Scrub-Rate Monitoring: The Metric Brokers Hide

Scrub-Rate Monitoring: The Metric Brokers Hide

What it is: Tracking what percentage of your delivered FTDs the broker rejects ('scrubs') as low-quality, and the tooling to watch it over time.

Best for: CPA affiliates whose payable conversions mysteriously trail their tracked ones.

Pros (active scrub monitoring):
— Catches a creeping scrub rate before it quietly halves your effective payout
— Per-source scrub breakdown shows which traffic the broker actually values
— Gives you data to renegotiate or cut a source

Cons:
— Requires the broker to expose rejection reasons, and many give a single opaque number
— Scrub timing lags FTD by weeks, so trend reading needs patience
— Some 'scrubs' are legitimate fraud you should own, not contest

The nuance: a 10-15% scrub rate is normal in forex CPA. The signal isn't the level, it's the trend and the spread across sources. If one source scrubs at 8% and another at 35%, the second isn't 'bad traffic' until you confirm the broker isn't just throttling you near a cap. Plot scrub rate per source per week — flat is fine, rising near month-end smells like cap-shaving.

Who should skip this: RevShare-only affiliates — there's no scrub gate; quality shows up in trading volume instead.

Verdict: Watch the trend, not level.