Learn.

A point of view on affiliate visibility, plus the answers to what people ask us most. Written by the team that builds Trackback.

FAQs

Your questions, answered.

General

What is Trackback?

Trackback helps affiliate teams see what's really happening behind their clicks. Most teams can see conversions, but not what is driving them. That's where risk and opportunity sit.

Trackback gives you visibility into:

  • Where traffic comes from
  • Hidden sub-network activity
  • How affiliates promote your brand
  • Social media exposure
  • Partner quality and traffic risks
  • Missed growth opportunities

It helps teams understand partner behaviour, spot risks early and identify where growth is building. Trackback scans affiliate content across the web and social channels, surfacing actionable insights.

How is this different to Google Analytics or affiliate networks?

Analytics and network dashboards show you clicks and conversions. Trackback shows you what sits behind them. The sub-affiliates, undisclosed partners, social activity and promotional tactics those tools don't surface. It works alongside your existing tools, not instead of them.

Who is Trackback built for?

Trackback is built for smaller affiliate teams who need visibility without enterprise complexity. In-house programmes, lean marketing teams and brands that want clarity without specialist resources.

How quickly can I get started?

Trackback is self-serve. You can connect your traffic data or share your partner list, referring domains and social profiles, and begin surfacing insights straight away. Structural insights build over your first 90 days.

How does Trackback work?

Trackback works by listening to incoming traffic to your website. A lightweight piece of code is added to your site. When someone arrives via an affiliate link or referral source, Trackback captures information about where that click came from. This helps you to build a clearer picture of:

  • Partner activity
  • Traffic sources
  • Affiliate visibility
  • Promotional behaviour
  • Social activity
  • Potential risks
  • Growth opportunities

Our goal is to help affiliate teams understand the risks, the quality and the scale of the opportunity.

What data does Trackback collect?

Trackback collects information about the sources behind your traffic. Referring domains, affiliate and social activity, and the signals needed to score each partner on quality, risk and stability. It focuses on understanding partner behaviour rather than identifying individual visitors.

Does Trackback use cookies or pixels?

Trackback uses a lightweight piece of code to understand where affiliate traffic comes from. It is designed to surface partner and traffic-source insight, not to profile individual users.

Does Trackback work in any country?

Trackback collects and scans traffic sources from over 70 countries ensuring that all insights are localised and nuanced appropriately.

What if we do not want to install code on our website?

That's still possible but please contact us prior to signing up to discuss the scope and scanning frequency which may affect the subscription. You can provide:

  • Affiliate partner lists
  • Referring domains
  • Social profiles
  • Known publishers

Trackback can still analyse and surface visibility, risk and opportunity insights from that information. Installing the code simply provides deeper traffic visibility over time.

Can I cancel my subscription?

You can cancel your Trackback subscription at any time. The cancellation will take effect when the current subscription period ends. If you have more than one subscription, each one will need to be cancelled independently.

Actions Dashboard

What is the Actions Dashboard?

The Actions Dashboard pulls the key insights from across Trackback into one place, telling you what to focus on first, so you act on what matters rather than wading through reports.

How does the Actions Dashboard prioritise activity?

Actions are prioritised by the quality, risk and stability signals behind each partner and traffic source, surfacing the most important items (critical alerts, risky domains and growth opportunities) at the top.

What kinds of actions can Trackback identify?

From new traffic sources and sub-networks to risky domains, off-brand promotion and emerging growth opportunities, Trackback turns the signals it detects into clear, actionable next steps.

Programme Health Check

What are the Programme Health Checks?

The Programme Health Check scores each partner across quality, risk and stability indicators by analysing the domains behind your traffic sources, delivered as a clear weekly summary.

How do the Programme Health Checks work?

Trackback scans the domains and activity behind your traffic and scores them against around 40 indicators across six categories. You set which indicators matter most to your programme.

How often do Programme Health Checks run?

A clear Health Check summary lands in your inbox every week, with critical alerts surfaced in real time as they're detected.

Growth & Opportunity Discovery

How does Trackback help identify growth opportunities?

Trackback surfaces the partners, placements and traffic sources where activity is building, so you can see where the next growth opportunity is hiding before competitors do.

Can I customise what growth opportunities Trackback looks for?

Yes. You can tune the indicators and priorities so the opportunities Trackback surfaces reflect what matters most to your programme.

Social & Partner Visibility

Does Trackback monitor social activity?

Yes. Trackback gives you visibility into how affiliates promote your brand across social channels, alongside content sites and partner placements.

Why is social visibility important?

A growing share of affiliate promotion happens on social, where brands often have least visibility. Seeing that activity helps you spot off-brand messaging, unauthorised tactics and the placements genuinely driving interest.

Performance & Reporting

What are Performance Reports?

Performance Reports provide more detailed visibility into affiliate traffic and partner activity. They help teams drill deeper into:

  • Traffic trends
  • Affiliate visibility
  • Partner behaviour
  • Traffic source analysis
  • Performance changes over time

But you don't need to read these unless you want to, as Trackback has pulled all the key insights into the action dashboard so you know where to focus your effort first.

Our POV

From the Trackback team.

Kat Tutton, Marketing Lead · May 2026 · 7 min read

Why ~40% of affiliate traffic in iGaming is moving through sub-networks you can't see.

Network dashboards report partner-level performance. They don't report sub-affiliate behaviour. For most regulated operators in 2026, that's a visibility gap of around 40% of paid traffic. Here's why it's widened, what it looks like inside Trackback, and what affiliate teams are doing about it.

Read the full piece →

Kat Tutton, Marketing Lead · 20 May · 5 min read

What most affiliate teams still can't see

Most affiliate teams can see performance at surface level. What they can't see: where traffic really comes from, what sits behind clicks, how the brand is promoted on social, which partners are introducing risk, and which activity is actually driving growth. That gap is where both risk and opportunity build.

Read more →

Conversation with Ian Sims, Founder · 19 May

Why we built Trackback.io

Performance alone isn't enough anymore. Brands want to understand who is driving value, how the brand is being represented, where they are being exposed, and which partners deserve more investment. Visibility has become commercially important, not just operationally useful.

Read more →

Launch announcement · 28 March

Trackback launches as a self-serve platform

Trackback launches as a self-serve platform giving smaller affiliate teams the visibility larger teams take for granted. Surfacing sub-networks, social activity and partner behaviour behind partner clicks.

Read more →

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