Pay partners per install, not per fake one.
One link per partner and placement. Every install is credited to the partner that drove it, and suspected fake installs are flagged before the invoice, with the reason each one was flagged.
- Who runs it
- Paid ads, marketers
- Time to set up
- Minutes, after the SDK
- Plan
- Free, Scale for deeper fraud checks
A link per partner, per placement.
Give each partner their own link, one per placement if they run several. The partner ID goes in the link's data, and the source tag carries the placement, so you can see which of their channels does the work.
- Partners paste one link; nothing for them to install.
- Add a placement whenever a partner adds a channel.
The user lands where the partner promised.
If the partner's page promised a free month, the app opens on the free month. A partner whose users land on what was promised sends better users next time.
- Works on iPhone and Android, after a fresh install.
Installs per partner, with the flags beside them.
Track each partner's flagged share over time. A partner whose flagged share climbs from two percent to twenty has changed something. Installs seconds after the click are flagged on every plan; Scale adds click flooding, device repeats and IP bursts.
- Installs and flags per partner and placement.
- With the audit log on Growth, the evidence behind each match.
Pay on what you can defend.
The event you pay on decides what partners optimise for. Here's what each option gets you.
Easy to inflate
Clicks cost nothing to generate. You'll pay for traffic, not users.
Common, needs the flags
The usual model, and the one fraud targets. Check the flags before every invoice, and deduct with the reason in hand.
Pay for the user
Pay on an event your app sends, like a sign-up or a first purchase. Harder to fake, and partners send people who actually use the app.
One-time setup, then it's all yours.
Your developer adds the LinkTrail SDK once. Your app sends the sign-up or purchase as an event, and LinkTrail credits it to the partner's link.
LinkTrail.onLink(link => {
// link.customData = { partner: "aff-2291", placement: "top-10-list" }
router.navigate(link.path, link.customData);
});
// when they sign up
LinkTrail.trackEvent("signup");The full walkthrough: Affiliate payouts: paying partners per install without paying for manufactured ones
An affiliate programme is a payout formula, and a payout formula is something people optimise against. The honest partners send real traffic. The others fire a click at every impression they can buy, hoping to claim organic installs that would have happened anyway, or run installs through device farms until the bonus tier clears. Raw install counts can't tell the two apart.
What problem does this solve?
You need per-partner attribution that is specific enough to pay on and specific enough to dispute. 'We deducted 300 installs' starts an argument; 'these 300 installs had a click-to-install time under ten seconds and came from eleven devices' ends one.
How do you set the links up?
One link per partner, one per partner-placement if they run several. The partner identifier lives in the payload, and the source tag carries the placement so you can see which of a partner's channels is doing the work.
{
"deepLinkPath": "/",
"customData": {"partner": "aff-2291", "placement": "comparison-site", "sub": "top-10-list"}
}How does click flooding show up?
Click flooding is the affiliate fraud that looks most like success. The partner fires clicks at scale; some fraction of those users install organically later; the flood claims them. The signature is in the timing — installs landing at the far end of the attribution window, long after the click, in numbers that real intent doesn't produce.
- Click flooding and click injection are opposite ends of the same axis: the install lands too late, or too soon, to be a person.
- Device repeat and IP velocity catch the farm variant: the same device or address producing installs at a rate no audience does.
- Each flagged install records which rule fired, so a deduction comes with a reason a partner can check.
What do you actually pay on?
Pay on the post-install event, and settle from the webhook rather than the partner's report. The install event carries the match type and any fraud flags; the activation event says whether the user did the thing you actually value. Settling on a nightly webhook feed into your own ledger means the payout is computed from data you hold, not from a number the partner emailed.
Which metric should you watch?
Flagged share by partner, tracked over time. A partner whose flagged share climbs from two percent to twenty in a month has changed something, and you want to know before the invoice, not after.
Which teams own an affiliate payout programme?
- Performance & paid
- Growth marketers
Which LinkTrail features does an affiliate payout programme need?
- Deferred deep linking
- Per-link source and placement tagging
- Fraud scoring — device repeat, IP velocity and click flooding (Scale)
- Match audit log (deterministic vs probabilistic)
- Webhooks on install and event
Affiliate payout questions.
How does click flooding show up in affiliate traffic?
As installs landing at the far end of the attribution window, long after the click, in numbers real intent doesn't produce. The partner fires clicks at scale and claims users who would have installed organically anyway.
How do you justify a deduction to an affiliate?
With specifics. Each flagged install records which rule fired — click injection, click flooding, device repeat or IP velocity — so a deduction comes with a reason the partner can check, not just a number.
What should affiliate payouts be based on?
The post-install event, settled from the webhook feed into your own ledger rather than from the partner's report. The install event carries the match type and any fraud flags; the activation event says whether the user did what you value.
If you're doing this, you'll probably want these.
Creator campaigns
One link per creator. Their followers land on the offer they talked about, even after installing, and you see new users per creator.
One cost per install
Meta says 900, TikTok says 1,100, your dashboard says 1,400. One cost per install for each campaign, from your imported spend and the installs LinkTrail counted.
Test the whole journey first
Click, install, open, right screen. Run it on a test device before a penny goes on ads.
Make your first partner link.
Free for your first 5,000 users. No card, no sales call.