Awin Compliance and Fraud Prevention

Quick Answer Compliance is making sure the partners earning commission did legitimate, incremental work. In Awin that means vetting applicants, writing clear terms on brand bidding and vouchers, watching for fraud signals like cookie stuffing, and using validation to reverse bad sales before you pay.

What it is

Affiliate abuse is usually subtle. Cookie stuffing drops a tracking cookie on people who never clicked a real link, so the partner claims sales they had nothing to do with. Brand bidding intercepts customers already searching for you. Voucher abuse leaks 'exclusive' codes to wider sites. Compliance is the routine of checking that the people you pay actually earned it.

Everyday analogy: it's quality control on a production line. You don't inspect every single item, but you sample regularly, and you pull anything that looks off the line before it ships.

Why it matters

Non-incremental and fraudulent sales cost you twice — the wasted commission, and the budget denied to honest partners who actually grow the business. Cookie stuffing inflates a partner's numbers with sales they didn't drive; brand bidding raises your own paid-search costs while claiming traffic you'd have won for free. Awin gives you the tools — terms, validation, a compliance team — but they only protect you if you use them on a regular rhythm.

How it works

Vet applicants before approving — check the real website, promotional methods, and whether the audience fits your products.
Write explicit programme terms on brand bidding, voucher sourcing and allowed traffic, so breaches are unambiguous.
Watch for fraud signals: conversion rates far above normal, near-instant click-to-sale times, or a flood from a new joiner.
Search your own brand name regularly to catch partners bidding on your trademark in paid search.
Audit where voucher partners source codes, since leaked exclusive codes are a frequent margin leak.
Use validation to decline returned, cancelled or fraudulent transactions before commission is paid.
Escalate suspected systematic fraud to Awin's compliance team and keep a record of what you found.

! Common mistakes to avoid

Auto-approving every applicant, which lets abusive or irrelevant partners in by default.
Never searching your own brand, so paid-search brand bidding runs unnoticed for months.
Reading a sky-high conversion rate as pure good news when it's often the clearest fraud signal.
Letting validations lapse, so bad orders auto-pay before you can decline them.

💡 Reporting tips

Run a monthly outlier check: sort partners by conversion rate and click-to-sale time and scrutinise the extremes. Cookie stuffing often shows as a very high view-to-sale ratio with implausibly fast conversions; brand bidding shows up when you search your own terms. New partners posting big first-month numbers deserve a manual look before validation. Keep period-to-period notes so a partner drifting toward the edges gets flagged early rather than after a big payout.

In practice: a worked example

A partner's numbers look healthy, but something's off: their view-to-sale ratio is enormous and conversions fire seconds after a page view, not a click. That pattern is the fingerprint of cookie stuffing — dropping tracking cookies on people who never clicked a real link, then harvesting credit for sales they didn't drive. You pull a sample, see the impossible timing, decline the suspect transactions within the validation window, and escalate to Awin's compliance team. The honest content partners whose credit was being stolen quietly recover their rightful sales. Catching this needs nothing fancier than a monthly habit of staring at the outliers and asking 'could a real shopper actually behave like this?'

When to lean in — and when to hold back

Investigate when	Probably fine when
Conversion is far above your programme norm	Conversion sits in the normal band for the partner type
Sales fire seconds after the click, repeatedly	Timing looks like genuine shopping behaviour
The partner shows on your brand terms in paid search	Traffic comes from their own content and audience
A new partner posts big numbers immediately	Growth ramps gradually as placements build

Related guides

Frequently asked questions

It's when a partner drops a tracking cookie on users who never clicked a genuine affiliate link, so they get credited for sales they didn't influence. Unusually high view-to-sale ratios are a warning sign.

Yes — Awin has a compliance team and tools, and you can set programme terms and use validation to decline bad sales. But you still need to monitor your own programme regularly.

Audit where voucher partners source their codes, give exclusives only to trusted partners, and watch for your 'exclusive' codes appearing on wider deal sites.