Budget caps: agree when affiliate traffic stops
Define daily caps, reporting-delay buffers, stop ownership and restart rules before launching affiliate traffic.
A budget cap helps only when both sides understand what it limits. “No more than 500” could mean money, clicks or approved events. Before launch, record the unit, currency, period and time zone. This is a working agreement template, not a description of an automatic AffiliateCore feature.
1. Separate three limits
Advertisers set maximum spend and accepted event volume. Publishers set their own media-buying cap. These are not equivalent: advertising costs, partner rewards and platform commission may be accounted for differently. Specify whether commission is inside the agreed cap and which report governs reconciliation.
Define a pace limit separately, such as an agreed maximum number of visits per hour. Even a small daily budget can disappear before quality confirmations arrive.
2. Allow for delayed spend
Illustrative example: an advertiser caps daily costs at $500, including all agreed charges. Charges accrue at $20 per hour, with up to two hours between the event, its appearance in reports and the effective traffic stop. A rough estimate of delayed costs is $20 × 2 = $40. A stop signal at $460 leaves that buffer.
This does not guarantee the cap: the pace or delay can increase. Use observed peak values to set a buffer and revisit it after launch. Where accrual is unpredictable, reduce the pace and agree how overspend will be handled beforehand.
3. Assign the action and owner
Record who sees the alert, who disables the placement and who confirms the stop. The contact must be available during buying hours. If reporting fails, no new visible events does not mean no spending: agree on a pause and manual reconciliation.
Do not replace a stop with an unapproved redirect to another offer. Preserve the instruction time, actual pause time and last known event IDs. Reconcile delayed events under the agreed terms instead of rejecting them merely because they appeared late.
4. Define restart conditions
Check available budget, the trigger cause, pending events and reporting health. Both parties confirm the new limit. Resume at a lower pace and schedule the next review.
A minimum launch card contains the offer, source, cap and currency, time zone, included charges, warning threshold, delay, owner and restart rule. Readiness means each side can explain when traffic stops and how in-flight events will be handled.