Discover, swipe mode and Saved

Discover is the list of affiliates your scan found, best fit first. Saved is your shortlist. Looking, filtering and saving are all free. The one thing that costs a credit is revealing an email, and the button says so before you press it.

Reading a match

Each row shows why it's there, so you never have to take a score on trust.

• The fit score, out of 100, with its four parts beside it: relevance out of 40, audience fit out of 30, recent activity out of 20, commercial fit out of 10.
• Where they rank. A website row says "Ranks 3rd for 'affiliate software'": their best place in Google for one of your own keywords, or for a competitor search if none of your keywords found them.
• Two numbers with a band. A band is a label (low, medium or high) that says how big a number is next to other affiliates on the same channel. Hover the label, or tab to it, and it tells you the range. Websites show monthly visits and ranking pages. YouTube shows subscribers and average views.
• Up to three pieces of their content, each with its type (review, comparison, alternatives, roundup, guide or video) and any competitor it names.
• What they already promote. If their own titles say "30% lifetime", you see it. That's what they're used to being paid, which helps when you set their deal.

Monthly visits for a website are estimated from the site's search rankings. Nobody measured them. Read the figure as a rough size.

"Not known"

When Finder couldn't find something out, the row says not known in words. It never shows a number in its place. Let's say Google showed no date for any of a site's pages. The row says "Recent activity not known", not "3 of 20". The same goes for monthly visits when the estimate didn't come back. A section with nothing in it, like top countries, isn't shown at all.

How the score is worked out

Each part in the drawer has a bar, its points, and one line saying what earned them, like "34k monthly visits is Medium. You asked for small".

• Relevance, out of 40. 18 for being found by one of your searches. Then up to 18 for where they rank for your own keyword: 1st to 3rd is 18, 4th to 10th is 12, 11th to 20th is 6. Up to 12 more for where they rank for a competitor search, on the same steps. 4 for naming a competitor, and 6 for a second piece of content. A tracking link to a competitor adds 10, and one through a network adds 5. YouTube videos have no Google rank, so a channel scores 22 for being found, 6 for each extra video, and the same extras.
• Audience fit, out of 30. The band of their audience, against the size you asked for in Targeting. A YouTube channel in one of your countries gets 5 more. Websites have no country until you save them, because a search result only tells us your country, not theirs.
• Recent activity, out of 20. How new their newest page or video is, or how often a channel uploads. When nothing is dated, it scores 8 and says not known, so an undated site is neither punished nor rewarded. If two weekly scans in a row don't find them, it drops to 3 and the row says "Not seen in the last 2 scans".
• Commercial fit, out of 10. 6 if their content names a rate or a program, and 4 if it names two or more competitors.

Two buttons sit beside the page title. Find new runs a search you choose, and Add your own adds people you already know. Both are covered in Credits.

Scores of 60 and over are your matches. Scores from 40 to 59 are kept apart under Possible matches, linked at the foot of the list.

Finding the right ones

• Channel tabs: All, Websites, YouTube, Podcasts, each with a count.
• Search by name or site.
• Filter in three groups. Discovery: promotes a competitor, a keyword in their content, already mentions you, only from your own searches. Profile: audience size, last posted, how much relevant content, country, language, fit score. Outreach: owner, list, hide saved, hide contacted.
• Sort by best fit, largest audience, most relevant content, recently published or recently discovered.
• Your customers, the toggle beside Hide saved. It shows the matches who already pay you. More on that below.

Audience filters need a channel picked first, because each channel counts different things. Podcasts have no audience number, so there's no audience filter for them. Each range shows how your rows are spread across it.

Filters live in the page address. Copy the address and a teammate sees the same list.

Saving, and saying no

Save keeps an affiliate in Saved and starts their deal from your brand's offer. It's free and it never spends a credit. Use the List menu beside it to save straight to a list, or name a new one there.

The cross on a row means not a fit. Press it and Finder asks why, with six answers. Your last answer is picked already, so a run of look-alikes is one press and then Enter. The row leaves the list at once and a message offers Undo for ten seconds. After that they wait under Saved, Hidden, and you can bring them back on any day. Nothing is deleted.

Three answers change what Finder does next. The message says what changed.

• Sells their own product. Their site or channel goes on your exclusions, so no later scan brings them back.
• Too small or Too big. Your size preference moves one step, and your matches are scored again. You can change it back under Brand, Targeting.
• Not my topic. It counts against the keyword that found them. When three matches from one keyword aren't your topic, Finder stops searching for that keyword. It never drops your last one.

