Dub Partners

To understand why first-party tracking is so important, you first need to understand third-party cookies which a lot of dated affiliate platforms use.

Third-party cookies share data across many different brands on the same platform, but modern browsers (including iPhones and Safari) now block them entirely. That means any platform using third-party tracking will miss large portions of attribution.

Dub Partners was built after these browser changes, and instead uses first-party tracking. First-party tracking means the cookie is created and stored by your own website, not shared across other brands or domains. Because browsers allow first-party cookies, nothing gets blocked, referrals track accurately, partners get full credit, and you get reliable performance across every device.

So with Dub Partners, you are way more likely to have a successful affiliate program full of motivated partners as they are actually getting credit for the clicks they are sending your way.

Dub never uses redirect hops of any kind. Every click goes straight to your website, so tracking is accurate.

Dated affiliate platforms like Impact have tried to modernize by moving from third-party cookies to first-party tracking using their Universal Tracking Tag (UTT). But even with UTT, they still rely on a redirect “bounce hop”, a one second invisible detour through a tracking domain before reaching your site.

Modern browsers (Safari, Firefox, Brave, and now Chrome when third-party cookies are blocked) automatically flag and block these tracking hops. Users still land on your site, but the tracking step gets stripped out. The result is that clicks may show up, but conversions don’t, breaking attribution, under-crediting partners, and giving you misleading program data.

Dub never uses redirect hops of any kind. Every click goes straight to your website, so tracking is clean, accurate, and works across all modern browsers.

A huge reason we love Dub Partners is the attribution. They started as a link tracking tool, think Bitly, but built for performance, so attribution is baked in from day one.

Dub Partners allows you (and your affiliates) see exactly which content is performing best.

Unlike other affiliate platforms that require separate tracking links for every CTA (YouTube video, blog post, newsletter, individual buttons, etc.), Dub Partners lets you use a single link across all platforms. Dub Partners is the only affiliate platform that supports full UTM-level attribution within one link, so creators don’t have to manage dozens of hundreds of URLs.

Every UTM is tracked with precision, letting us see exactly which content, videos, or channels drive the highest-quality sign-ups so we can do more of that!

As a SaaS company, you probably obsess over delivering a great user experience, so why settle for anything less from your affiliate platform?

Dub Partners has a fast, modern UI/UX that lets you see your data clearly and instantly, without clicking through 20 different screens just to find basic metrics. It feels intuitive, lightweight, and easy to understand.

This is the dashboard you get for each partner when using Dub Partners.

Dub Partners shows you real time events from all your partners.

Most affiliate platforms are not great at detecting fraud. They rely on older fraud-checking tools that miss a lot of fake clicks, fake leads, and bot traffic.

Dub Partners uses Fingerprint, which is the same fraud-detection technology used by companies like Binance, Western Union, TikTok, and Dropbox. It can tell the difference between a real person and a bot with extremely high accuracy, so you don't pay for fake traffic or fraudulent signups.

Impact, PartnerStack, and most legacy affiliate tools do not use Fingerprint. They use older fraud-prevention providers (Impact uses older internal systems, PartnerStack uses Sift) that are more limited and were not designed for modern affiliate abuse patterns. This means more fake leads slip through, more invalid signups get credited, you end up paying for bot traffic, bad actors can exploit loopholes.

Tax compliance is one of the biggest hidden pains in running an affiliate program. Most platforms push this work back onto your team, meaning you must manually collect forms, track who submitted what, chase missing documents, and issue 1099s yourself. This is just an admin nightmare.

Dub Partners automatically handles tax compliance for your US-based partners by sending W-9 and 1099-NEC forms to individuals or entities that received $600 or more in payments for a given fiscal year. For non-US partners, Dub collects W-8 forms to confirm they are not a US resident for tax purposes.

Dub Partners has a robust API that allows for proper integration. For example, at times we offer a bonus to users who use our affiliate links to sign up for software (e.g., a free course or an extended discount). Dub Partners enables us to do this because of their API.

Dub is fully open-source, meaning if you're technical, you can self-host it for greater control over data, privacy, and customization.