Affiliate program EPC can be gamed to look deceptively good or unnaturally depressed by one high volume affiliate. But I still use it as an indicator of the health of an affiliate program before promoting a given company.

While the very recent numbers can be deceiving for various reasons, I think the trends are a lot more telling, as they are not as impacted by temporary variables.

For instance, when I am reviewing affiliate programs on Commission Junction (CJ), I like to checkout the 12 Month Trend (3 Month EPC) to identify any patterns that could be telling about the prospects for that affiliate program.

The chart below, for an unnamed affiliate program, shows how the EPC has steadily (with minor exceptions) descended from $15.00+ in June 2007 to $7.50 currently.

That looks like more than a bad cycle and indicates to me that something bad happened.

Was it a top affiliate that bailed due to declining returns? Maybe they redesigned their landing pages and they are now less effective?

Whatever the reason, this chart says to me that I don’t want to take a risk in promoting the program.