Cookie

An affiliate cookie is a small tracking file stored in a user's browser when they click an affiliate link. If that user later registers and deposits with the operator within the cookie window — commonly 30 to 90 days — the affiliate who placed the cookie is credited with the referral and earns their agreed commission. Most programmes use last-click attribution. If a user clicks Affiliate A's link, then later clicks Affiliate B's link before signing up, B's cookie overwrites A's and B receives the commission. This makes the freshness of the click, not merely its existence, decisive. Worked example: a reader clicks your review on day one but does not sign up. They return through a search result on day twenty and register with a £20 deposit. With a 30-day cookie the conversion is still attributed to you because it falls inside the window. Move that registration to day forty and, under the same 30-day cookie, the attribution is lost and you earn nothing — even though your content prompted the original interest. Why it matters: cookie length and attribution model directly determine how much of the traffic you send actually pays out. Audiences who research for weeks before depositing convert far better under longer windows. Common caveats and pitfalls: cookies can be cleared by the user, expire, be blocked by privacy settings, or be lost when the user switches device — a click on mobile and a sign-up on desktop may not connect. For these reasons server-to-server (S2S) tracking using a Click ID has largely supplanted cookie-only tracking for accuracy and resilience. Compare to: Click ID, Cookie Duration, CPA.