Definition
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.
It exists for channels where nobody clicks. A podcast, a video, a conference talk, a flyer: the listener remembers a code and types it themselves at checkout. No link was clicked, so no cookie exists — the coupon is the only bridge between the recommendation and the sale.
It also acts as a safety net everywhere else. Expired cookie, browser that cleared it, purchase from a different device than the click: the code entered at checkout recovers an attribution that would otherwise have been lost.
It has two costs, worth knowing before rolling it out everywhere. First it implies a discount, so margin lost on top of the commission. Second it attributes the sale even when the visitor came from somewhere else — someone who was going to buy anyway can search for “promo code” and hand a commission to an affiliate who brought nothing. That is why coupons are the last resort in attribution, never the first.
At earnwithaffiliate
Coupons are created in Stripe automatically from the Launch plan, and the webhook only falls back to them after every other attribution path has failed.
Related terms
Affiliate link
An affiliate link is a URL that identifies the affiliate who shared it, usually through a parameter such as ?via= or ?ref=.
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.
Referral code
A referral code identifies an affiliate inside a program. It is what appears in every shared link and, often, in the matching coupon.