Question 1

What does an affiliate tracker do?

Accepted Answer

It logs every click and conversion across affiliate and media-buying campaigns, distributes traffic across offers based on configurable rules, and reports performance by sub-ID, placement, geo, device, and offer. It functions as the independent source of truth for campaign profitability across all ad networks and affiliate programmes.

Question 2

What is the difference between cloud-hosted and self-hosted affiliate trackers?

Accepted Answer

Cloud-hosted trackers are managed services billed per event — faster to deploy and scale, with no server ops required. Self-hosted trackers run on your own infrastructure under a flat licence, reducing per-event cost substantially at high volume but requiring server management. The economic break-even is typically 3–5 million events per month.

Question 3

Do I need an affiliate tracker if I already use a network platform?

Accepted Answer

Yes, if you run paid traffic across multiple sources. Network platforms report only their own conversions and cannot consolidate data across ad networks. An independent tracker gives you unified cross-network profitability, traffic-quality visibility, and distribution control that no single network platform provides.

Question 4

How do affiliate trackers handle iOS 14+ tracking restrictions?

Accepted Answer

Mature platforms rely on server-to-server postbacks, server-side click-ID storage, and probabilistic attribution to maintain accuracy without third-party cookies or cross-site tracking. Platforms that still depend heavily on JavaScript pixels lose significant attribution fidelity on iOS traffic.

Question 5

Can affiliate trackers detect click fraud?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Modern trackers include IP reputation scoring, datacenter and VPN detection, behavioural anomaly flags, bot-signature matching, and duplicate-click suppression. These filters prevent paying affiliates for low-quality or fraudulent traffic and are increasingly standard across competitive verticals.

Question 6

How much does an affiliate tracker cost?

Accepted Answer

Cloud plans run roughly £80–£800+ per month depending on monthly event volume. Self-hosted licences range from £150–£800 per month plus server infrastructure costs of £40–£400 per month. Heavy-volume buyers typically find self-hosting substantially cheaper beyond 5 million monthly events.

Affiliate Trackers marketplace

Voluum

BeMob

ClickMagick