Mistake: no tripwire for fake clicks

Mistake: no tripwire for fake clicks

Failure mode: a creator's link shows 4,000 clicks and 4 sales. You don't catch it, you keep paying flat, and you've funded a bot farm. By the time you notice, three creators are doing it.

Fix: a standing quality tripwire that runs on every payout.

Monitor three ratios per creator, per cycle:
— Click-to-sale rate (CVR) vs roster median
— Bounce rate on landing (from analytics)
— Reversal rate on tracked sales

Decision rule:
— CVR under 1/5 of median AND bounce over 85%: freeze payout, manual review
— Reversal rate over 20%: audit traffic source
— Clicks spike with flat sales: assume non-human, pause

Checklist (runs before every payout, no exceptions):
— Three ratios pulled for each creator
— Anything outside threshold flagged before money moves
— Flagged creator's source traffic reviewed manually

Definition of done: no payout clears until its quality ratios are inside threshold or manually cleared.

Flat-fee deals hide fraud because the payout doesn't depend on quality. The tripwire is your only defense, so automate it.