By industry · E-commerce & retail
Ecommerce affiliate
programs, net of returns.
Retail pays a share of the order — and the order keeps moving after the click. Items go back one at a time, product groups carry their own rates, and a code the shopper found somewhere else can change who gets credited. Reading a retail brief is mostly about those three.
- Confirmed after the return window
- Rates can differ by product category
- Official, dated promo codes only
- Qualifying action
- An order the advertiser accepts and keeps
- Payout models
- A share of the order, a flat fee per order, or both
- Validation
- Pending until the return window closes
- Promo codes
- Official, dated, and issued per publisher
Running a store and looking for a platform to host your own program? That is the advertiser side — retail and e-commerce brands covers category rates, voucher governance and store integrations, and how offers from several networks are merged into one format. Everything below is written for publishers sending traffic.
What is in this category
Twelve shapes under one label
“Retail” covers a marketplace with a million products and a single-brand store with forty. They differ on the things that decide your earnings — the rate table, the return exposure and how long a link stays good. Find the shape your audience buys from.
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Marketplaces & multi-brand retailers
One campaign over thousands of products, so the category rate table does the real work, not the headline rate.
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Single-brand DTC stores
One catalogue, one price point, usually one rate — and often a separate amount for a first-time buyer.
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Fashion, apparel & footwear
The highest return exposure in retail. Commission confirms on what the shopper keeps, and sale lines can carry their own rate.
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Beauty & personal care
Repeat purchase is the economics. The first order and the subscription that follows are usually priced separately.
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Consumer electronics
Thin margins across a wide basket. Rates are applied per item, so an accessory is not paid like the device it plugs into.
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Home, garden & furniture
High tickets and long consideration, so the attribution window and the validation delay are both set longer to match.
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Grocery, drinks & meal kits
Delivery is local. A national audience converts in a fraction of its postcodes, so read the market list before you buy reach.
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Organic, natural & certified goods
Sold on sourcing and certification. Every claim has to be the advertiser's own wording — anything that reads as a health claim goes further still.
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Pet, sports & hobby
Narrow audiences that buy again on a schedule. Baskets are small; replenishment is the whole point.
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Toys, baby & gifting
Deadline-driven. Stock levels and delivery cut-offs end the season before the calendar does.
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Subscription boxes & replenishment
The first box and the renewals are two payout lines. Check which one the brief is quoting.
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Refurbished, resale & outlet
Stock is one-off, so product links die fast. Check whether the brief lets you deep link to a category instead of a unit.
Close neighbours have their own pages: supplements and anything carrying a health claim sit under the strictest rulebook on offer categories, digital subscriptions belong to SaaS and cloud campaigns, and shopping apps promoted on installs are mobile app campaigns. The segment with the highest return exposure has a page of its own — fashion and apparel affiliate programs covers what fit, sale lines and sold-out stock do to a clothing payout, and the shelf where one order buys a subscriber is on subscription box affiliate programs. The shelf where the per-item rule bites hardest has one too — electronics affiliate programs covers what a device, its accessories, a care plan and a gift card in one basket each do to the payout, and why the model number dates the page. Every row above sells to a shopper; the same catalogues also have a door a shopper may not walk through, where the buyer is approved before a price is shown — wholesale affiliate programs. And the deadline-driven row above has a page of its own, for the one shelf where the person paying never uses what they bought — seasonal and gifts affiliate programs. The rest of that row — everything a parent buys rather than a gift-giver — runs on a second clock entirely, because the audience ages out of every page it lands on: baby and kids products affiliate programs sorts the shelf by the window each purchase is made in. The home, garden and furniture row has one as well, for the shelf where the reader is finishing a project rather than buying a product — home and lifestyle affiliate programs follows the five moves a build is bought in, and why the window decides which of them you are paid for. The furniture half of the same row is a different problem again, because the thing has to be built, carried in and kept before anyone is paid — home decor and furniture affiliate programs reads the chain between the order and the balance, including what a sleep trial does to it. The accessories end of the fashion row also splits off, onto the shelf where fit stops causing the returns and verification takes over — jewelry and watch affiliate programs covers the check a high-value order has to clear and the brand permission a page needs. The price band those pieces sit in cuts across several rows at once, and it takes away the lever the rest of retail runs on — luxury goods affiliate programs is what a publisher does when a discount, a code and a “best price” angle are all terms on the brief rather than tactics. The grocery row is the one shelf where the product travels shorter than your page does, so it has a page too: food and beverage affiliate programs sorts baking, coffee, tea, fresh boxes and takeaway by how far each one can actually be delivered, and what that does to the market list. The shop itself is a second page again, because a weekly delivery is the one order in retail that keeps changing after it is placed — grocery affiliate programs reads substitutions, amendments and the departments that never earn. Beauty and personal care splits on a different line — what the product claims, rather than what it is — so a lipstick and an acne treatment end up under two different rulebooks: beauty and skincare affiliate programs sorts ten shelves by which side of that line they fall on, and by what a publisher may actually describe. What is live right now is in the campaign index.
