Just to add that in practice for the most part I have really only seen local cookies being used by Merchant more worried about multiple sales showing across Networks, very few of them actually have the tracking systems to know what is going on with there own other activates in great deal, most Merchants couldn’t tell you how many of there customer come via the Affiliate Channel later lead on to additional income for the Merchant that they don’t have to pay Affiliate or Networks for, at least this has been my experience.

This leads to a much larger discussion of commission structures and best business practices when running an affiliate program within a larger multi channel marketing environment. I just don’t think the big US networks want to get involved in that conversation because it would cause a huge disruption in their platform, their value proposition, and their bottom line. My company, KowaBunga, is an exception, as it has a platform that uses a local cookie to track all incoming links as well as storing every source of traffic one customer may have come through. But I’m not here to push my company, I’m really interested to see what everyone thinks of this issue.

Basically what I am saying in my article is the last source = gets the sale, be it Affiliate or Merchants own non-affiliate activities, expect SEO or direct to site traffic. Many Merchants doing PPC or employing an Agency to do it are annoyed to find they are paying for both the PPC and the Affiliate activity and this is simply a fair way to make sure the correct person responsible for the sale is paid out. It is the same as if the PPC ad was an Affiliate one, the last referring source, was another Affiliate, or Merchants own campaign.

Take the time to work out the benefits this can have for you and your affiliates. I probably say this too often, but like most great ideas it’s simple common sense (with a nifty bit of scripting thrown in).