The email after the launch
A podcast host who promoted your course emails. A listener told her they bought after hearing the episode, but her dashboard shows no sale. She has a screenshot of the listener's message. You check your affiliate report. The buyer is credited to a different affiliate, a blogger, whose link they clicked two weeks earlier. Or they are credited to nobody, because they bought on their laptop after clicking the link on their phone.
You want to be fair to both partners. You also have no clear rule, and no record of anything except the last click that happened to set a cookie.
Tracking sees less than affiliates think
Most affiliate tracking uses a cookie set when someone clicks a link. That cookie can be blocked, cleared, or never set on the device where the buyer finally pays. Buyers hear about you in several places before buying. Podcasts and videos send people who type your address rather than click a link. And most setups credit whichever affiliate's cookie was set last, which is a rule nobody chose deliberately.
- Buyers switch devices between clicking and paying.
- Browsers and privacy settings block or expire cookies.
- Podcast and video listeners arrive without clicking any link.
- Two affiliates can both have genuinely influenced a buyer.
- Your attribution rule was set by the tool's default, not by you.
The cost of unclear credit
Affiliates who feel they were not credited stop promoting you, often quietly. Settling disputes by goodwill means paying twice or upsetting someone. And without a clear rule, every dispute is a new negotiation that takes your time during the busiest weeks of a launch.
Referral records with rules you choose
- Each affiliate gets a link and, where useful, a discount code or a named landing page, so listeners who never click still have a way to be credited.
- Every touch is recorded against the visitor: link clicks, code use, and email opt-ins that carry the affiliate's reference.
- When someone opts into your email list through an affiliate, the reference is stored on their subscriber record, which survives device changes.
- At checkout, the sale is matched against all recorded touches by email, code and cookie.
- Your attribution rule decides the credit: first touch, last touch, code beats cookie, or a split, whichever you choose and publish to affiliates.
- When an affiliate disputes a sale, you both see the same list of recorded touches and the rule applied.
- Manual adjustments are allowed and logged, so settled disputes are consistent.
| What happened | Recorded touch | Credit under a 'code beats cookie' rule |
|---|---|---|
| Clicked blogger link, later used podcast code | Click and code | Podcast host |
| Clicked on phone, bought on laptop | Click, then email opt-in with reference | Affiliate whose opt-in it was |
| Heard podcast, typed the address, used no code | None | Nobody, unless you adjust |
| Clicked two affiliates' links | Two clicks | Depends on your first or last rule |
We do not decide what is fair for your programme. We record what can be recorded and apply the rule you write down.
Disputes that settle themselves
Affiliates know the rules before they promote, so they can choose links, codes or landing pages that suit their audience. When a dispute arises, the answer is on screen for both of you. Podcast and video partners, who are poorly served by link tracking, have codes and pages that credit them properly. You spend launch week on students, not arbitration.
Are affiliate disputes taking your time?
- Affiliates send screenshots of buyers who say they referred them.
- Podcast and video partners rarely show sales in their dashboards.
- You do not know what attribution rule your tool uses.
- Two affiliates have claimed the same sale.
- Disputes are settled case by case by goodwill.