How Many Return Days?

Return Days are the number of days after a visitor clicks on your affiliate link for which
you will still receive commissions. Your website visitors may not always complete a
purchase at the time they click through to a merchant's website. Return Days allow
merchants to compensate you for sales that occur after a visitor's initial click-through
from your website. The longer the Return Days, the more opportunities you will have to
get a commission. Return Days are tracked using cookies.
The length of a Return cookie varies by merchant. Some merchants only offer sessionbased
cookies. This means that the visitor must make a purchase within the same session
that they clicked on your affiliate link. Once they close their browser, the Return cookie
expires. If the visitor were to return to the merchant's website the next day, you would not
get a commission.


Other merchants have permanent Return cookies. Permanent Return cookies have no
expiration date. This means that if a visitor clicks on your affiliate link you will get a
commission no matter when the visitor returns back to make a purchase. The only
exceptions being that the visitor deletes the cookies on their computer, or another affiliate
is credited with the sale because the visitor clicked on their affiliate link more recently
than yours. (The affiliate whose link is clicked on last is usually credited with the sale.)
I prefer to work with merchants that have a Return cookie that lasts 30 days or more. This
allows me to receive commissions for visitors that are at the beginning of the buying
cycle and aren't quite ready to make a purchase. The majority of your website visitors
may purchase from your merchant's website within 24 hours, but many will wait a few
days or a even few weeks to make a purchase. As a rule of thumb, I don't work with
merchants that don't at least have a 7 day Return cookie.

What is the Merchant's Reversal Rate?

A merchant's reversal rate is not something that should be overlooked. Reversals can
happen for a number of reasons:
• Products or services were returned by the customer
• The order was cancelled by the customer
• The order was fraudulent
• The order could not be fulfilled by the merchant (out of stock)

Unfortunately, reversal rates are not published by the merchants. I recommend that you
either call or e-mail the Affiliate Program Manager to get this information. If you know
another affiliate that is currently promoting a particular merchant, you may want to ask
them too. Your reversal rate may be higher or lower depending on a number of factors,
but it's nice to get a general idea before you proceed to work with a merchant.

Real Life Example:
Reversal rates vary by industry and merchant. One of the highest return rates I have ever
witnessed is in the online shoes category. Return rates average between 20-40%. This
return rate must be factored into your profitability calculations or you will be sorely
disappointed when the reversals come through. This doesn't mean that you can't make a
profit from shoes; I know several affiliates that do, despite the high reversal rate.