How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?

A cookie is a technology that works with web browsers to store information like user preferences, login or registration information, and shopping cart contents. Have you ever opted-in to have a website "remember" your password and username for one of your online accounts? That's a cookie. Ever notice while searching the web for "travel deals" and you suddenly start seeing travel display banners on other websites? Those ads are appearing for you because you've been cookied (it's okay, you won't get hurt).

In affiliate marketing, one task that cookies manage is to remember the link or ad the visitor to a website clicks on. Cookies can also store the date and time of the click, they can even be used to remember what kind of websites or content you like most. There are many different types of web cookies and uses, but the kind of cookie affiliate marketing relies on is called a first-party cookie.

When a user visits a publisher's website and clicks an advertiser's creative ad, the visitor's browser receives the CJ tracking cookie that identifies the advertiser, the publisher, the specific creative and commission amount. This data is stored within the link information in what are called "parameters" and can include even more anonymous data used for attribution.


The sample link below includes some of the identifiers Commission Junction uses to enable proper tracking and auditing of the affiliate marketing process:<a href="http://www.tkqlhce.com/click-5377085-10590299?sid=012-123" target="_blank"> webservices.cj.com</a><img border="0" height="1" src="http://www.ftjcfx.com/image-5377085-10590299" width="1" height="1" border="0" />
PID: 5377085
PID (publisher website ID) is used to identify the publisher's website. A CJ publisher may have multiple PIDs under one single CJ account (e.g. if you maintain multiple websites, you will have multiple PIDs).
AID: 10590299
The AID (ad ID) is a number which identifies a specific link and enables CJ to track creative performance as well as credit the publisher when they earn a commissionable transaction. Because each link has a unique AID, it also allows CJ to identify the appropriate advertiser.
SID: 012-123
SID (shopper ID) enables publisher to track where their referred actions originated so they can target and/or reward their unique shoppers. When the visitor makes a purchase or completes a lead form, that transaction is tracked and recorded by Commission Junction.

The CJ Network is capable of tracking and processing an enormous volume of actions and transactions. In 2011 alone, Commission Junction tracked a total of over 3 billion website visits, 175 million transactions and over $6 billion in online sales.