How do affiliates networks track sales?

Answer 1

In affiliate marketing, affiliate programs compensate advertisers (the affiliates) for sales resulting from website visits and traffic generated by their efforts.

In order to do this, two important things are necessary:

1. Knowing which affiliate's marketing efforts were responsible for a given website visitor.
2. Tracking that visitor's purchases, since they don't often purchase immediately.

The first step is quite easy. Each online merchant that sponsors an affiliate marketing program will assign an affiliate number or identifier to each affiliate. This affiliate ID is then coded into the link URL that a potential shopper clicks to reach the merchant's website. This is known as URL appending or Query String Appending, the actual link that a visitor clicks resembles the following:

http://www.MerchantSite.com/?affiliate_id=12345

Depending on the level of sophistication of an affiliate program, links may be automatically generated by their website in one's affiliate dashboard or each affiliate may need to hand-code their links.

The second step is performed by the merchant website itself. When a link such as this is clicked, the "MerchantSite" is loaded, and the "affiliate_id" value of "12345" is sent to the site. A handler script takes note of this affiliate ID, and the site generates a cookie, tiny file for session tracking that is stored on a visitor's computer. The cookie matches the visitor to the affiliate who originally referred them.

The presence of a cookie is a durable way to identify visitors who return to a site at a later date after initially arriving at a site due to an affiliate's marketing efforts. A cookie can remain on a visitor's computer for any length of time, or can be deleted at any time by the computer user. However, most affiliate program policies set a limit, usually 30-60 days, during which time an affiliate will receive credit for sales. After this time limit, generally affiliates are not compensated, as it is presumed that the visit is attributable to another reason.

At fixed intervals, usually monthly, the sponsors of affiliate programs disburse payments to the affiliates for commissions earned on sales they referred to the site; this is usually subject to minimum amounts, and deductions if hard-copy checks must be issued.

This is how formal affiliate programs work. Of course, the concept itself places a great deal of trust in the merchant that sponsors the program to deal honestly and have both the integrity and technical capability to track the referrals and commissions. Nearly any online merchant of any size has an affiliate referral program, this includes Amazon.com, and many other online retailers and services. Choosing a reputable, recognized name, or using a third-party referral program is advisable, such as Commission Junction (www.cj.com), a well-known and reputable company that manages affiliate programs for hundreds of online merchants.