Affiliate program audit scope
Use this local checklist to review your plan. Checking an item does not change your Shopify store or Afivio account.
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Set the scope and find the activation bottleneck
Choose the time period, campaign group, and question your audit should answer. A new program may need to understand why joined partners never publish; a mature program may need to reconcile commission costs after changing discounts. Define date conventions before comparing reports. Orders created in one month and approved in another can otherwise appear to contradict each other.
Build a simple partner funnel: invited, joined, ready to promote, published, and generated qualifying orders. Look at individual examples within the largest drop-off. If partners have no working destination or product information, more recruitment may make the same bottleneck larger. Use the audit to locate a specific obstacle that your team can remove and the partner can confirm has improved.
Sample the customer journey and reconcile economics
Open a selection of active links and codes, including older partners and high-activity partners. Check mobile destinations, product availability, promotion conditions, and outdated assets. Review a small set of order references from the same sample. Confirm the partner assignment and expected commission, including at least one return or discount case if those are material to your business.
Calculate contribution after product cost, discounts, fulfillment contribution, payment costs, commissions, and other variable program expenses. Then account for fixed software, content, and support costs separately. Keep estimated costs labeled as assumptions. Revenue growth can coexist with weaker contribution, and attributed sales can include customers who would have purchased anyway. The audit should make those limits visible rather than hide them behind a single revenue total.
Close the loop with payments and an action record
Compare approved commissions with confirmed payments and any outstanding balances. Investigate old pending items, duplicate batch references, and failed recipient payments. Check whether partners have received clear explanations for exceptions. Keep access to sensitive payment information limited to people who need it. The objective is a traceable answer to what is owed, what was paid, and what still requires action.
Rank findings by business effect and effort, then choose a small number for the next cycle. Record the evidence, proposed fix, owner, and verification step. For example, replacing an expired landing page is complete only when the updated link opens the intended offer and the relevant tracking path has been checked. Keep lower-priority observations in a backlog instead of letting them obscure immediate blockers.
Worked example · illustrative scenario
Example: an audit that changes the next task
A fictional home-fitness store finds healthy invitation acceptance but few first placements. Three partner conversations reveal that the welcome pack links to an unavailable bundle. The owner updates the product recommendation, retests the destination, and checks in with affected partners before increasing the recruitment list.
Frequently asked questions
How often should I audit the program?
Choose a cadence that matches activity and your ability to act on findings. Also run targeted reviews after major changes to discounts, tracking, campaign rules, or payment workflows.
Do I need to inspect every order?
Start with a purposeful sample and reconcile totals. Expand the review when errors, inconsistent rules, or unexplained differences suggest a wider issue.
What should an audit deliver?
Produce a short action record with evidence, owners, and verification dates. The value comes from resolving measurable problems, not merely collecting reports.
Put your Shopify affiliate plan into practice
Use Afivio to organize your affiliate campaigns, partners and commission records. Review the integration guide and current app listing before choosing your setup.