Seasonality
Retail terms have a date on them
No other category on this network reprices itself four times a year. Plan a retail page around the calendar, then re-read the brief before each peak instead of trusting the version you first read.
- Spring refresh
- Easter
- Mother's Day
- Summer sale
- Back to school
- Singles' Day
- Black Friday
- Cyber Monday
- Christmas cut-offs
- Boxing Day
- January sales
- Valentine's Day
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Rates and caps move with it
Advertisers revisit both against their own trading calendar. The rate you priced a page around in September is not automatically the rate in November.
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Codes are issued per promotion
A code is allocated to a named publisher with an end date on it. One that outlives its window is a policy breach, not a bonus.
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Stock decides the late clicks
A deep link to a sold-out product converts nothing, and a delivery cut-off closes the season days before the sale page says it ends.
The number behind the rate
A percentage of what, exactly
This is the question that separates two retail briefs quoting the same figure. Five lines decide what actually reaches your balance, and all five sit on the brief before you apply.
- 01
The item, not the order
Rates are applied per item, so a basket spanning two product groups settles at two rates. The brief lists the split before you apply.
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What comes off first
Shipping, taxes, gift wrap and gift cards are commonly outside the commissionable amount. The brief names the base — read it before you model a rate.
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Part-returned baskets
A partial return reduces the commission proportionally rather than cancelling it. A full refund reverses the conversion outright.
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New buyer, returning buyer
Some campaigns add a bonus for a first-time customer, and some pay a lower rate on someone the store already had.
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Who else touched the sale
A code entered at checkout can change who gets credited. The brief states the attribution rule and how a coupon click is treated — that line is worth more than the headline rate to a deal site.
What pays
Three ways a retail campaign pays
The brief names which model is live and the exact action it fires on. This is what each one means once a basket is what is being sold.
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CPS
A share of the order
A percentage of the basket that survives.
The default shape in retail. What decides your earnings is not the percentage but the base it runs on and the category table behind it: two campaigns quoting the same number can settle very differently on the same basket.
Suits catalogue, review and comparison traffic.
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CPA
A flat fee per order
One amount, whatever the basket.
Used where order values barely move, on single-unit products, and as a new-customer bonus sitting on top of a percentage. Easier to forecast, and it makes the qualifying action the only line you have to check.
Suits single-product and acquisition-led campaigns.
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RevShare
A share that keeps paying
It repeats while the customer keeps buying.
Fits subscription boxes, replenishment and membership retail. Retail briefs also use “revenue share” loosely for a plain percentage of one order, so read the base and whether anything after the first order pays at all.
Suits audiences that buy on a schedule.
Hybrids are common in retail — a percentage of the basket with a flat bonus on a first-time customer. Compare the models in full before you decide which one your traffic is really built for.
