Hello, community! Affiliate traffic isn’t only about the relationships between advertisers, media buyers, partner networks, or anyone else. First and foremost, we provide a service: we drive traffic to a product and expect to get paid. But before that happens, our client—the advertiser—has to agree that the service met their standards. That agreement is the approval (aprove).
Before we dive into what “approval” means in affiliate marketing, we also recommend a couple of related reads on our site. For example, what ROI is and how to think about it. Worth a look!
So, what is approval?
In affiliate marketing, approval is the metric showing how many leads an advertiser or affiliate network has accepted. It’s expressed as a percentage, and the math is simple—no fancy formulas needed. For example:
You brought 100 leads, but only 85 were accepted = approval is 85%.
The higher the approval rate, the bigger your profit. You can pour a bucket of traffic onto a link, but it won’t matter if the advertiser doesn’t approve the leads.
Affiliate programs often display an average approval rate next to each offer. That gives you a rough idea of how often an advertiser declines leads—handy when deciding whether a product is worth your time and budget.
But what affects approval in the first place? Why do leads end up in “trash,” dragging your approval rate down? Let’s unpack that.
What affects approval?
While the calculation is simple, the approval rate depends on a lot of factors—a lot. The key ones include:
- Traffic quality. If you’re sending incentivized traffic, for example, that can violate the offer’s terms. Even if a user completes the target action, you still won’t get paid because the advertiser will reject that lead—it’s not valuable to them. If that was spelled out in the offer, it’s not a shave; it’s on us to comply.
- Weak call-center performance. Very common (especially in nutra): media buyers lose approval because operators don’t do their job—e.g., they poorly explain the product, and the customer later returns it.
- Technical issues. Approval can drop due to a broken landing page, misconfigured tracker (showing more conversions than actually happened), and so on.
Some problems are beyond a media buyer’s control—we’re not omnipotent. But it’s still crucial to control everything we can to avoid losing approval.
How not to lose approval?
There’s one universal tip for newcomers that also helps protect your approval rate: always read the offer terms carefully and never violate them. If you do, don’t expect the partner network to take your side. And also—wear a hat in winter.
Less obvious advice: be meticulous with targeting and overall campaign positioning. Another factor that tanks approval is misleading messaging—even if unintentional.
Mind the GEO, too. If the advertiser can’t ship to a certain country, they’ll reject that lead—and you’ve already paid to acquire it. That’s money lost simply because you didn’t study the offer details closely enough. It happens.
Also remember: a lead that later refuses to complete the purchase (say, a supplement bundle) ends up in trash, and your approval rate falls. That’s logical—but many media buyers ignore these basics and start shouting about shaving by the partner or advertiser. Of course, there are cases of CPA-network fraud, but don’t confuse the two.
Can the partner network affect approval?
Obviously yes—a network can impact your approval rate. You can lose approvals or conversions because of their actions. It’s not always malicious—many cases aren’t “shaves.” Sometimes a CPA network will bin a lead that the advertiser actually paid for. Paradoxical, right?
The solution is simple: work only with partner networks that don’t mess up—and certainly don’t deliberately shave. You’ll find vetted affiliate programs in our dedicated section.
What approval rate should you expect?
In an ideal world—100%. Spoiler: that never happens (except maybe for brand-new offers launched yesterday).
Approval varies not only by offer but also by GEO. You’ll notice the pattern yourself when browsing offer catalogs in networks.
For Tier-1 countries, average approval is around 50%, while in Tier-3 it can drop to 10%. Factor in vertical specifics too, so you’re not shocked when a seemingly promising product shows a tiny approval rate—it may be perfectly normal for that market.
Conclusion
Approval is a critical metric—but we can’t always control it. That can be frustrating, especially when you lose money due to an unprofessional call center. Still, it’s part of the job. Do everything within your control to get as many leads approved as possible. Is it hard? Yes. Is it possible? Also yes.
What approval rate do you consider “normal”? Do you have your own benchmark scale? Share in our Telegram community—the top affiliate marketing community in Ukraine!
Respectfully, your Geek!