How Affiliate Networks Work Behind a Cashback Site

Behind every cashback payment sits a chain a shopper never sees: the shop, an affiliate network, the website that sent the customer, and a tracking system all three have to agree with before anyone is paid. Here is that chain from the inside.

What an affiliate network is

An affiliate network is a layer between shops and the websites that send them buyers. The shop wants orders, the website wants paying for sending them. The network runs the parts neither side wants to build: tracking links, the record of which order came from which partner, contracts, invoices and the transfer of money. It is a clearing house: a shop joins once and is reachable for thousands of partner sites, and a partner joins once and can reach thousands of shops.

Why a shop does not do this alone

A few large retailers run their own programme. Most hand it over, because the work never ends:

• Tracking has to keep working across browsers, phones and privacy settings, and those change every year.
• Every partner needs a contract, a tax record and a payout, often in another country and currency.
• Fraud has to be filtered out, from fake traffic to partners claiming orders they never sent.

The chain from click to payout

Six things have to happen in order. If one breaks, nothing is paid.

• Click. Your link passes through the network first, which notes that the visit came from this partner.
• Cookie. The network leaves a marker in your browser with a lifetime the shop sets, sometimes a day, sometimes weeks.
• Order. You buy, and the shop reports the basket value and that marker back.
• Report. The network matches order to partner and shows the commission as pending: claimed, not earned.
• Confirmation. After the return period and its own check, the shop confirms or rejects the order.
• Payout. The shop pays the network, the network pays the partner, the partner pays its members.

Why the money takes so long

The delay is not a cashback site sitting on your money. No shop confirms while you can still send the goods back, so the return window has to run out. Then it checks its records in a batch, usually monthly, and the network then invoices and waits for payment on normal terms.

At Coin7 the usual span is 30 to 90 days, longer for travel, because a hotel or flight counts once the trip has been taken, not when it was booked. Cancelled or returned orders bring nothing, since the shop never confirms them.

What the network earns, and what is left for you

The shop pays the commission for the order plus the network’s own share on top, and usually a platform fee as well. The partner sees only its own part, so the shop’s real cost per sale is higher than the rate a cashback site quotes. It is still worth paying, because it is paid for a completed order, not for an advert that may not work.

A cashback site is one of those partners. Coin7 works through four networks: Awin, CJ Affiliate, Impact and the eBay Partner Network. Part of a confirmed commission runs the site, part goes back to the member who caused the sale. That is why anything can be handed back and why nothing is added to your bill: your price in the shop is unchanged. It also explains the rules. Rates are checked daily because shops change them, payout starts at 20 euro by bank transfer or PayPal, and no amount is guaranteed, because the last word belongs to the shop.