Sale tracking -- should the first or last be paid?
 

This should be interesting....

Do you feel that the first or last person to send a signup should be credited for the sales referral?



Imagine this:

'Webmaster A' sends Joe Surfer to a website and the tracking cookie gets set.

Joe surfer doesn't purchase access to that site right away, but later on that evening Joe Surfer is surfing around & clicks through to the same paysite again - but this time from a website owned by 'Webmaster B'.

Who do you feel should be credited for the sale? :glugglug

That's an interesting predicament :)

I've been wondering about something like this myself. Because, in theory, every TGP out there could load every ccbill site (for instance) known to man, in an img src, and probably be the receiver of the sale, once the surfer decides to buy.

I may be wrong ofcourse - but it's an interesting thesis, isn't it?

Keep in mind the very short period of time between 'Webmaster A' sending the customer to the site first and getting the customer all worked up -- almost to the point of a sale.

Then for whatever reason, the customer is surfing around later that day and sees a banner for the site again on the site belonging to 'Webmaster B', says "oh yeah, that site!..." clicks through & signs up.


Webmaster A probably played a big role earlier that day in getting the customer ready to purchase... :)

Yeah... paying on first cookie leaves a system vulnerable to some shady activities no doubt.


It's a good question to ask your favorite affilliate program though... if they pay on first or last referral.

The first cookie would be overwritten. It is in our software and I would venture to say that is what a majority of softwares do. As for the ethics of who should get paid, I personally feel it would be fair to split the commission between the 2 webmasters. However, if the cookie was overwritten, you really have no way of determining if that occurred or who webmaster A was.

Interesting question. :thumbsup