An affiliate publisher touchpoint that appeared in a consumer's purchase journey but was not the final click before conversion — and therefore receives no commission in last-click attribution models, despite having contributed to the conversion. Assist conversions represent the under-credited contribution of publishers who appear earlier in the purchase funnel: a consumer who reads a review on publisher A's site, clicks the affiliate link but doesn't purchase, then returns weeks later via publisher B's link and purchases — publisher A has an assist conversion that is entirely uncredited in last-click attribution. Why assist conversions matter for program management: publishers with high assist conversion volume are contributing to your program's GMV without receiving proportional compensation; ignoring assist conversions systematically under-values early-funnel publishers; top content publishers often have high assist conversion rates that are invisible in standard last-click reporting; if these publishers leave your program due to perceived low commission earnings, your program may see real GMV decline as their introduction-phase traffic disappears. Identifying assist publishers: run analysis of your affiliate tracking data (or use network analytics tools) to identify publishers who appear frequently in conversion paths that another publisher's last click closed; publishers appearing in the first or middle positions of multi-touch paths are your assist publishers. What to do with assist data: some programs use assist data to provide bonus payments to top assist publishers; others use it to inform publisher development decisions (investing in assist publishers who introduce high-quality customers); others use it as justification for commission rate increases for content publishers who generate significant assist volume. Impact platform users can access assist data through Impact's multi-touch reporting tools.
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