Why Your Affiliate Program Should Have a Lifetime Cookie

by Matt McWilliams | Jun 22, 2017 | Affiliate Marketing, Videos

How long should your affiliate cookie be good for? I get asked this question a lot and there are several different schools of thought. Today I will share with you why you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by offering a lifetime cookie.

Last updated: November 11, 2026

When one of my earliest programs launched, the tracking software defaulted to a 30-day cookie, and I used it without much thought. A purchase within 30 days earned the affiliate a commission. A purchase on day 31 earned nothing. Several of our better affiliates pushed back and asked why a customer who bought on day 31 wouldn’t earn them a commission.

Instead of guessing what a change would cost, I pulled the transaction data. Less than 3% of purchases happened more than 30 days after the original referral. So I extended the cookie to lifetime for the entire program, instead of negotiating longer windows one big partner at a time. Anyone who legitimately referred a customer deserved credit, whatever their size.

It also became a recruiting differentiator. Most competing programs advertised 30, 60, or 90-day cookies, and we could advertise lifetime tracking. There was a side benefit too. Affiliates who had stopped promoting sometimes earned a commission months, or even a year, later from an old referral. My team used that as a re-engagement email: “Hey, you made another commission from someone you referred a long time ago. We’ve got a new promotion coming up. Interested?”

I don’t have a number for how much extra recruiting or revenue the lifetime cookie brought in. The only figure I can give you is the transaction data. Even so, it changed how I design programs. I decide from the data and from what affiliates actually need, not from whatever the software defaults to.