Your Traffic Is Converting, but Your Earnings Aren't: An Affiliate Revenue Audit

You can see registrations in one report and deposits in another, yet the commission total feels too small. Before concluding that traffic is being lost or a partner is underpaying, establish what each report actually counts.

A useful audit follows the campaign from click to qualification, approval and settlement. It identifies the first mismatch, records a precise question and preserves enough evidence for the responsible team to investigate. It does not begin by assuming every deposit should create commission.

Freeze the reporting context

Record the campaign, placement identifiers, acquisition period, reporting time zone and the date the report was retrieved. Include the attribution window and whether the figures are provisional or final. Two exports generated a week apart can differ because validation progressed between them.

Keep the original files or screenshots alongside your notes. Avoid repeatedly overwriting a spreadsheet with the latest totals. A dated record helps explain whether a number changed, appeared late or was compared with a different population.

Map the event chain

List the events your setup actually supports. A practical sequence might be clicks, registrations, first-time deposits, qualified acquisitions, approved commission and paid commission. Some systems expose fewer stages; document the limitation instead of inventing precision.

A genuine product event can exist without satisfying the agreed payable event. The audit should make that distinction understandable rather than treating it as an unexplained loss.

Reconcile one placement first

Choose one placement and a sufficiently mature window. Follow its identifier through the available reports. Check redirects, destination changes and tracking versions if the first gap appears before registration. Use an agreed test procedure for technical verification and exclude test activity from commercial totals.

If clicks agree but qualified acquisitions differ, ask for the qualification and validation explanation. If approved commission agrees but payment differs, inspect the settlement period, invoice requirements and documented adjustments. These are different problems with different owners.

Do not share player-level personal information in a general support email. Campaign IDs, aggregate counts, dates and the relevant agreement clause are usually the right starting evidence.

Keep pending, approved and paid amounts separate

Imagine a hypothetical report with $2,000 approved commission and $1,500 paid against that same approved balance. The outstanding approved amount is $500. A separate $300 pending estimate should not be added to that approved receivable as though it is already owed.

Likewise, do not subtract an adjustment twice. If the approved commission total already reflects a correction, entering that correction again as an extra cost distorts the result. Write down whether each amount is gross, net or already adjusted.

The campaign report builder keeps approved commission, paid amounts and pending estimates in separate fields. Use one currency and one coherent reporting scope per report.

Send a question that can be answered

A useful discrepancy note contains the placement ID, acquisition dates, export dates, expected treatment and observed difference. Reference the specific rule you are asking about. Attach the minimum evidence needed to reproduce the issue.

For placement [ID], the report retrieved on [date] shows [count] approved acquisitions for [period]. Our comparison uses [rule and time zone]. Could you explain the difference at [stage] and confirm whether validation is complete?

Record the response, owner and next update date. If an explanation resolves the difference, add it to your reporting definitions so the same issue does not become a recurring argument.

Turn the audit into a weekly habit

Review unresolved items, new adjustments and data maturity before making expansion decisions. Use the experiment framework to distinguish measurement issues from performance changes. Do not switch offers in the middle of an unresolved tracking problem and expect the next report to become easier to interpret.

Publishers can discuss their reporting needs through ConversionHunt for publishers. Bring the fields and questions your team needs answered, rather than assuming every integration exposes identical data.