Prevent Affiliate Transfer
The Prevent Affiliate Transfer feature protects your original affiliate's attribution from being overwritten if a user clicks a different affiliate's link after already being attributed.
This ensures the first affiliate who acquired a user always receives credit for that user's purchases, preventing "affiliate stealing" scenarios.
Overview
Without this protection, if User A clicks Affiliate 1's link and later clicks Affiliate 2's link before purchasing, Affiliate 2 would receive the commission — even though Affiliate 1 did the original work of acquiring that user.
With Prevent Affiliate Transfer enabled:
- The first affiliate to be attributed to a user is protected
- Subsequent affiliate link clicks are silently ignored
- The original affiliate continues to receive commission on purchases and renewals
Use Cases
| Scenario | Without Protection | With Protection |
|---|---|---|
| User clicks Affiliate A's link, then Affiliate B's link | Affiliate B gets credit | Affiliate A keeps credit |
| User enters Short Code A, then Short Code B | Short Code B overwrites | Short Code A protected |
| Competitor tries to "steal" attribution | Attribution transferred | Original affiliate protected |
Platform Configuration
This setting can be configured in the initialize() function of each SDK.
Default behavior: Disabled — new affiliate links can overwrite existing attribution
| Platform | Documentation |
|---|---|
| React Native | View SDK documentation → |
| iOS (Swift) | View SDK documentation → |
| Android | View SDK documentation → |
| Flutter | View SDK documentation → |
| Unity | View SDK documentation → |
How It Works
- User clicks Affiliate A's link — Attribution stored locally on device
- SDK initialization —
preventAffiliateTransfer: trueis set - User clicks Affiliate B's link — SDK detects existing attribution
- Transfer blocked — Affiliate B's link is silently ignored
- User purchases — Affiliate A receives commission
The blocking happens at the SDK level, so no network requests are made for blocked attribution attempts.
FAQ
Does this affect the Attribution Timeout?
No. The Attribution Timeout Window and Prevent Affiliate Transfer are independent features:
- Attribution Timeout controls how long an affiliate link remains valid for a first purchase
- Prevent Affiliate Transfer controls whether a new affiliate can overwrite an existing attribution
Both can be used together. For example, you might set a 7-day attribution timeout AND enable prevent transfer — meaning the first affiliate has 7 days to convert the user, and no other affiliate can steal that attribution during (or after) that window.
What if I want affiliates to be able to take over attribution?
Leave preventAffiliateTransfer disabled (the default). This allows newer affiliate links to overwrite older ones, which can be useful if you want to reward the affiliate who most recently engaged the user.
Does this work with Short Codes?
Yes. Both deep links and manually-entered short codes respect this setting. If a user already has an affiliate attributed and enters a different short code, the new code will be ignored when protection is enabled.