How cookies and attribution models work in Affiliate marketing .?

[lbahi]

To be honest, i don't know how to explain this, but I will try

lets say I'm promoting an affiliate offer with 30 days cookies duration using social media and I have got some affiliate clicks people clicked on my link but didn't buy, a week later the user will go to google and type in the name of the website a was promoting and he clicked on an Ad made by another affiliate using brand bidding. who will Get the sale credit . ??

 

[thelegend]

Well he will get it the other person .The business you refer to its by amazon affiliate and there if someone clicks on your link and buy something from amazon you will get a percentage of that sale

 

[lbahi]

I didn't understand, you mean i will get the credit ..?

 

[LiftTraffic]

To be honest, i don't know how to explain this, but I will try

lets say I'm promoting an affiliate offer with 30 days cookies duration using social media and I have got some affiliate clicks people clicked on my link but didn't buy, a week later the user will go to google and type in the name of the website a was promoting and he clicked on an Ad made by another affiliate using brand bidding. who will Get the sale credit . ??

I'm not completely sure how this works, but I do think that it works by first click.

As long as the 30 days has not expired, and he clicked on your link first, even if he goes on google a week later, and type in the name of the website and clicked on an Ad made by another affiliate, you will get the commission, not the other affiliate, as long as 30 days hasn't expired yet from the day he clicked on your link, as long as your link was the first he ever clicked within that 30 days.

And I think this is part of the reason sometimes why some affiliates get many clicks but no conversions and they wonder why.

 

[Graybeard]

Cookies get deleted --truth #1

About 30% of browsers block the Google-Analytics tracking cookie on my latest testing

Every affiliate program's stats are not counting 10% to as much as 50% of the traffic I am sending them
--I log every click out from a landing page or log all redirected traffic.

Facts are fact. Your program or your traffic may show different results.

That said --the Google-Analytics tracking cookie is also traffic type and/or ad network dependent. There are no absolutes in tracking.

What is cookie slippage? I think it is safe to assume 50% of return cookies are no longer present after 72 hours. Probably, something like 20% of persistent (meaning:return cookies) are retained over 30 days (retained means: have any effect).

Here the real deal: I am not cheating my 'valued partners' if their referral no longer has a cookie! I will not change this because I get to keep all the money --too bad (etc.) I have been told this, in not so many words, by upper management (like the CEO) for a large company I once was the Vice President of Sales for --I quit --and that was a big part of the reason.

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How you can deal with this?

1. You will only see part of the money you earn because of this cookie dilemma --fact
2. The amount of loss will vary
3. First time sales (impulse buys or actions) should generally be accounted for and paid if a cookie is NOT relied on and the URL continues to show your affiliate code (in some way).
4. The problem with the above is that most of the time the URLs are 'rewritten' (read: shortened) to a better appearing URL //example.com/path/12345. You have no way of knowing how the real data is used
5. So this is your evaluation: Am I getting paid enough to absorb these losses in conversions after I have paid for my traffic?

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I just stopped a push ad because I sent about 1,000 clicks and the offer's stats said they -only- reported the receipt about 600. A 40% loss is too much and not acceptable.

I have checked almost every IP and the traffic appears to be 85% + legit residential ISP connections. Move on and don't waste any more time and money.

Was there a cookie issue with the offer's stats? Maybe --but I have no way of telling. <move on>

If you are doing a simple SOI/DOI/CPI you should see most of your revenue.
Depend on a cookie: You will have some loss and that will vary with the situation.
In a scenario where a customer registers with an email prior to a purchase you "should" always get paid if the sales are reported accurately.

 

[lbahi]

That was helpful thank you for your contribution

 

[T J Tutor]

In a scenario where a customer registers with an email prior to a purchase you "should" always get paid if the sales are reported accurately.

The charter companies I am working with have an affiliate portal option that ties into the DOI system on my content sites which has more or less eliminated much of the cookie mess at the moment. It's still a little buggy sometimes, but overall is providing a good stabilization for the client/customer referrals I send. My DOI is a shared DOI and is disclosed as such. The DOI provides discounts to the clients and therefore everyone opts for the DOI. The DOI's are registered in my databases and then shared to my affiliate portals. When the client/customer clicks through to any of the charter sites and signs up, they are recognized as my as my client/customer. I get lifetime referrals with the clients/customers I provide them.

In basic terms, cookie life refers to the period of time during which any actions performed by a user referred by an affiliate on your site are credited to that affiliate. For user actions, you will only receive commissions from the last affiliate partner who directed the customer to your site.

Lifetime Commissions is more secure than setting an unlimited cookie lifetime, because it will work even if the customer buys a new computer, or deletes all cookie data from the computer.

The function of this is based on the fact that you can identify a customer by using unique identification (e.g. by email). After the customer makes his/her first sale, creates a relationship between the customer and the referring affiliate partner, and all of the sales from that customer will be assigned to the particular affiliate partner, even if the customer makes the next purchase using another computer. Even if the customer is referred by any other affiliate marketer on another computer, the commission will be still assigned to the first affiliate marketer, because the Lifetime Commissions feature has higher priority than any other type of tracking (e.g. Flash cookie, Browser cookie, IP address or similar).

I always prefer the lifetime commission opportunities. The affiliate programs on my content sites are all lifetime, but this is difficult to find when it comes to CPA offers.

 

[Graybeard]

Lifetime Commissions is more secure

Not when a customer makes a new account --gone.

The function of this is based on the fact that you can identify a customer by using unique identification (e.g. by email).

Don't kid yourself --new email address on a separate server will get around that easily.

Let me give you another scenario: That email is in use warning --you no longer have access to that account --so you make a new account with another address and verify that new address --gone.

That was a common problem in the cam business. Models stalk customers for privates or customers want to stalk a model in a new name That's the way that business is. Models get customers to make new accounts and the model gets both the model's and affiliate's commission (or more of the house's cut if the site registered the customer via PPC ads or SEO). The customer becomes the pawn.

As far as identifying account integrity or duplication: The payment method may be the same, or maybe not. A lot of people have multiple credit cards and other payment accounts --PayPal, Digital currency . IPs can change, proxies and VPNs are used --Geo fencing is spotty for these reasons.

The are more sophisticated and outright tricks and traps to detect multiple account creation but I don't want to give the Bozo's new ideas to find work-a-rounds for (if they havent already).

Since your 'partners' do not share data transparency with you 'the so valued partner' --you are in a very precarious predicament always.
You can (or at least I know how to) program a random or selective shave of sales off any database to cheat my 'valued partners' (If I was so inclined to do).

I sent the exact same traffic to 2 adult webcam sites the path randomly selected by the user.

One site reported back 50% and the other 85%.

I did a multi site linking scheme that logged all of the outbound clicks and where they were sent.

The cam sites were direct --no affiliate network man-in-the-middle. I am not going to mention any names but these 2 companies are grossing over $150+ Million dollars a year. That said, it is not simple programming incompetence at play. Same traffic one at a 50% loss and one at a 15% loss. That's not possible --something is wrong!

And I think this is part of the reason sometimes why some affiliates get many clicks but no conversions and they wonder why.

That is probably because of natural competition or actual cookie stuffing.
For this reason: Cookies that are replaced by your cookie on the new click are probably going to make you more money for this exact reason.

In business you always lose a part of the time --controlling that exposure and limiting the loss is all you can do.