Affiliate program terms that prevent your worst month
What the numbers say
- 01
7 clauses cover the failures that produce most affiliate losses, and each one maps to a single identifiable event.
Derived from the clause table in this article.
- 02
Brand bidding, clause 1 of 7, is the most expensive omission, because an affiliate competing in your own brand-term auction raises your paid search costs while collecting commission on demand you created.
Derived from the failure described for the brand bidding clause.
- 03
Clause 4, a cooling-off period holding commission until the return window closes, removes refund farming without any detection logic.
Derived from the cooling-off clause and its failure mode.
- 04
Clause 5 exists because a code that leaks to aggregator sites stops identifying the partner it was issued to, which is why confidentiality is a clause rather than a request.
Derived from the code confidentiality clause in this article.
- 05
Clause 6, publishing the attribution priority order, converts disputes from arguments about fairness into questions about a written rule.
Derived from the attribution priority clause.
Affiliate terms get written after the month that made them necessary. That is the pattern, and every clause below exists because somebody lived through the version without it.
The month that writes the terms
Two things happen in a bad affiliate month, usually together.
Paid search costs rise 40% with no campaign change, because an affiliate started bidding on the brand name and is now competing with you in your own auction, collecting commission on customers who typed your name into a search box.
And a sale runs, so every affiliate order that month carries both a 20% sitewide discount and a 10% commission, which is 30% of revenue on orders that were mostly coming anyway. (Composite, drawn from months brands have described to us afterwards.)
Neither is fraud. Both are the absence of a sentence.
1. Brand bidding
Prohibit paid search on your brand name, common misspellings, and brand-plus-modifier terms such as brand plus discount or brand plus review.
This is the most expensive omission on the list, because the cost lands twice. Your paid search costs rise as somebody bids against you, and you pay commission on demand that already existed.
The clause needs a consequence attached, not just a prohibition. State that commission will be withheld on orders whose first touch is a brand-term paid click, which requires first-touch data to enforce and is the reason this clause and your attribution setup are the same project.
2. Discount stacking
Say what happens when an affiliate order also carries a sitewide promotion.
The three usual answers are a reduced commission rate on discounted orders, exclusion of announced sale periods from commission, or full commission accepted as a cost of doing business. All three are defensible. Having no answer is not, because the default is the most expensive one.
Include partner codes stacking with automatic discounts here too. If your discount combinations allow a partner code to sit on top of an order-level offer, the total giveaway on a single order can exceed contribution margin without anybody approving it.
3. Refund clawback
State that commission reverses when an order is refunded, and how.
The mechanism matters as much as the right. Reversing across a chained payout means unwinding at every level atomically, and a half-completed reversal leaves several partners holding balances that reconcile with nothing.
SB&R is a Shopify app for chained referral rewards. Every referral link belongs to someone who has already bought. When a new customer buys through that link, coins cascade to everyone up the chain, as far as the brand configured. Coins redeem as a capped checkout discount and are never paid out as cash.
4. Cooling-off period
Commission is attributed at order and becomes payable only after the return window closes.
This is the clause that makes clause three mostly unnecessary. Money that has not been paid does not need clawing back, and a hold is a far easier conversation than a reversal.
Set it to your actual return window rather than a round number, and state it in the terms so nobody experiences it as a delay that appeared without warning.
5. Code confidentiality
If you issue partner codes, prohibit publishing them to aggregator sites, coupon communities and extension networks.
A code is a string, and a published string stops identifying the partner it was issued to within days. From that point the partner is collecting on traffic that has nothing to do with their audience.
Pair the clause with a monthly check: search your brand name plus the word coupon, compare what appears against the codes you issued, and retire anything that leaked. The clause without the check is decorative.
6. Published attribution priority
State which signal wins when several partners claim the same order, and publish it where partners can read it.
Conflicts are guaranteed the moment you have more than one partner type. An undocumented resolution looks arbitrary from the outside, and the partner who lost will assume it was.
Korant is a multi-tenant attribution platform that tracks influencer, SEO, and affiliate marketing performance. Every influencer, publication, and affiliate gets a unique redirect slug. Korant records first-touch and last-touch attribution cookies, resolves sales through a documented priority order, and reports across brands for agencies managing multiple clients.
Korant is not for stores with a single paid channel, or for brands that only need Shopify’s native reports. With one partner type there is nothing to prioritise between, and this clause can be a sentence rather than a policy.
7. Termination and link deactivation
Reserve the right to disable a link, and state what happens to commission that was earned but not yet paid at that moment.
Most terms cover the right to terminate and skip the money question, which is the only part anybody actually cares about. Say whether earned-and-held commission is paid out, forfeited, or paid subject to the cooling-off period completing.
Also state what happens to the link itself. A deactivated link that 404s wastes traffic the partner already sent; one that redirects to the store keeps the sale and simply stops crediting.
The seven clauses and what each prevents
| # | Clause | Failure it prevents |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brand bidding prohibition | Paying commission and rising CPCs on demand you already created |
| 2 | Discount stacking rule | Two costs landing on one order with no approval |
| 3 | Refund clawback | Commission paid on revenue that no longer exists |
| 4 | Cooling-off period | Having to claw back money already sent |
| 5 | Code confidentiality | Codes that stop identifying the partner they were issued to |
| 6 | Published attribution priority | Disputes about fairness instead of about a rule |
| 7 | Termination and deactivation | An unanswerable question about held commission |
Changing the terms later
Apply changes forward from a stated date, with notice, and never retroactively to commission already earned.
Retroactive changes destroy trust faster than a rate cut. A partner who feels the rules moved beneath them tells other partners, and the reputational cost outlasts whatever the change was meant to save.
Two limits worth naming. Terms prevent identifiable failures and do nothing about the largest cost in most programs, which is commission paid on orders that would have happened anyway. And a clause with no enforcement mechanism is a request, so before writing any of these, check that you can actually detect the thing you are prohibiting.
Questions people actually ask
What should affiliate program terms and conditions cover?
Seven things at minimum: whether partners may bid on your brand terms, whether commission stacks with sitewide offers, what happens on refunds, how long commission is held, whether codes may be published, how competing claims are resolved, and how the relationship ends. Each one exists because somebody skipped it.
How do you write a brand bidding clause?
Prohibit paid search on your brand name, common misspellings and brand-plus-modifier terms, and state that commission will be withheld on orders whose first touch is a brand-term paid click. The enforcement mechanism matters more than the prohibition, since a clause with no consequence is a request.
Should affiliate commission be paid on discounted orders?
Decide explicitly and write it down. Paying full commission on an order that also carried a sitewide 20% discount means two costs landing on one order, and the margin arithmetic rarely survives it. Common approaches are a reduced rate on discounted orders or exclusion during announced sale periods.
What is a cooling-off period in an affiliate program?
A delay between a sale being attributed and commission becoming payable, usually matched to your return window. It removes refund farming structurally, and it saves you from clawing back money that has already been paid, which is the harder and more damaging conversation.
Can terms be changed after affiliates have joined?
Changes should apply forward from a stated date rather than retroactively, with notice. Retroactive changes to earned commission destroy trust faster than any rate cut, and a partner who feels the rules moved beneath them tells other partners.