What an affiliate manager checks before approving you

What the manager is really asking

A review site can now be generated in an afternoon, reviews and all. A manager reading your application is asking one thing: is this a real business with a real audience that will send real customers? Everything below is a way to answer it before they have to ask.

Show where your traffic comes from

• Screenshots from your own analytics, by country and by channel, from the last few months.
• The same business name and contact details on your site, your social pages and your application.
• If a third-party traffic estimate is far from your own numbers, say why before the manager finds it.

Say how you disclose and promote

A commission means the brand pays you. US FTC guidance says to disclose any financial relationship with a brand, placed with the recommendation itself and hard to miss. This is a summary, not legal advice.

• Put the disclosure next to the link or the recommendation, not only in a footer or an about page.
• Say whether you bid on brand names in search, and follow each programme’s rule on it.
• Say where your coupon codes come from, and publish only codes the brand gave you or made public.

Show how you handle fraud

• How you spot incentivised or fake conversions, and what you do when you find them.
• That you accept the programme’s tracking and its validation window.
• That you never buy traffic, followers or reviews to look bigger. In the US, an FTC rule adopted in August 2024 bans buying fake followers or views to look more influential for business, and bans fake reviews.

Answer once, in one link

Managers ask the same questions on every programme you join. Put the answers in one place: your site, how you earn, your markets and your audience range. A Found page is free, and a person at Few Found checks it is real before it goes live. Few Found Verified adds your audience checked from screenshots of your own analytics.

Site and pages: [links]
How I earn: [reviews, comparison, coupons, cashback, newsletter]
Traffic: [monthly range], mostly from [countries], via [channels], from my own analytics on [date]
Disclosure: [where and how it appears next to each link]
Brand bidding: [I do not bid on brand names / I follow each programme’s rule]
Check me: [your Found page link]

Sources

Every rule above was read against these on 6 Nov 2026. Rules change: check the source before you rely on it.

1. US Federal Trade Commission, Disclosures 101 for Social Media Influencers, November 2019.
2. US Federal Trade Commission, Federal Trade Commission Announces Final Rule Banning Fake Reviews and Testimonials, 14 August 2024.