Compliance & regulatory
Shaving
Slang for an advertiser quietly under-counting affiliate-driven conversions.
'Shaving' is media-buyer slang for the practice of an advertiser deliberately under-attributing conversions that should have paid out to the affiliate. Some shave is unintentional (cookie-loss, attribution gaps); operators allege intentional shave when reported conversions are systematically below the affiliate's own first-party tracker. Industry remedy: server-to-server postbacks, advertiser-side audit logs, and switching networks if shave persists.
Example
Affiliate's Voluum reports 217 conversions for the day; advertiser-side dashboard reports 184. Affiliate suspects 15% shave; runs a 30-day side-by-side test before pulling traffic to a competitor.