The funnel to an FTD runs click, registration, deposit. A visitor clicks an affiliate link, registers an account, and at some later point funds it for the first time. Only that last step counts as an FTD. Operators track it against the affiliate's click ID or tag, and most programs report it as its own column next to clicks and signups because it is the number that actually correlates with revenue.
In deal terms, the FTD is the trigger for most payment models. A CPA deal pays a fixed amount per FTD, usually with a minimum deposit threshold, so 50 FTDs on a 200 CPA pays 10,000. RevShare deals do not pay on the FTD itself, but the FTD marks the start of the revenue stream the affiliate shares in. Hybrid deals use it twice, once as the CPA trigger and again as the start of the RevShare tail.
Operators police FTD quality hard. Deposits below the contractual minimum, duplicate accounts, self-referrals, and players from excluded countries typically do not qualify, and many contracts include clawback clauses if an FTD's deposit is reversed or charged back. An affiliate who sends 1,000 registrations and 20 FTDs has a traffic quality problem that no negotiation will fix, which is why FTD-to-registration rate is one of the first numbers an operator checks before improving a deal.
Why it matters
Clicks and signups are vanity metrics; FTDs are the unit of value both sides of an affiliate deal actually price. Knowing your cost per FTD by source and your FTD-to-registration rate tells you which campaigns to scale, which deals to renegotiate, and whether a CPA or RevShare structure pays you more for the traffic you really send.
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