Networks and Cookie Occurrences - Transparency Needed

**Rich** · 17-03-06

Thats good to hear Peter. I guess you must get a few alerts for this program since the tracking image is still loaded in a popup that is blocked by IE. (sorry, I really think that program is pants!)

**monkeyman** · 17-03-06

It's definately something that needs more clarification, as everyone seems to 'assume' that you'll get the sale regardless.
It obviously highlights the need to fully check the program terms.

The one that gets me is Freemans. They will only pay on sales that occur if they have signed up through you and you are then classed as their 'parent referrer'.
To me that's not fair at all, as they have seen your ad/sales text and clicked to purchase, so you should be rewarded for the sale whether they are previously registered or not.

/rant over!

**Darren** · 18-03-06

I agree, but you have to agree at least Freemans are totally upfront and transparent, unlike numerous other merchants!

**Qui Gon Jinn** · 18-03-06

Yep .. You may have introduced that exisiting customer to product they hadn't realised that merchant sold.

**lakrasia** · 18-03-06

Speaking only from limited experience, I bought items from CD-WOW on Affiliate Window and only got commission on the first - however I've tracked sales and received multiple commissions from other merchants, such as Loaded 247, so perhaps it's dependent on merchant rather than network.

I bought several items from Prezzybox on Paid on Results within the cookie period and got commisson on every one.

**MattElliott** · 20-03-06

I agree, this is something which the merchant has the power to control.

This does not mean it should not be in the hands of the network to enforce an acceptable standard of commitment from the merchant.

Ultimately though, any sensible merchant will see that higher payouts to affiliates in the long run will result in a better program.

The main problem is lack of understanding..

**lakrasia** · 20-03-06

At a slight tangent, merchants also have different policies about what they pay commission on. Some pay commission on product+VAT+p&p, others deduct the VAT and postage before calculating commission. I brought this up some time ago - while it's fair enough not to pay commission on VAT, it would be nice to know which merchants do and which don't.

Having said that, at the end of the day, we go by EPC, don't we and maybe the mechanics behind the final result aren't so important (unless, of course we buy an A4 battery from a merchant one week and a plasma TV the next week!)

**Qui Gon Jinn** · 23-03-06

Looking deeper there seem to be at least 3 major networks with a significant amount of merchants with an action referral occurence of only one or no recurring events... as well as some merchants on different networks with conflicting information.

**8601cam** · 27-03-06

Hi all, please find below our network response to this thread:

Affiliate Window

Cookie period varies dependant on merchant programme but is stated in each merchant sign up section.

Unlimited sales occurences within the stated cookie period.

It is however worth noting that with merchants utilising third party web analytics we are encountering situations where 'last referrer' becomes the norm. This is generally regarded OK, as long as the affiliate cookie is not negated by returning traffic typing in the merchant url or clicking the merchants SEO link.

Kind Regards

The Affiliate Window Team

**JohnSmall** · 15-07-06

One of the nicest things about Tradedoubler is the depth of statistics they give you. As far as I know they're the only merchant which allows you to see the date and time of the initial visit alongside the date and time of the actual sale and whether the actual sale is "in session" or not. If you're sleuthing around to find out what your visitors are actually doing this is a valuable tool. What it shows is that in the case of travel merchants quite a large proportion of sales seem to be multiple sales from a single initial visit. Of course you can only see this with merchants that allow multiple actions within the cookie period, such as Expedia, but not for Opodo or Ebookers.

Having seen the extent to which this happens I've given a lot more prominence to Expedia than to the others.

Another question in the same line, what about multiple cookie periods? If someone comes to my site and goes to a merchant with a 30 day cookie period, comes back to my site 60 days later and goes to the same merchant does the 30 day cookie period start again? I think we should be told.

This is very importantif you have repeat visitors using your site over long time periods. This is especially relevant in travel where people can spend ages researching holidays during work hours but only occasionally make a purchase.

**8601cam** · 17-07-06

Affiliate Window merchant programmes automatically generate certain statistics after they has been running for 3 months. These can be viewed by prospective affiliates to give an insight into programme performance. The stats produced are:

Conversion Rate
Approval %
Validation period
EPC

In addition we offer ongoing training to merchants so they can appreciate the benefits of good stats, how to improve them and the impact this will have overall.

For all transactions that occur, affiliates have access to a number of comprehensive reports allowing you you to gauge, performance over time, merchant performance, link performance and a detailed breakdown of archived commissions. Each transaction recorded highlights all relevent data and by clicking on the commission value you can get a transaction breakdown report. This includes the date/time the cookie was 'dropped' and the date/time the transaction occured, (as well as status and any click reference you may have set up for the campaign).

This will of course allow you to see which transaction occured 'in session' and which occur within the set cookie period. As mentioned earlier we have unlimited sales occurences within the (merchant) set cookie period. This period can vary by affiliate and often merchants will extend this as a loyalty reward for performing affiliates.

Finally if a visitor picks up a 30 day cookie from an affiliate site and later revisits the site and clicks on the merchant link, either within the 30 days or after the original cookie has expired, then a new 30 day cookie is set from the latest click through. This ensures that affiliates who drive traffic to merchants are able to renew cookie periods.

Kind Regards

The Affiliate Window Team