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Affiliate Return Days or Cookie Life Policy

Beth Dugan- Technical Writer

Last edited: September 10, 2024 12:21

Introduction

Return days are the number of days that can elapse between a referred customer's initial visit from your site to the advertiser's site and a return visit to the advertiser's site in which they make a purchase, also known as a cookie life. If a customer makes a purchase within the return days period, the referring publisher receives a commission on the sale, even if the visitor returns directly to the advertiser’s site.

Requirements for Participation

Each advertiser sets its own rules for publisher participation in its affiliate program, so the steps vary from advertiser to advertiser. Carefully review the terms of your engagements with each of your advertiser partners. When in doubt, contact the advertiser directly.

Best Practices

Note

Some advertisers regulate the purchase of keywords based on their name, brands, and trademarks, so you should consult with those advertisers before attempting to acquire search placement on their behalf.

To benefit from an advertiser's return day policy, you must have delivered the consumer to the advertiser's site.

You deliver a user to an advertiser if, after receiving a clear indication from that user that they are interested in viewing an advertiser's offerings, you direct that user to the relevant page on the advertiser's site.

Examples of this include, but are not limited to; click + for more information:

Direct Link to Advertiser Site:

Displaying an advertiser's link on your site so when a user clicks on that link they are redirected to the advertiser's site.

Direct Link Within Publisher Site or Indirect Link to Advertiser Site:

Displaying the advertiser's link on your site so a user clicks on that link, they are redirected to another page on your site devoted to that advertiser. At the same time, a fully visible window displaying the relevant page of the advertiser's site opens over or under your web page.

Search Link Within Publisher Site or Indirect Link to Advertiser Site:

Permit the user to use the search features integrated into your site to conduct a search of your site in order to locate an advertiser's offerings and then redirect the user to or open a fully visible window displaying the specific advertiser's site as part of the search results.

In this example, the user's search query must include some specific reference to the advertiser, like the advertiser's name or its products, as opposed to generic search terms.

Search Link to Publisher Site or Indirect Link to Advertiser Site:

Acquiring search placement on third-party search engines on behalf of a specific advertiser so that when a user clicks on your listing in the search results, the user is redirected to a page on your site devoted to that advertiser or the advertiser's products. At the same time, a full-sized window displaying the advertiser's relevant page pops over or under the window containing your page. In this example, the user's search query must include some specific reference to the advertiser, like the advertiser's name or its products, as opposed to generic search terms.

Practices to Avoid

Rakuten Advertising will terminate your participation if you are found by us to be gaming or trying to beat the system. By establishing these basic guidelines, we are in no way attempting to discourage you from optimizing and improving the ways you promote the products and services of your advertiser partners. We do want to make sure that you act in an ethical and responsible fashion, with your focus being on adding value to the advertiser's affiliate marketing program.

Next Steps

We understand that you may have questions or concerns as to whether one of your current or proposed promotional strategies is consistent with these guidelines. If you do, contact Customer Support.

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