Do affilaites pay for return customers?

11 replies
If a customer reorders a product a few months after initial purchase, will the affiliate get paid a cut even if the customer goes to the merchant site directly or even a phone order?

I notice that some merchants offer only 30 day cookie while others offer a year, couple of years to even lifetime.

Am I right to think if a merchant has a 30 day cookie and customer visits through an affiliate link, the sale will count as long as it is purchased within 30 days after the first visit. But what about reorders on sites that offer only 30 days?
#affilaites #customers #pay #return
  • Profile picture of the author locke815
    Yes it does. Depending on which affiliate. Some yes and some doesn't though.
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  • Profile picture of the author BKKBound
    It really depends on the affiliate program and/or the platform they are using. Some simply drop cookies that persists for a period of time, others with simply use an affiliate link which will credit you for the sale only upon action.

    It pays to have a look at these details when you are considering signing up for an affiliate program...especially if it has multiple available products.

    Hope that helps.!
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  • Profile picture of the author Vimal Gobin
    Depends! Some credit you only for a sale you make on ONE product within 30 days. Others give you a cut on EVERY product the visitor you referred to them buys for a LIFETIME.
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  • Profile picture of the author SEO Haven
    Remember that even a "lifetime cookie" can get cleared in a single day if a user clicks the "clear cookies" button. But as long as they don't, you'll get credited for any sales if they buy through the website (not over the phone obviously).
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    • Profile picture of the author Anton543
      Originally Posted by SEO Haven View Post

      Remember that even a "lifetime cookie" can get cleared in a single day if a user clicks the "clear cookies" button. But as long as they don't, you'll get credited for any sales if they buy through the website (not over the phone obviously).

      Actually looking at my affiliate stats today, one of the sales resulted from a phone order.
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  • Profile picture of the author Anton543
    I think merchants need to think of other ways of crediting slaes than just relying on cookies because more and more people set their browser to auto delete internet history (which may include cookies) after each session, daily, weekly.
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    • Profile picture of the author brentb
      Originally Posted by Anton543 View Post

      I think merchants need to think of other ways of crediting slaes than just relying on cookies because more and more people set their browser to auto delete internet history (which may include cookies) after each session, daily, weekly.
      Why would they do this? Then they would have to pay you more for the same amount of sales? Doh! :p

      There are more accurate ways, nobody uses them...
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      • Profile picture of the author Anton543
        Originally Posted by brentb View Post

        Why would they do this? Then they would have to pay you more for the same amount of sales? Doh! :p

        There are more accurate ways, nobody uses them...
        Yes, but if affiliates do not get sales they will start taking links off which will make the merchant worse off in the mid to long run.
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      • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
        Banned
        Hi Anton,

        They vary. Some are cookie based, some are IP-number based.

        Some of the cookie-based ones pay "the most recent cookie" (which effectively overwrites any earlier cookie(s),) such as ClickBank. Others pay according to the first cookie.

        Am I right to think if a merchant has a 30 day cookie and customer visits through an affiliate link, the sale will count as long as it is purchased within 30 days after the first visit.
        In principle, if the cookie wasn't removed from their computer or overwritten by another.

        One of the ways they're "overwritten by another" applies, commonly, to situations in which the vendor has his own opt-in on the sales page and is in touch with your prospective customer before the customer buys. That's called a "leaky sales page" (i.e. it contains a set-up which may prevent your being paid). They can send email with their own affiliate cookie, or their wife's, or their friend's cousin's friend's, or their dog's, which overwrites your cookie, which is one of the reasons why serious, pro-affiliates on ClickBank won't ever promote a product with a vendor's opt-in on the sales page, as explained here: http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...oduct-opt.html .

        But what about reorders on sites that offer only 30 days?
        Again, they vary. You need to read the fine print very carefully and check out their vendor reputation. On some sites, once they order through you the first time, and you're credited with it, they're then "yours" for life.

        If they order by phone, that's another matter altogether. We all have to decide for ourselves whether or not we're willing to promote things people can order by phone.

        Originally Posted by Anton543 View Post

        Yes, but if affiliates do not get sales they will start taking links off which will make the merchant worse off in the mid to long run.
        True, but vendors who play tricks with this typically do so with only a (small-ish?) proportion of them, in the hope of evading suspicion.

        If a vendor pays 75% commission, as some do on ClickBank, then every sale he can "take" is worth 4 normal sales to him, so they have a very powerful financial incentive to play these tricks, even if only "occasionally".

        Originally Posted by Anton543 View Post

        I think merchants need to think of other ways of crediting slaes than just relying on cookies because more and more people set their browser to auto delete internet history (which may include cookies) after each session, daily, weekly.
        There's no "perfect solution/avoidance" for these potential problems.

        For me, ClickBank's approach is good, as long as you never promote anything with a leaky sales page. Most serious ClickBank affiliates feel this way, too, it seems from discussions here.
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    • Profile picture of the author Tina Golden
      Originally Posted by Anton543 View Post

      I think merchants need to think of other ways of crediting slaes than just relying on cookies because more and more people set their browser to auto delete internet history (which may include cookies) after each session, daily, weekly.
      More and more MARKETERS may do this, but you'll find that very few people do this in general.
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  • Profile picture of the author brentb
    The standard cookie & img/iframe tracking loses 10-30% of all conversions. You will see this happen when you work with someone who pushes thousands of conversions over a month lets say. When you go to compare numbers, they are wildly off! Then if you put them on their own pathway you will get numbers like this:

    Aff 1 Reports: 1973 Conversions
    Internal cookie Tracking Reports: 2134
    TOTAL REGISTRATIONS FROM EXCLUSIVE PATHWAY IN DATABASE: 2534

    *Not actual numbers but numbers you could expect to see. I picked them based on my experience doing this.
    Even people who come through the pathway without ever leaving are not tracking, let alone people who come back weeks later.

    What is more important than registering a sale for the types of offers I run anyways is not losing so many conversions through the pathway, so I give up 30 day cookies and opt for cookieless tracking with postbacks (which for some rare advertisers could still track 30+ days out if they choose to implement additional programming and technologies) but this generally only tracks conversions on the pathway but with a 99%+ accuracy.
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