Wrong audience and Something else are kept with the row and change nothing.

Tick rows, or Select all, to save, list or hide several at once.

Proof on the row

Two lines on a row are facts, not scores.

• Already carries tracking links to Tolt. They already earn from a tool like yours. The line says where Finder saw it: in their search result, or on their own page on a date. For a website, the page check runs when you save them. How Finder reads tracking links.
• They already pay you. This match is one of your own AffiliateRail customers, with the month they became one. People who already use your product make the most believable affiliates.

A row with neither shows neither. Finder never prints "0 links".

Your customers

The Your customers toggle shows every match who is also your customer. Finder compares your AffiliateRail customers with your matches once a day. It matches on the domain of their email address and on any YouTube channel in their record. Check now runs it straight away.

• Only customers with a real, live sale count. Test purchases don't.
• A shared email domain like gmail.com never matches anyone.
• Finder only reads your customer list. It never changes it, never shows what anyone paid, and never puts it in an email.

The affiliate drawer

Click a name to open the drawer. It has five tabs.

• Overview. Why they scored what they scored, one line per part. Where they rank, and their key numbers with bands. What they already promote. Contact. For websites, a traffic trend once there are two months of estimates, and top countries and keywords once a scan has fetched them.
• Content. Every page or video the scan found, with its type, its search position or views, and its date.
• Conversation. Empty until you connect an inbox.
• Notes and lists. A private note and tags. Below them, the lists they're on.
• Deal. The terms for this one affiliate. See the deal and the hand-off.

Contact stays locked until you save them. The lock says what a credit buys: their address, and whether we could check it. You're only charged if we find one you can use.

Every address shows its check beside it. Found more than one? You see each, best first, with its own check, so you can pick the one least likely to bounce before you write to anyone. A catch-all domain takes mail for every address, so a check can't tell whether this one is read. It says "Catch-all, may bounce". Never verified.

The evidence and normalized score inputs survive the raw provider payload. That means a later re-score does not lose a video's duration, a channel's upload cadence, the site's about text or traffic facts that the provider actually supplied.

In the traffic section, a trend needs two months. A site with one month of estimates says "No trend yet", and each weekly scan adds a month. A country needs 5% of the traffic and 200 visits to be listed, and a keyword needs 100 searches a month. Anything under that is counted, not shown.

Swipe mode

Review one at a time shows your best matches as single cards.

• Right arrow, or swipe right: save.
• Left arrow, or swipe left: not a fit. You can undo it.
• Down arrow, or swipe down: skip for now.

The page keeps count ("12 of 50 reviewed") and how many you've saved, and it remembers both if you leave. A swipe-save is an ordinary save. It never reveals an email and never spends a credit. After the last card you get the next steps, and you can go through the skipped ones again.

Saved

Saved has four views.

• Saved. Your shortlist. Each row adds a status, tags, the deal in one line with Edit deal, and an owner.
• Deals. The same people, for the ones with terms.
• Hidden. Everyone you marked not a fit, each with Bring back.
• Existing affiliates. People you already work with, so Discover leaves them out.

Status has nine steps: Saved, Contacting, Replied, Negotiating, Onboarding, Activated, No reply, Declined, On hold. A change saves at once, with Undo for ten seconds. You can't pick Activated by hand. It's set when you add them to AffiliateRail, because that's the moment the partner exists.

Find emails for selected reveals emails for the rows you ticked. The button states the cost first, like "3 of your 12 email credits". If an email isn't found, that credit isn't spent. If you tick more rows than you have credits, the button stays off and tells you why.

Export as CSV downloads your saved affiliates, one row each.

• Who they are: name, site or handle, channel, audience.
• The score and its four parts, with their top piece of content.
• The email and its check.
• Where they stand: status, deal, owner.
• Your own tags, lists and notes.

Exports are on paid plans. They only ever include people you saved.

Existing affiliates

Paste emails, sites, YouTube channel links or handles, one per line, or pick a CSV. We match on all three, and anyone who matches moves out of Discover into this view. Finder resolves a handle to the channel's stable ID before saving it. An unresolved handle is reported as unresolved and does not pretend to exclude a channel.

Your AffiliateRail partners need no upload. Finder reads them live, so a partner you added five minutes ago is already left out.

On the trial

The trial shows your top fifty matches and says how many more the scan found. Filters and sorts work inside those fifty, and hiding one doesn't bring in the fifty-first. When the trial ends, everything you saved stays, and you can still save. New scans, revealing emails and sending wait for a plan.