Affiliate and adtech platforms are difficult to compare accurately.
A commission rate may apply to one program rather than an entire network. A cookie duration may describe a technical mechanism without defining the commercial attribution window. A platform may operate internationally without accepting publishers from every country in which it has a presence. Payment rules may differ by market, currency or legal entity.
A claim should never be broader than the evidence supporting it.
Our methodology is built to preserve those distinctions.
Rather than treating every published statement as equally established, AffiliateAct evaluates what the available evidence supports, where that evidence applies, what kind of source supports it, and whether the resulting statement is a factual finding or an AffiliateAct editorial evaluation.
Four dimensions guide our factual reviews
Every material factual claim can be examined across four separate dimensions.
Evidence Status
Evidence Status describes how far the evidence establishes a claim.
Scope
Evidence can be strong while remaining narrow. AffiliateAct therefore evaluates not only whether a claim is supported, but how far that support extends. A finding may apply at:
The distinction matters because a program-level fact cannot automatically become a platform-wide fact.
Source Type
AffiliateAct identifies the nature of the evidence behind a claim. Our source classifications include:
AffiliateAct follows a primary-source-first and claim-relevance principle. There is no automatic numerical hierarchy in which one source category always receives more points than another. The appropriate source depends on the claim.
Editorial Status
AffiliateAct distinguishes factual findings from its own assessments.
Precision matters
Many inaccuracies in affiliate-platform comparisons do not begin with entirely false information.
They begin when a narrow fact is turned into a broader claim.
AffiliateAct therefore applies several recurring safeguards.
Technical tracking is not commercial attribution
A documented cookie duration can describe how a technical tracking mechanism operates. It does not automatically establish the commercial period during which a publisher receives credit for a conversion. AffiliateAct treats tracking and attribution as separate questions unless the evidence explicitly connects them.
International reach is not publisher eligibility
A platform may operate in many countries, serve international advertisers or describe itself as global. That does not establish that publishers from every one of those countries are eligible to participate. Publisher eligibility requires evidence relevant to publisher access.
Regional evidence is not universal evidence
Payment thresholds, commission structures, currencies, tax requirements and other conditions can vary between jurisdictions. A rule documented for one country or regional program is not automatically presented as a worldwide rule.
Examples do not automatically create a range
Several independently observed commission rates, payment thresholds or attribution periods do not necessarily establish a platform-wide minimum and maximum. AffiliateAct does not construct an authoritative-looking range merely from the lowest and highest values it encounters. The range itself must be supported at the scope at which it is presented.
What "Not Established" means
Not Established is an important part of the methodology.
Public documentation is not always complete. Platforms may leave some conditions to individual advertisers, maintain different regional arrangements, change documentation over time, or make information available only after account creation.
In those circumstances, there is pressure to fill the gap with an assumption.
AffiliateAct does not do that.
If the examined evidence does not establish a proposition, the appropriate finding may simply be: Not established.
That is a statement about the available evidence, not proof that the underlying feature or condition does not exist.
Uncertainty is preferable to false precision.
How we handle conflicting information
An apparent contradiction does not always represent a genuine conflict.
Before classifying evidence as contradictory, AffiliateAct considers whether the difference can be explained by context such as:
- different dates;
- different jurisdictions;
- different programs or products;
- different legal entities;
- historical versus current conditions;
- technical versus commercial rules.
If those distinctions legitimately explain the difference, the relevant contexts are preserved.
If they do not, the contradiction remains visible.
AffiliateAct does not average conflicting values or select one simply because it produces a cleaner review.
Historical information is kept historical
Affiliate platforms change.
Companies are acquired or renamed. Programs migrate. Products close. Payment systems change. Technical implementations evolve.
A statement that was accurately documented in the past is not automatically evidence of current availability.
AffiliateAct therefore distinguishes historical findings from current ones where the distinction materially affects the reader's understanding.
Verification is time-bounded
Where applicable, AffiliateAct records when information was last verified.
A verified finding means that the evidence examined supported the claim at the relevant verification point.
It is not a guarantee that the underlying platform will never change.
Material changes may therefore require a claim to be reviewed again rather than assumed to remain current indefinitely.
Sources and traceability
Material factual claims should remain traceable to the evidence used to support them.
AffiliateAct prioritizes relevant primary sources where available and identifies other source types when they are required.
Where an exact source URL has been preserved, it may be provided to readers.
Where the source is known but an exact destination has not been reliably preserved, AffiliateAct does not manufacture or guess a link merely to make the citation appear complete.
Traceability is more important than cosmetic completeness.
Facts and AffiliateAct scores are separate systems
AffiliateAct reviews may include editorial evaluations or scores.
Those evaluations are separate from the factual audit methodology described on this page.
The number of Verified findings does not mechanically produce a score.
A Not Established field is not automatically assigned zero points.
A Not Applicable field is not automatically treated as a weakness.
Likewise, source classifications are not converted into a hidden numerical formula.
The factual methodology answers:
What does the evidence allow us to say?
AffiliateAct's editorial evaluation answers a different question:
How does AffiliateAct assess the platform based on the relevant characteristics considered in the review?
Keeping these systems separate prevents evidentiary classifications from being presented as a mathematical ranking system when they are not one.
Comparison without false universality
AffiliateAct can compare documented characteristics between platforms.
That does not mean the methodology identifies one universally optimal network, program or tool for every publisher.
Publishers differ by geography, audience, vertical, business model, technical requirements, payment preferences and commercial objectives.
A platform characteristic can therefore be well documented without being universally preferable.
Our objective is to make the underlying distinctions clearer so readers can evaluate their relevance to their own circumstances.
What this methodology does not claim
AffiliateAct's methodology describes what the evidence examined can establish.
It does not claim access to every private agreement, unpublished commercial arrangement, individualized contract or internal platform rule.
It does not assume that an undocumented feature is absent.
It does not assume that every publisher receives identical terms.
It does not turn program-specific conditions into universal ones.
It does not guarantee that a verified fact will remain unchanged indefinitely.
And it does not present AffiliateAct's editorial evaluations as independently certified or mathematically derived facts.
These boundaries are part of the methodology.
AffiliateAct's approach can be reduced to four questions:
The purpose is not to eliminate uncertainty from affiliate and adtech research.
It is to identify uncertainty accurately, preserve scope, and avoid claiming more than the evidence supports.