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Pause & Reflect — 2025-09-12

Purpose

A structured checkpoint to:

  • Re-validate the opportunity (is WallyGump still the right idea in 2025?).
  • Accelerate the process without compromising quality.
  • Check motivation and feasibility (personal + financial lens).
  • Capture pivots or future directions if the opportunity shifts.

1. Market Check

Affiliate-tech & Campaign Automation in 2025

The space is crowded but shifting:

  • Major networks (Awin, CJ, Rakuten, Partnerize, impact.com, Everflow) dominate, but are leaning into brand safety/compliance automation.
  • Google paused third-party cookie deprecation, but privacy scrutiny persists → build first-party, consent-aware tracking.
  • Google cracked down on site reputation abuse → quality & auditability rewarded.
  • FTC & ASA increasing enforcement of affiliate disclosure → opportunity for independent verification.
  • Networks launched compliance tools (Rakuten Detect, impact Protect, Awin compliance tightening), but they only cover their ecosystems.

Competitor Snapshot

  • Enterprise Platforms: end-to-end management, native compliance tools.
  • Mid-market: strong tracking/reporting; agencies rank “better reporting” as top need.
  • Compliance point-solutions: BrandVerity, Rakuten Detect, impact Protect.
  • Vertical specialists: Fintel Connect in banking/finance.

WallyGump Differentiators

  1. Independent Campaign Audit Ledger — immutable logs across all networks/channels.
  2. Disclosure Intelligence — crawls/screenshots to detect missing disclosures.
  3. Consent-aware Attribution — logs consent state at click/conversion.
  4. Developer-first SDKs — one schema, connectors for major networks/shops.
  5. Trust Dashboards — exec/legal evidence packs for audits & regulators.
  • SEO tougher on thin affiliates.
  • Creator commerce volatile but growing (TikTok Shop, Amazon commissions).
  • Networks hardening compliance; neutrality is valuable.

Bottom Line

Yes — the opportunity remains.
WallyGump should stand beside the networks as the source of truth for compliance, consent, and attribution integrity.

2. Process Acceleration (next step in this checkpoint)

To be covered in the following section:

  • Master module template to reduce boilerplate.
  • Automation of registers/changelog/glossary.
  • GitHub CI checks for MkDocs build + module completeness.
  • Explore batch consolidation vs 1-by-1 thread workflow.

Deliverables from this checkpoint

  • Market scan summary ✅
  • Process improvement plan (in progress)
  • Financial refresh model (next)
  • Decision log entry in Retrofit Register (final step)