How Affiliate Sales Tracking and Cookies Work
Affiliate tracking isn't just about counting clicks; it's about attribution. It’s the technology that ensures the right partner gets credit for the right sale, every single time.
Here’s a visual of how the tracking works from a click to a conversion attribution:
1. Getting the Link
The process starts when someone joins your affiliate program. They log into their dashboard and grab their unique Referral Link (or other assets like banners). This link has a unique identifier (for example, yourstore.com?ref=john_doe)—this ID is the “fingerprint” that ties any future actions back to that specific affiliate.
2. The Promotion
The affiliate then shares the link. They might include it in a YouTube video description, add it to a blog post, or post it on social media. The link sits there until a potential customer clicks it.
3. The Click: Starting the Journey
When a user clicks the link, they are redirected to your website. A tracking script on your landing page activates. This script records the click and stores the affiliate’s ID in a cookie or local storage in the user’s browser. This step is crucial because it allows the system to remember which affiliate sent the visitor.
Tip: Place the Tapfiliate tracking code in the <head> of your website. This ensures that consent management tools don’t block it and the system can track referrals correctly.
4. The Cookie: Remembering the Affiliate
The cookie acts like the system’s memory. It keeps the affiliate’s ID and program details for a set period (the Cookie Duration). If the user leaves your site and comes back days later to make a purchase, the cookie ensures the system still knows which affiliate referred them.
5. The Conversion: Completing the Sale
When the user completes a purchase or sign-up, a second script—called the Conversion pixel—fires on the “Thank You” or confirmation page. This script checks the browser for the cookie. If it finds it, the system knows, “This customer came from John Doe.” It then records the sale and the amount.
6. The Reward: Calculating the Commission
Finally, the system calculates the affiliate’s commission based on the rules you set (for example, 10% of the sale). The commission is added to the affiliate’s balance in their dashboard.
Note: Integration must be completed before tracking can begin. This step is essential to start running an affiliate program.
How to Start Tracking: Setup and Attribution
Tapfiliate is a user-friendly affiliate tracking and management software designed to help you grow your business through partnerships. By integrating Tapfiliate, you will be able to:
Track sales from your affiliates: Know exactly which customers came to your website or app through your affiliates. This means you can see which partners are driving traffic and sales, without any guesswork.
Attribute conversions accurately: When a visitor makes a purchase, signs up, or downloads your app, Tapfiliate automatically credits the correct affiliate. This ensures everyone gets fair recognition for their efforts.
Calculate commissions easily: Tapfiliate takes the hassle out of calculating payments. You can automatically pay your affiliates based on their performance, saving time and avoiding mistakes.
Get clear performance reports: See which affiliates are performing best, track trends over time, and make data-driven decisions to grow your affiliate program efficiently.
Tapfiliate turns your affiliate partnerships into a measurable, manageable, and profitable channel. Instead of manually tracking referrals and commissions, you get accurate data and actionable insights — helping you scale your business faster and reward your partners fairly.
How Tapfiliate's tracking code works
When a visitor clicks an affiliate link to your website, our tracking script reads the affiliate’s referral code and records it in a tap_vid cookie in the visitor’s browser. This cookie not only identifies which affiliate referred the user but also associates the conversion with the correct program. The visitor can then be tracked for the full lifetime of the cookie.
Cookie time refers to how long this cookie stays in the user’s browser, allowing conversions to be reliably tracked. By default, it’s 45 days, but it can be set anywhere from 30 to 90 days, with a maximum of 365 days.
Our tracking is highly reliable because the cookie directly links conversions to the affiliate’s referral code, ensuring accurate attribution even if the visitor returns to your site later.
You can configure a Program’s cookie time the following way:
Go to Programs → select your program → General settings
Set the preferred Cookie time in days
Click Save
Ways to Integrate Tapfiliate with Your Platform
There are several ways to connect Tapfiliate to your website or app, depending on your needs and technical resources:
Tapfiliate offers user-friendly integrations for platforms like Shopify, WordPress, WooCommerce, Wix, and many others. These can often be set up without developer assistance, making it quick and easy to get started.
Similar to Google Analytics, Tapfiliate provides a JS snippet that you embed on your site. Developer help may be required to install this correctly.
For more advanced or custom setups, Tapfiliate offers a REST API. This method allows for full customization, but developer support is usually needed.
4. Automation tools
You can also integrate Tapfiliate using automation platforms like Zapier or Make, or via Tapfiliate’s external Webhook feature. These options allow you to connect Tapfiliate with other tools and workflows, though developer help might be helpful for more complex automations.
It's possible to track affiliate-driven transactions with coupons provided that the platform you use has the capacity to generate coupon codes.
Coupon tracking can be set up through the REST API, Zapier, or Make. Depending on the tools you use, you may need assistance from a developer to complete the setup.
If you’re using Shopify, WooCommerce, or Teachable, coupon tracking is supported automatically once you complete the integration for that platform—no additional setup is required.
FAQ
❓I don't see my e-commerce platform listed. Can I still use Tapfiliate?
If your platform is not included in Tapfiliate’s list of supported platforms, you may still integrate Tapfiliate—it just might require some additional technical assistance. Supported platforms typically include step-by-step installation guides and do not require a developer.
However, for platforms that are not currently supported, you may need help from a developer to complete the setup. Tapfiliate can be integrated with any custom platform using either our JavaScript Integration Guide or our REST API Integration Guide.
❓How affiliate links are generated?
Tapfiliate automatically generates a unique URL for each affiliate by adding a referral parameter to your domain (for example: https://yourwebsite.com/?ref=ottlmtm).
❓Is cross-domain tracking supported?
Cross-domain tracking is not supported.
Our software works with first-party cookies, which only work for the domain in which they are initially sorted. These cookies cannot track across different domains.
❓What kind of technical support can I get?
Our technical support can help with:
Reviewing your use case and suggesting how the flow can be implemented
Pointing you to relevant code snippets in our technical library
Outlining the type of code your developers would need to create for the setup
What we don’t provide is the creation of custom code for individual clients. Essentially, we guide and support your team, while your developers implement the code on your site.