Commission payments are the life-blood of any affiliate marketing business. To stay in business affiliate marketers need to maximize potential commission payments and then work to grow that business. ClickFunnels users already know the awesome power of the ClickFunnels Sticky Cookie and the positive impact that it can have on increasing commissions. For those of you who haven’t yet added ClickFunnels to your list of preferred high-ticket affiliate marketing programs, you’ll definitely want to consider becoming a ClickFunnels affiliate. This guide is designed to teach you exactly how the sticky cookie can help boost commission payments. If that excites you then I invite you to keep reading.
What is the ClickFunnels Sticky Cookie
Most people these days already know what Internet cookies are. Computer cookies are not the kind you eat. They are the digital kind – nothing more than little text files that get downloaded to your computer when visiting a website. Those text files contain information about what you did on the website you visited.
For example, when you login to your bank’s website to access your account the banking website is programmed to create a file – called a “cookie” – on your hard drive that does certain things like remember what username you used to login with. Cookies are basically used for tracking what you do when you visit a website.
ClickFunnels also use Internet cookies but they use them to keep track of visitors that click on your affiliate links. Affiliate tracking cookies are extremely important if you want to get paid for your promotional efforts. For tracking commissions earned by affiliates they use something called a Sticky Cookie.
How Does the Sticky Cookie Work?
If someone clicks on your ClickFunnels affiliate link it’s the Sticky Cookie that is responsible for tracking those clicks. Immediately after someone clicks on your affiliate link their device is tagged with a ClickFunnels Sticky Cookie. You are given credit for any purchases that your visitor makes after they click your affiliate link. If your new customer buys anything more from ClickFunnels then you automatically earn additional commissions for those purchases, even if they purchase days, weeks, or months later.
There is one catch to this that you should be aware of though.
Imagine two different affiliates, one being yourself, send an affiliate link to someone who has never purchased anything from ClickFunnels.
What happens then?
Who gets credit for those purchases?
The answer is that the affiliate link that was clicked last wins the customer purchase.
The likelihood that this scenario would happen is pretty low unless your visitor is being targeted by multiple affiliates. Is it possible? Yes. Is it likely? Probably not. I wouldn’t waste your time losing sleep over it. Just be aware of it and try to avoid having that happen if possible.
The “sticky” cookie recognizes that the buyer was originally sent from you, and you receive a monthly recurring ClickFunnels commission for that purchase, and commission for any other products that the customer buys.
Sticky Cookies Help Increase Commissions
One of the greatest things about the ClickFunnels affiliate program, which has quickly become one of the best in the industry, is the Sticky Cookie. Your commission payments don’t stop with the first purchase. Once a customer device is tagged with a Sticky Cookie their email address is tied to your affiliate ID on the very first purchase.
What this means is you’ll receive commissions payments on any additional purchases that your buyer makes later on. ClickFunnels keeps track of the affiliate that referred the buyer to them and pays additional commissions to that affiliate (i.e. YOU) on all other purchases made by the customer. Simply being aware of how this works will help you to focus on maximizing your affiliate commissions and that will dramatically increase the Lifetime Value (LTV) of a customer over time.
The Power of the ClickFunnels Sticky Cookie
It’s important to understand fully the awesome power of Sticky Cookies because they can make a very positive impact on your affiliate marketing business. The Sticky Cookie is responsible for helping you earn the maximum amount of commissions possible by simply doing the work required to initiate a single transaction.
More money with less work – that’s just one of the many reasons why affiliates love working with ClickFunnels. They could simply choose to not use Sticky Cookies at all and instead just pay a one-time commission like many other companies do. Instead, ClickFunnels does what is in the best interest of the affiliate by paying them more money for their efforts!
Not all companies are as generous with commission payments to their affiliates. For example, let’s consider the very well-known Amazon Associates affiliate program. One major downside to the Amazon Associates program is the very low advertising fees they pay affiliates. Adding insult to injury, Amazon also expires your affiliate cookie after 24 hours so if the visitor doesn’t add anything to their online shopping cart within 24 hours of clicking your affiliate link then you earn a total of $0.00 (that’s ZERO dollars).
Even if the visitor you referred eventually ends up buying something from Amazon later on (after the 24-hour cookie expires) you won’t be paid anything for it. In my opinion, that is a complete rip off because you took the time and effort to generate free traffic for Amazon, they made a sale and got paid for it, but they didn’t pay you anything. Essentially, you just did free advertising for one of biggest companies in the world and got nothing.