How you actually promote
Codes, feeds and links
Retail is the one category where the discount itself is part of the mechanic. Three things to wire up, and one rule that runs through all of them: what you publish has to match what the advertiser is actually offering right now.
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Codes
- Only codes the advertiser issued, inside the dates they issued them for
- Vanity codes are tied to your account, so a buyer who types one straight into checkout still credits you
- Nothing invented, nothing scraped, and no discount implied when there is none
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Feeds
- An offers feed carries campaign, destination, payout model, GEOs and the incentive flag
- A coupon feed carries live codes with their value, terms and end date, so a listing can retire itself
- The advertiser decides which categories are promotable and who gets feed access
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Links
- Deep link to the product page the reader came for, not the store's front door
- Label placements with sub IDs so a guide, a grid and a newsletter report separately
- Fire a test click and confirm the postback before a promotion goes live
Timing
From click to cleared balance
Six stages, and the two in the middle belong to the shopper. This is why a retail balance lags the sale that earned it, even though the checkout was instant.
- 1
The click is stamped
Your tracking link carries a click ID. A coupon code tied to your account can stand in for it when the buyer never clicked at all.
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The order is placed
It shows as pending, at the basket value at checkout. Nothing is earned yet, and the amount can still change.
- 3
The order is fulfilled
Cancelled and duplicate orders drop out here, before anyone talks about commission.
- 4
The return window runs
The shopper's window to send items back. Validation is matched to it, which is why retail conversions sit pending longer than the sale felt like it took.
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The basket is validated
Returned items come out, partial returns reduce the amount proportionally, and conversions from unauthorised codes are rejected rather than trimmed.
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The balance clears and is paid
Approved earnings wait out the campaign's hold, then join the next scheduled payment run on the network's calendar.
The stages are the same everywhere; what varies is the window in stage four. How earnings clear covers pending, approved, held and paid, and the payment schedule covers the dates a cleared balance actually leaves the account.
The rule here
Promo codes and discounts must be active and official. An expired or invented code is a policy breach, not a shortcut.
Before you apply
What to read on a retail brief
The checklist that applies to every vertical is on the campaigns page. These are the lines a retail brief is read for, four of which exist in no other category.
| Term | What it decides in retail | Where you see it |
|---|---|---|
| Qualifying action | An order the advertiser accepts and keeps. A placed order is not a confirmed one. | First line of the brief |
| Commission base | Whether the percentage runs on the item, the whole basket, or the basket minus shipping, tax and gift cards. | Payout section |
| Category rate table | Which product groups pay which rate, and which are excluded outright. A mixed basket settles at more than one. | Payout section |
| Customer type | Whether a first-time buyer carries a bonus and a returning one pays less. | Payout section |
| Return window | How long the sale stays reversible. Everything about when you get paid follows from it. | Brief, before you apply |
| Hold period | How long approved earnings wait after validation, before a payment run can pick them up. | Brief, before you apply |
| Voucher policy | Whether you may hold a code at all, which code, and the date it dies. | Promo section |
| Incentive tag | Whether cashback, loyalty and rewarded clicks are accepted — and whether they earn the same rate as content. | Traffic checklist |
| Brand bidding | Whether paid search may use the retailer's own name, and on which platforms. | Traffic checklist |
| Feeds and deep links | Which categories you may promote and whether the offers and coupon feeds are open to your account. | Creative section |
| Markets | Where the store actually ships. A click from a country it does not deliver to cannot convert. | Country list |
If you read only three, read the commission base, the category rate table and the voucher policy. The checklist that applies to every vertical is on affiliate programs, compared.
Traffic and markets
What you may run, and what nobody may
Retail governs its publishers more finely than any other category here — by code, by category and by channel. The advertiser's half of that changes campaign to campaign. Our half does not move at all.
