A composite metric or assessment framework that evaluates the overall quality and incrementality of an affiliate publisher's contribution to a program. Component metrics for publisher quality scoring: New customer rate (what percentage of conversions are genuinely new buyers?); EPC relative to program average (is this publisher driving above-average revenue per click?); Content quality score (does the publisher's content accurately represent the brand and provide genuine value to readers?); Audience relevance score (does the publisher's audience match the brand's target buyer profile?); Disclosure compliance rate (does the publisher consistently include FTC-compliant affiliate disclosure?); Time-to-conversion distribution (are clicks converting after genuine consideration or immediately upon click, suggesting last-click capture?). Use cases: publisher tier assignment (Quality Score above threshold → Tier 1; below threshold → Tier 2 or standard); commission rate differentiation (high-quality publishers earn elevated rates); publisher removal decisions (publishers below minimum quality threshold are removed from approved publisher base); publisher recruitment targeting (use Quality Score profile to identify what the ideal publisher looks like and use that profile to guide new publisher recruitment). Implementation: Publisher Quality Scores are not natively supported by most affiliate networks; brands implement them through custom tracking, CRM integration, and manual publisher review processes; some brands build simple Quality Score spreadsheets tracking 3-4 key metrics for their top publishers; sophisticated programs build data pipelines that calculate Quality Scores automatically from affiliate network data + CRM data.
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