: How can affiliate sales be tracked across a users various devices? Someone, with who I will have an affiliate link partnership, has put a link to my e-shop: http://www.example.com/?source=userA.

@Deb1703797

There's no way of knowing if someone using device B actually first found your website on device A. This is the fatal flaw of affiliate marketing, and the networks really have little incentive to do anything about it.... which they probably can't anyway.

I find it incredible that your are an honest web merchant who wants to honestly reward his affiliates. Wow, wonders never cease!! The trouble is that most merchants (and for that matter affiliate platforms) are only too happy to "lose" the contact with the "first click" or prime mover of an internet sale. In such cases either no affiliate commission is paid (great from the merchant's point of view) , or else the commission goes to the affiliate network (great from the network's point of view) as they "don't know" which affiliate to reward, so keep the full commission for themselves instead of splitting it with an affiliate.

The trouble is that this dilemma is in most cases insoluble unless the purchaser already accomplishes the first stage of a sale on the first visit, and then returns via a ticket number. Otherwise, except with some synced devices, there's no way of knowing if someone using device B actually first found your website on device A.

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