Country blocking is a campaign rule that stops or flags traffic from countries a brand does not want, or is not allowed, to serve. At the moment of the click, the tracking platform looks up the visitor's country from their IP address and compares it with the campaign's allowed or blocked list before redirecting.
How it works
There are two common setups:
- Allowlist (allowed countries): only listed countries are accepted. Used when an offer is available in a few markets, for example a sportsbook licensed in specific jurisdictions.
- Blocklist (blocked countries): everything is accepted except the listed countries. Used to exclude high-fraud geos or markets where the product is not available.
A blocked click is typically sent to a fallback page or not tracked, and it should be logged so both brand and affiliate can see how much traffic was rejected and why.
IP geolocation is not perfect. VPNs, proxies, corporate networks and some mobile carriers can place users in the wrong country, so country blocking works best alongside other fraud checks rather than as the only control.
Example
Example: an online casino licensed only in Sweden and Denmark allows SE and DK on its campaign. An affiliate's newsletter sends 8,000 clicks: 6,500 from SE and DK, 1,500 from other countries. The 1,500 are blocked and logged, and the affiliate's report shows exactly which geos to exclude from future sends.
Why it matters
In regulated verticals such as iGaming, fintech and crypto, accepting customers from a market where the brand is not licensed is a compliance risk, not just wasted traffic. On CPC and CPA deals, country rules also stop the brand paying for clicks and leads it cannot monetize. For affiliates, visible blocked-click data shows where their audience falls outside an offer, so they can route that traffic elsewhere. In MassPartner, brands set allowed or blocked countries per campaign, and blocked clicks are logged and shown in click reports.
Related: fraud score, click fraud, tracking link, smartlink.