Rule conversion_time_anomaly, from the product code
Sales that never sleep
Scripts don't have time zones. Farms run at the operator's working hours, not the audience's. Either way, conversions pile up in the dead of night UTC.
Rule 10th of 12Holds, never deletesEvidence in your queue
The fraud queue, running on demo data.
How the rule works
The exact mechanics, from the engine. No black box, no tuning required.
- 01Night share vs program baseline
The rule computes the affiliate's 00:00 to 05:59 UTC share over 7 days and requires at least 20 conversions, then asks whether it's far above the program's own night share using a z-score above 3.
- 02Statistical, not absolute
A program whose audience genuinely converts at night raises the baseline for everyone. Only outliers against your own normal fire.
- 03Hold for review
Night-shift audiences exist. The hold shows the hour histogram so you can release real ones fast.
The signals
- 50%+ night share
- z > 3 vs program baseline
- 20-conversion floor
What lands in your queue
When odd conversion hours fires, this is what you see. Release or uphold is your call, not the engine's.
| Affiliate | What tripped | Commission | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Affiliate 9 | 22 of 31 conversions between 00:00 and 05:59 UTC, z = 4.1 | $287.30 | Held |
heldWaits for youThe commission stays out of payouts until you decide.releasedPaid normallyReal pattern after all. It returns to the pipeline.upheldNot paidFraud confirmed. The clawback is journaled.In the wild
Bots don't sleep. Farms run on one time zone.
- Case: Thailand, June 2017: the 400-iPhone click farm ran around the clock; three operators arrested, equipment seized.
- Stat: Imperva 2024: bad bots about one third of internet traffic in 2023. Source
Cases and figures verified against court records and named reports, . Vendor estimates are labelled as such.
How attackers try to beat it
The farm schedules its scripts for business hours in the target market. Now the attack costs scheduling discipline, and the other conversion rules catch the volume it still needs.
Every rule is one layer. The twelve overlap on purpose: beating one cleanly usually means walking into another.
Related rules
Rule thresholds checked against the code . Windows are rolling.
Odd conversion hours questions
Can I change the threshold?
The thresholds ship fixed, tuned from the rule code and tested together. Tightening one in isolation breaks the overlap the twelve rules build as a set.
What does a hold cost me?
Nothing but time. A held commission is frozen, not deleted. If you release it, it flows to the next payout exactly as if the hold never happened.
Does this rule fire on my best affiliate?
Every rule is scoped to the commissions linked to what tripped it, weighted by conversions, and rate-limited on the click side. A rival can't aim it at your top earner.
This rule, on every sale,
before the payout.
Self-host for $99 once, or run it in the cloud free for 14 days.