impact.com’s Attribution Risk algorithm scores actions for signals associated with suspicious behavior and assigns partners or SharedIds a Risk Level percentage based on what percentage of their scored actions have been flagged as suspicious.
What do the Risk Levels mean?
This feature is only accessible to specific impact.com editions or add-ons. Contact us to upgrade your account and get access!Risk % is calculated as the number of actions flagged for Attribution Risk divided by the number of scored actions. Some actions may be excluded from scoring.
For example, we consider only the first action in a chain (e.g. first subscription) and not any subsequent actions. over some time. This percentage is aggregated to the Partner or SharedId. The percentage score is bucketed into a Risk Level, which can quickly indicate the quality of the traffic coming from that Partner or SharedId. According to these Risk Levels, you’ll know for which Partners or SharedIds you need to act on first.
Risk % | Risk Level | Description |
30%+ | Critical | A very high amount of traffic from this Partner or SharedId is suspicious. Focus your attention here first. |
20-30% | High | Many streams of traffic from this Partner or SharedId are suspicious. Focus your attention here next. |
5-20% | Elevated | Some streams of traffic from this Partner or SharedId are suspicious. Lastly, focus your attention here. |
0-5% | Low | Traffic from this partner is largely non-suspect. A small % can often be accounted for by false positives. Optimize towards this Partner. |
Ultimately, it's up to you to decide what action to take against partners with an elevated or higher level of Attribution Risk. impact.com recommends the following approach when you encounter elevated or higher levels of risk.
Start in the Attribution Risk Summary report with critical risk partners.
Aggregate to the
SharedIdlevel.If the partner is not passing a
SharedId, confirm whether they are promoting from multiple sources or properties. If so, ask them to identify those sources or properties as values in theSharedIdfield in tracking links.Make sure you are considering a reasonable sample size of actions.
Consider the following:
How long have you been working with this partner?
What is the Reason Code that contributed to the elevated risk level?
Is there anything about this Partner that might explain abnormal patterns?
What promotional methods do they use?
What is their business model?
What are the sources of website traffic?
Could this explain why their user behavior differs from other partners with lower risk scores for this reason code?
Reach out to the partner.
Share a snapshot of their aggregate risk score and the reason codes that have been flagged.
IMPORTANT: Never share event-level reason code information with Partners—this can lead to algorithms being reverse-engineered. i.e. in the event a partner is acting with ill intent.
Ask them if they can provide any explanation for this behavior (especially if there is a sudden change in risk scores).
Inform them of your intended action.
Take action.
Depending on your investigation’s outcome, consider one of the following strategies:
Have partners pause traffic from specific
SharedIds.Reduce commission for this partner and
SharedIdin template terms.Reverse all actions from this Partner or
SharedIdif the risk level is “High”.If risk levels are Critical (>30%) with no signs of improvement or explanation, consider whether this Partner is the right fit for your program.
Repeat the process for High, and then Elevated risk level partners.
To ensure any reversals aren't contested, consider putting the following verbiage into your custom terms.
Learn how to add custom terms to your contracts.
[ENTER YOUR BRAND’S NAME] uses impact.com’s Attribution Risk and Invalid Traffic detection. Any action (conversion, sale, lead, install) that receives invalid-traffic or attribution risk scoring pursuant to the impact.com technology will be deemed a non-payable event resulting in reversal of the pending action(s), a make-good requirement (if already paid out), and/or is grounds for termination of the partner relationship (in [BRAND NAME]'s sole discretion).
Here is a sample email template you can use to if you intend to reverse actions flagged as suspicious.
Dear Partner, impact.com has flagged x% of the conversions for a sharedid | your account as being associated with suspicious activity (aggregate screenshot attached). Please investigate the source and provide explanation for this behavior/pause this activity/take action to prevent this behavior. If no action is taken moving forward, we intend to reverse payment for these actions per the terms of our agreement. Thank you, The Brand