Welcome to our Launching Your Affiliate Marketing Journey series, where we help you take off in the field of travel affiliate marketing. In this video, we will discuss what cookies are and what to keep in mind when choosing a brand to work with.
Hello and welcome back! Today, let’s talk about cookies. And these are not the deliciously sweet treats you feel guilty about after eating. In affiliate marketing, cookies are small files stored on the user’s computer, and they are used for tracking your affiliate sales.
Cookies enable our brands to track who you are sending to their site, who ends up making a purchase and then attribute this sale to you. Cookies are extremely important in affiliate marketing because these tiny pieces of code ensure no affiliate sale gets lost and that publishers get paid fairly.
When browsing the different brands you can work with, you will see their cookie lifetime listed. This is how long the brand tracks someone after the person clicks on your affiliate link. In Travelpayouts, most brands have a cookie lifetime of 30 days – but some offer as long as 365 days, or as little as 7 days, 30 minutes, or only one session! You can see the exact cookie lifetime when browsing brands on the left-hand side.
You want to keep cookie lifetime and your audience in mind when choosing your program. Let’s say you know that your audience is still early in their travel booking journey, just exploring destination options. Then, you need to opt for programs with longer cookie lifetimes. But if your audience has made it to the booking stage, a short cookie lifetime will also work for you. Sometimes even a one-session cookie can be enough to drive an affiliate sale!
Let’s do a quick recap.
In the next tutorial, we will chat about geotargeting, what this is and why it is important.
Meanwhile, why don’t you check out the various brands we offer and decide what cookie lifetime works best for your audience?