The attribution of affiliate commissions to coupon/cashback publishers for conversions that would have occurred anyway — where the publisher captures the final click of an already-decided purchase rather than influencing the decision. Identified by low publisher NCR (below 30%) and conversions clustering within 24 hours of click (buyer was already in checkout when they searched for a coupon). Mitigated by: private coupon codes, NCR-based commission differentiation, coupon publisher GMV caps (30% of total), and publisher-pause incrementality testing.
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