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Affiliate links: brand-safe destination rules (deep links without chaos)
Let affiliates deep-link — without sending traffic to weird places
Deep links make affiliates more effective: they can send traffic straight to a comparison page, a pricing section, or a setup guide. The risk is also obvious: if you let partners link to anything, you lose control of where your brand appears and which pages get attributed.
This guide gives you a simple, brand-safe set of destination rules you can publish (and enforce) in a SaaS affiliate program: what to allow, what to block, how to prevent bypasses, and copy/paste policy text.
Table of contents
- What destination rules are
- Default allowlist (what to allow)
- Default blocklist (what to block)
- Bypass attempts (what to normalize)
- Implementation options
- Copy/paste policy text
- FAQ
- Related pages
What destination rules are
Destination rules are your constraints on where an affiliate link is allowed to send visitors. In practice, these rules protect three things: (1) your brand, (2) attribution fairness, and (3) your ability to debug disputes.
- Brand: prevents affiliates from sending traffic to misleading pages or weird query-string versions that look scammy.
- Attribution: keeps affiliates from pointing to login/billing/app pages where tracking often fails or becomes ambiguous.
- Debugging: if the destination set is bounded, you can reproduce and explain issues quickly.
Default allowlist (what to allow)
Start with a small allowlist of marketing pages that represent your product accurately and convert well. If a page is not meant for acquisition, do not allow it as an affiliate destination.
- Homepage, pricing, and feature pages
- Blog posts and comparison pages
- Public docs / help pages (if they support conversion)
- Public templates/calculators (if you have them)
Rule of thumb: if you would not run a paid ad to that page, do not allow affiliates to deep-link to it.
Default blocklist (what to block)
Block destinations that create attribution disputes, security risk, or a bad brand experience. Most SaaS teams should block these by default:
- Login, signup, and onboarding steps (unless you intentionally allow them)
- Billing, checkout, invoice, and payment pages
- App/dashboard pages behind auth
- Admin pages, API routes, and internal tools
- Any URL with open-redirect parameters (where destination can be swapped)
These pages are where tracking breaks first: sessions change, cookies are blocked, and you cannot easily explain why an affiliate got (or didn’t get) credit.
Bypass attempts (what to normalize)
If you support deep links, assume someone will eventually try to bypass your rules. You do not need paranoia — you just need normalization:
- Normalize scheme + host (force https, canonical hostname)
- Remove URL fragments (#section) before validating
- Decode and re-encode paths consistently (avoid double-encoding tricks)
- Strip or ignore non-essential query params; allow only a small set (like utm_*)
- Block nested URLs in query params (e.g., ?next=https://...)
Implementation options
| Approach | What it is | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|---|
| Allowlist only | Affiliate can choose from approved destinations | Simplest + safest | Needs you to maintain the list |
| Prefix-based rules | Allow /blog/* and /pricing, block /app/* | Easy to implement | Edge cases creep in (query params, redirects) |
| Manual review exceptions | Partners request a destination; you approve it | Maximum control | Ops load (but only when needed) |
Copy/paste policy text
Template: Allowed destinations
Allowed destinations: Affiliate links and deep links may point only to our public marketing pages on tinyaffiliate.com. Login, app, billing, and admin pages are not allowed unless explicitly approved in writing.
Template: Destination rule enforcement
Enforcement: We may reject, disable, or modify affiliate links that violate destination rules or create brand, security, or fraud risk. Repeated violations may result in account termination.
FAQ
Should I allow affiliates to link directly to signup?
Usually no. Signup pages are where tracking becomes hardest to explain. If you allow it, do it intentionally and document it as an exception.
What query params should I allow?
Allow a minimal set (often UTM params). The larger the allowed set, the harder it is to prevent bypass and debug disputes.
Related pages
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