in affiliate marketing, it’s important to discuss with the affiliate how they are promoting your business.
❓Why is the referrer missing for some conversions?
Referrer data may be unavailable due to:
Direct URL entry or bookmarks.
External applications (email, messaging apps).
Switching between HTTPS and HTTP URLs.
Security software or proxies stripping referrer data.
Links with a “no referrer” attribute.
Note: A missing referrer does not automatically indicate fraud; it simply means the data was not available, there are common cases when advertiser doesn’t include referrer as a parameter when integrating with Tapfiliate, this is especially common for the REST API integration.
❓What if I experience a branding-bidding violation?
While this isn’t the type of fraud Tapfiliate can monitor directly, we can recommend the following third-party tools: Adment.ai, FraudScore.ai, BluePear.net, AdPolice, Marcode.ai.
Still need help?
If you have any questions or if something in this guide is unclear or If you want to unlock this feature and collect more details about your affiliates, please don't hesitate to contact us at support@tapfiliate.com-we're happy to assist!
Next Steps
🔎 Explore the Affiliate Portal Help Collection: To ensure your partners can navigate their workspace with ease and maximize their performance, we recommend sharing these essential resources:
💎 Professionalize with Enterprise Features: Take your program to the next level by customizing the partner experience and enhancing security with our Enterprise-exclusive tools:
Single Sign-On (SSO): Simplify the login process and boost security by allowing your team or partners to access the platform with their existing corporate credentials.
Customizable Wording Options: Tailor the language across the entire affiliate portal interface to match your brand's unique voice and terminology.
Full White Label: Remove all Tapfiliate branding to provide a completely seamless, high-end experience for your affiliates under your own domain.
MLM Sales Goals: Keep your network motivated by setting specific sales targets and rewards for your multi-level marketing structures.