Definition
Cookie duration
Cookie duration is how long a sale stays attributed to the affiliate who brought the visitor. Past that window, the purchase earns no commission.
A visitor clicks, does not convert, comes back three weeks later and buys. Is it still the affiliate's sale? Cookie duration answers that and nothing else: thirty days means thirty days for the click to turn into a customer.
Thirty to sixty days is the SaaS norm, ninety on long B2B decision cycles. Too short a window penalises exactly the affiliates you want — the ones whose content converts slowly, comparisons and tutorials — and they notice the moment they compare programs. Too long, and it attributes sales the affiliate no longer influenced, with coupon sites the first beneficiaries.
Two details that change real behaviour: under last-click attribution the clock restarts on every new click; and the cookie is set by the merchant's own site, not by the affiliate platform, which is what determines whether it survives in modern browsers.
At earnwithaffiliate
Configurable per campaign, with no imposed ceiling. The value you choose is what actually drives the expiry of the cookie set on the merchant's site.
Related terms
Attribution
Attribution is the rule that decides which affiliate a sale belongs to. Without it, a purchase preceded by three clicks belongs to no one — or to everyone.
First-party cookie
A first-party cookie is set by the site being visited, not by a third-party domain. It is what lets affiliate tracking survive Safari and ad blockers.
Tracked coupon
A tracked coupon is a discount code tied to an affiliate: any sale using it is attributed to them, even if nobody ever clicked their link.