Understanding affiliate parameters
Updated May 2026
When an affiliate sends a user to your website, they send them through a tracking link. That link may point to your homepage or to any page on your site, but it carries parameters identifying who the affiliate is, which tracking platform they are on, and which campaign drove the click.
What a parameter is
A parameter is a piece of information attached to a URL after a question mark. For example:
yourwebsite.com?aff_id=12345
Everything after the question mark is a parameter. In this case aff_id is the parameter name and 12345 is the affiliate's unique identifier. When this user makes a purchase, your tracking system reads that parameter and attributes the sale, and the commission, to affiliate 12345.
Common affiliate parameters
Each affiliate tracking platform has its own default parameter names, and any program can use any parameter it likes to identify an affiliate, so this is always case by case. The most common ones are:
aff_id: used by Tuneirpid: used by Impact and one of the most common you will encounteraff_c: used by Impactps_partner_key: used by PartnerStackPID: often used for internal trackingreferralandreferral_code: common for internal referral programs
Why this matters for adment
When adment detects an ad on your branded keywords, it follows the full redirect chain of that ad to the final destination URL. By reading the affiliate parameters in that URL, adment can identify exactly which affiliate placed the unauthorized ad, which tracking platform they are operating on, and what their unique ID is.
With that ID you can address the case with the specific affiliate: withhold or reverse the commission, ask for the ad to be removed, or end the partnership if the behavior continues.
Setting up your parameters in adment
Go to Settings, then Affiliate Parameters. Add each parameter name your program uses and map it to the corresponding tracking platform. adment will use this configuration to identify and attribute every violation it detects.