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How long does affiliate cookie live?

Customer came from affiliate – purchased few products with 25% discount code – I guess he found it somethere in Internet (so I couldn’t make any profits because of such combination)

Few days later he made purchase again – and again with discount 25% code. And again I paid 25% affiliate commissions.

Question is: how long to wait till relations between affiliate and customer “wears off”? I wanted to offer special discounts to this customer – but combined with affiliate commission it makes deals non-profitable. It’s not fair to leave good customer w/o special discounts – I guess. Now I’m thinking to either remove affiliate commissions or make them alot less than 25% (like 10 or so) – which is the same thing.

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9 Comments »

# Comment by craig 2CO Staff
2009-03-21 07:32:21

Affiliate cookies live for 1 year or until a successful purchase is made. Once a customer completes their order the affiliate id is no longer saved in their browser and will not be referenced on future orders unless it is passed in to purchase routine again. The customer you are referencing in your post is ordering off of the affiliates website which is why the affiliate commission is being applied each time they order.

 
# Comment by 3dom
2009-03-21 08:20:05

Just checked: all deals there I paid commission for one customer/vendor combination were made through my own site – not from affiliate site as expected.

Could be interesting to know – how is that possible to pay affiliate commission while selling from my own site? Some kind of magic? I’m not greedy – just due to this bug (or trick) my earnings diminishing.

 
# Comment by craig 2CO Staff
2009-03-21 08:40:19

Please open a support ticket with the sale numbers in question so that we can investigate this issue further.

 
 
 
 
# Comment by joel 2CO Staff
2009-03-24 09:13:47

3dom – After some further investigation we have more information for you. If a customer comes to your website and makes a purcahse and does not have any affiliate information in their cookies, then an affiliate ID cookie is created on your behalf. This means that if the customers continues to shop with 2Checkout and makes a purchase from a second vendor that offers affiliate credits, you will earn those credits. This cookie will stay live for a year unless a aff_id parameter is passed into the sale when that customer returns. If you do not wish to give credit for this customers orders you can edit your purcahse links and pass in the aff_id parameter with your supplier ID as the value and this will override that affiliate cookie so no credit is given. This scenario is why this customer is earning a vendor credit on your sales.

We are currently working on some major enhancements for our affiliate program which will give you more control over when you give out a credit and what affilaites can offer your products.

 
 
 
# Comment by 3dom
2009-03-24 10:40:47

Got 2 more sales today from my own site there I paid affiliate commission (for what?!)

It’s nice exploit: I can place my vendor ID as affiliate code on my own site and get affiliate commissions from deals on different sites there vendors use 2CO during next year.

Money for nothing – it’s always good. Just I feel somewhat disappointed – paid about $200 “affiliate commission” in such manner selling items from my own site and spending money on advertising. Eh…

 
 
# Comment by 3dom
2009-03-24 11:00:25

Just checked all 23 sales there I paid fees/commissions. Every sale was made from my site. That means I paid $315 fees for nothing.

You, guys, just brilliant! Not only your affiliate programm completely useless – but also it allow dishonest people to suck money from vendors.

How can I get those commissions $315 back?

 
# Comment by ricks 2CO Staff
2009-03-24 18:11:28

3dom,

We are currently investigating this issue and we will update you as soon as we have more information regarding this matter.

 
 
 
# Comment by randysmith843
2009-04-06 01:02:24

I have an query for you that I’m setting up my first affiliate site with cpshop and I’m trying to understand how the affiliate cookie works with it. Do customers pick up my cookie just by entering my shop through the main cpshop page? Or do they only get the cookie when they add something to the shopping cart there? If I don’t have any links that take you out of my site, besides the shopping cart, and a customer doesn’t put anything in their cart while at my site and then the next day go directly to say, the cp marketplace, will they have my cookie?

 
# Comment by craig 2CO Staff
2009-04-06 09:29:26

The affiliate program you are referring to is through Cafe Press, not 2Checkout. From looking at the Cafe Press affiliate program it looks like all sales are passed into Cafe Press directly and 2Checkout cannot be used as a reseller. If you are using cafe press with your 2Checkout account please contact us directly so we can assist you further.

 
 
 
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