Become an affiliateStart your program

Technology and tracking

Event log

Also called event logging, tracking log, audit log, activity log.

Short answer

An event log is a chronological record of every event in a tracking system – clicks, conversion attempts, rejections and duplicates – each with a timestamp and context. In affiliate marketing, the event log is the evidence used to settle disputes about missing or duplicated sales.

Definition of Event log.

The difference between an event log and a report is the level of detail: the report aggregates, while the log keeps every single event with its time, type and associated IDs – click ID, program and order ID. When a number in the report looks wrong, the log is where the explanation is found.

The value shows up when there is disagreement. The question ‘why was my sale not recorded?’ can only be answered if the system also logs the events that were filtered out: clicks filtered as bots, conversions without a valid click ID and orders that had already been credited once. A system that only stores successes cannot explain an absence.

A related discipline is audit logging: recording privileged actions such as rate changes, approvals, rejections and blocks, stating who did it and when. Where the tracking log protects against doubt about data, the audit log protects against doubt about decisions – both belong in infrastructure that handles other people’s money.

How it goes wrong

  • 01

    Only successes are logged

    The interesting events are the ones that were rejected or filtered out. Without them, troubleshooting becomes guesswork, and every complaint ends up as one claim against another.

  • 02

    Mistaking a dashboard for a log

    A dashboard shows totals and selected rows; it cannot prove what happened in a single second for a single click. The requirement is access to events, not just to totals.

  • 03

    Events without context

    A log line without a click ID and an order ID cannot be linked to anything and answers no questions. Context is what makes the log usable as documentation.

At Affilyflow

Event log in practice

At Affilyflow, every tracking event is logged – including those that did not become a sale, such as conversions without a valid click ID or duplicates of an order already credited. All privileged actions are also audit-logged, so it can be verified who did what and when.

Frequently asked questions

Can you see why an affiliate sale was not recorded?

Only if the system logs the filtered-out events and not just the successes. With a full event log, you can see whether the click was filtered as a bot, whether the conversion lacked a valid click ID, or whether the order had already been credited.

What is the difference between an event log and a report?

A report aggregates numbers over a period, while an event log keeps every single event with its timestamp and IDs. The report shows that something happened – the log can document what, when and for which click.

What is an audit log?

An audit log records privileged actions – rate changes, approvals, blocks – with who did them and when. It documents decisions, where the tracking log documents the data stream.

Read on