Check out this Question & Answer from the help section on Amazon’s website that explains how advertising fees (i.e. commission payments) are determined.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t incorporate Amazon’s affiliate program into your business, but if you do just be aware that your commissions are going to be very low. What I am saying, however, is the Amazon Associates program is a rip off in my opinion because their payouts are so incredibly low. That’s why it makes sense to add at least one high-ticket affiliate program, like ClickFunnels, to your affiliate marketing toolbox. It’s just as easy to sell a high-ticket product as it is to sell a low-ticket product. And, adding high-ticket products to your business ensures you make more money. So, why wouldn’t you do it?
Visitors With Multiple Devices
With the ClickFunnels Affiliate Program, as soon as someone clicks your affiliate link and opts in with their email address, they are attached to you, the affiliate, no matter what device they may use to make a ClickFunnels purchase in the future.
So let’s say that someone clicks on your affiliate link and then makes a purchase. Of course you’ll get commission for that purchase. But, fast forward a little and consider what happens when they purchase additional ClickFunnels products. You also get commission payments for that.
This is absolutely what you want to happen if you’re the affiliate because it means increased commission payments for you regardless what device your customer uses to make the purchase. So if they don’t make a purchase immediately you can still earn a commission later when they finally do decide to buy or when they make additional purchases in the future. And, it doesn’t matter if they use a different device when they make a purchase later on.
The ClickFunnels Sticky Cookie ensures that you are still credited with referring your visitor to ClickFunnels even if they don’t make a purchase from the device they originally used to click on your link.
How To Never Lose Potential Commissions
Remember earlier when I said that if a visitor clicks on affiliate links from different ClickFunnels affiliates that the most recent click wins the commission? That can be very frustrating and cause you to lose out on a commission you should have been entitled to.
If you were the affiliate who most recently got the attention of your visitor but for some reason they were still tagged with a different ClickFunnels affiliate ID the other affiliate would get paid instead of you. Boo! That’s no fun. Another way that your affiliate ID would not be in a cookie on their device is if they cleared their browser cookies.
To prevent these kind of problems from happening I’m going to show you how to help your customer check which affiliate ID is on their computer. I’ve provided instructions for Google Chrome and Firefox below.
Chrome: How to Find the Active Affiliate ID
It’s very simple to find the ClickFunnels affiliate ID in Google Chrome. Just open Chrome and type this URL into the address bar exactly as shown here:
chrome://settings/cookies/detail?site=clickfunnels.com
In the Settings window you’ll see affiliate_id. Click the arrow to the right of it to expand it. You’ll then see Content. The 6 or 7 digit number under Content is the active ClickFunnels affiliate ID. If it’s not your affiliate ID then you’ll want to make sure that your visitor clicks your affiliate link to overwrite the previous affiliate ID especially if you’re offering them bonuses for purchasing with your affiliate link.
If they don’t click on your affiliate link, but then make a purchase, the previous affiliate will be paid a commission instead of you. In addition, they won’t qualify for any bonuses you’re offering since they didn’t technically buy through you.
Firefox: How to Find the Active Affiliate ID
It’s not nearly as easy to find the ClickFunnels affiliate ID in Firefox but it’s still possible so don’t worry. The process involves opening the Firefox Storage Inspector. It may sound scary but it’s not.
Here’s the process:
First, open Firefox (on the visitor’s computer) and then browse to clickfunnels.com. After the ClickFunnels page loads press Shift + F9 on the keyboard to open the Storage Inspector. You should now see a window in the bottom half of Firefox that looks like the one below.
- First make sure that the Storage tab is selected.
- Then on the left side of that window expand Cookies.
- Under Cookies click on https://www.clickfunnels.com to highlight it.
- On the right side you’ll see affiliate_id under the Name column.
- Click on affiliate_id to highlight it.
- On the far right side, under the Value column, you’ll see a 6 or 7 digit number.
That 6 or 7 digit number is the currently active ClickFunnels affiliate ID in Firefox so make sure it’s your affiliate ID. If it’s not, then have your visitor click on your affiliate link (again if necessary). After they click your affiliate link check Firefox Storage Inspector once more to make sure that affiliate_ID now shows your affiliate ID under the Value column.
By doing this you will confirm positively that your buyer is going to be tied to your affiliate ID and you’ll get paid the commission for it.
IMPORTANT: Be sure your buyer isn’t trying to view your affiliate link in a Firefox “private window” session. If they are then the cookie will not be downloaded to their device.
Forget About the Technical Stuff
If you found the last two sections too technically confusing or overwhelming then let me put your mind at ease and offer you a simple solution to ensure your affiliate ID is the one that gets credit for the sale.
The only thing you need to do is simply have the buyer click your ClickFunnels affiliate link before making a purchase. Assuming you’re in a position to actually communicate with the person who will be buying from you, all you have to do is make sure they click your link. That’s it because once they do that then your affiliate ID will be the active ID on their computer or device and you should have no problem earning your commission for anything they buy – now or in the future.
