February 6, 2019
Simple Steps to Conduct an In-House Audit of Your Affiliate Marketing Program
Is Your Affiliate Program Pulling Its Own Weight?
Affiliate marketing can be one of the most cost-effective, performance-driven channels in your digital marketing toolbox. But just like any marketing initiative, it’s not something you can set and forget. Over time, even the most successful programs can become bloated with underperforming partners, misaligned promotional strategies, or outdated goals. That’s why conducting an affiliate marketing audit isn’t just a best practice—it’s a critical part of maintaining a healthy, scalable program.
If you’ve been running your program for a while, you might be asking yourself: Is this affiliate program still aligned with our business objectives? Are we investing in the right partners? Is the return still worth the cost? An affiliate marketing in-house audit gives you the tools and insights you need to answer these questions confidently.
How to Recognize When Your Affiliate Program Needs an Audit
It’s easy to get caught up in day-to-day campaign execution and miss the signals that your affiliate program needs attention. A decline in affiliate-driven revenue is the most obvious red flag—but there are more subtle signs that a program audit is overdue. For example, if your program is overly reliant on a handful of coupon or loyalty partners, lacks clear reporting around return on ad spend (ROAS), or simply hasn’t evolved with your broader marketing strategy, it’s time to dig deeper.
Even if performance looks strong on the surface, an affiliate program audit can reveal inefficiencies or missed opportunities. Perhaps your top-of-funnel content affiliates aren’t getting proper attribution, or you’re missing key players in emerging verticals. An audit can bring those gaps to light—so you can fix them before they become costly.
When Is the Right Time to Perform an Affiliate Marketing Audit?
Knowing how to do an affiliate marketing audit is important, but timing also matters. Many brands choose to conduct an audit at the end of a fiscal quarter or before major seasonal campaigns to ensure the channel is operating at peak efficiency. Others use audits to evaluate performance following a new product launch, company rebrand, or network migration.
That said, you don’t need to wait for a major milestone. Conducting an affiliate marketing in-house audit on a regular cadence—whether quarterly, bi-annually, or annually—can help you catch issues early and identify new opportunities for growth. A proactive approach keeps your affiliate program aligned with business objectives and ensures you’re not leaving revenue on the table.
How to Conduct an Affiliate Marketing Audit
Let’s break down the key steps of performing an affiliate marketing audit and turn them into actionable tactics you can use.
1. Review Key Metrics
Run reports comparing year-over-year and month-over-month data to evaluate:
- Revenue growth or decline
- Active vs inactive affiliates
- Conversion rates by publisher type
- Average order value (AOV) from affiliate traffic
- Share of total digital revenue driven by the channel (benchmark: 10–30%)
Tools like affiliate dashboards, Google Analytics, and PartnerCentric’s analytics suite can streamline this process.
2. Calculate ROI (Don’t Skip This One)
A basic formula: ROAS = Total Affiliate Revenue/Total Program Costs
But to really understand ROI:
- Factor in incremental revenue from newly acquired customers
- Include non-commission costs like tech platforms or in-house labor
- Assess CAC (customer acquisition cost) vs other paid channels
- Measure LTV (lifetime value) of affiliate-sourced customers
3. Analyze Promotional Methods
Who’s driving the results—and how? Break down your affiliate mix by funnel stage:
- Top of Funnel (TOFU): Editorials, media outlets, blogs (build awareness)
- Middle of Funnel (MOFU): Influencers, niche content sites (drive intent)
- Bottom of Funnel (BOFU): Coupon, cashback, loyalty (close conversions)
Ask:
- Are you over-relying on BOFU partners?
- Do you have attribution models in place to reward TOFU contributors?
- Are partners using approved language and accurate brand messaging?
Making sure you have a strategy that matches your goals, as each of the above types of publishers requires a different engagement strategy, is of the utmost importance. Most advertisers today want a healthy mix of publishers and the industry has pushed toward having a better mix of content sites vs the traditional reliance on deal and loyalty sites. PartnerCentric has led the way in this category driving a seismic shift in this metric, providing clients a 40% shift toward content sites in their overall publisher sales referral mix.
4. Housekeeping and Compliance
This is your risk management zone:
- Returns/Reversals: Are you reconciling refunded sales?
- Fraud Detection: Look for suspicious traffic patterns, unusually high click-to-conversion ratios, or repeat transactions from the same IP.
- Policy Violations: Monitor for unauthorized trademark bidding, toolbar usage, or ad hijacking.
- Inactive Affiliates: Remove dead weight to improve reporting accuracy.
Use automated monitoring tools (like BrandVerity) and manual spot checks for best results.
5. Build a Recruitment and Optimization Roadmap
Your affiliate program should be growing—not just in revenue, but in strategic relationships.
Ask:
- Do you have a wish-list of content or niche partners to recruit?
- Are there gaps in verticals, product focus, or audience reach?
- Does your team have the bandwidth and tools to onboard new partners?
- Building a solid pipeline now means faster scale when it counts.
6. Evaluate Program Goals
Do you have internal goals for your affiliate program and how does the growth and other key metrics stack up against those goals? Tie your affiliate program back to company-level objectives:
- Are you trying to grow top-line revenue, improve CAC, enter new markets?
- Do your partner incentives support these goals?
- Are you tracking KPIs regularly—and adjusting tactics based on them?
Affiliate should be a lever, not just a line item.
Not Happy with What You Found?
For most advertisers, an affiliate program will never be a “set it and forget it” project. It requires care and nurturing, along with regular compliance to make sure sales are incrementally growing.
If your audit reveals gaps in strategy, partner mix, or ROI, here are your options:
- Assign Internal Resources: Upskill current employees with affiliate knowledge.
- Hire In-House Talent: Seek experienced affiliate managers for dedicated focus.
- Engage an Agency: Bring in experts who’ve seen and scaled it all before. This is often the fastest path to profitable growth.
Need Support? Let’s Talk.
Even the best programs need tuning. If you’re not sure where to start—or how to act on your audit insights—reach out to PartnerCentric. Our team can help you move from “meh” to meaningful growth.
Still have questions? For more info reach out to PartnerCentric.