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Cleared per campaign
- Whether cashback, loyalty and rewarded traffic carry the incentive tag
- Whether coupon and deal placements need written sign-off first
- Which named codes you may hold, and the expiry on each one
- Whether brand-term bidding is permitted, restricted or refused
- Which product categories are promotable, and who gets feed access
- The countries the store ships to, and any market it excludes
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Refused across the marketplace
- Expired, invented or scraped discount codes
- Incentivized clicks sent to a campaign that carries no incentive tag
- Toolbar and adware traffic, cookie stuffing and forced redirects
- False pricing, fake countdowns and invented review scores
- Any traffic source that is not on your application
Incentive traffic is not banned in retail — it is gated. Cashback, loyalty and rewarded clicks are accepted on campaigns the advertiser has tagged for them, refused on campaigns that carry no tag, and sometimes paid at a rate of their own. The tag is set per campaign, so the brief is the only place to check it.
Publisher fit
Match programs to how you publish
Retail takes more kinds of publisher than any other category here, and asks each of them a different question first. Find your row, settle that question, then shortlist.
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Shopping content and buying guides
Round-ups, comparisons and gift guides. Deep links into the product page carry the intent your article built.
Check: which categories you may promote
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Coupon and voucher portals
High-intent searchers who already know what they are buying. Your listing is only as good as the codes behind it.
Check: named code allocation and expiry
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Cashback and loyalty platforms
Converts extremely well and is governed tightly. Retail advertisers differ more on this than on anything else.
Check: the incentive tag, and the rate it carries
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Social commerce and creators
Product in use, bought in the same session. Short links per post keep each drop reporting separately.
Check: creative rules and pricing accuracy
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Email and newsletters
A permission-based list around a season or a niche is one of the few places a retail promotion can land twice.
Check: opt-in status and approved creatives
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Paid search and shopping ads
Costs land today, commission clears after the return window. Cash-flow that gap before you scale it.
Check: brand-bidding position per campaign
Discovery to promotion
Your first retail campaign, in order
Five steps, each stated once. The inside of the review and the mechanics of a tracking link live on their own pages.
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Shortlist by catalogue, not by rate
Open the category table first. A strong percentage on a product group the brief excludes is worth nothing to a page about that product group.
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Apply with the property that carries the links
Declare coupon, cashback or extension traffic at application. Campaign access is matched against what you declared, not against what you later add.
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Take deep links, and the feeds if you list offers
Product-level links for editorial, the offers and coupon feeds for listings that have to stay current on their own.
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Test one order end to end
Fire a test click, confirm the postback lands and the sub IDs read back the way you typed them. Do it before a promotion, not during one.
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Read approved, not pending
Judge a placement after the return window, by what survived it. Refund-heavy traffic gets reviewed, and the cause is usually the creative, not the shopper.
What a reviewer actually checks is on how approval works, and deep links, sub IDs and the test postback are set up step by step on the tracking links guide.
Questions
Retail campaign questions
What publishers ask most often before applying to e-commerce affiliate programs.
When is a retail sale confirmed?
After the advertiser's return window expires and the order is verified as delivered and unrefunded. Until then the conversion sits as pending in your dashboard.
What is the commission actually a percentage of?
Read the brief rather than assuming the basket total. Rates are applied per item, product groups can each carry their own rate, and shipping, taxes, gift wrap and gift cards are commonly outside the commissionable amount.
What happens if an order is refunded?
The commission is reversed before payout. Refund-heavy traffic patterns are reviewed, because they usually indicate a mismatch between the promise in the creative and the product.
And if only part of the basket goes back?
A partial return reduces the commission proportionally instead of cancelling it, so the amount that clears is the part the shopper kept. Fashion and footwear see this more than any other segment.
Can I run a coupon site?
Yes, on campaigns that accept coupon traffic. You may only publish codes the advertiser has supplied, within their stated validity dates, and you may not imply a discount exists when it does not.
Are cashback platforms accepted?
On campaigns explicitly tagged for incentivized traffic. Retail advertisers vary widely on this, so check the brief rather than assuming the network default.
Where do promo codes come from?
From the advertiser, allocated per publisher with an expiry date. Some campaigns also issue a vanity code against your account, which credits you even when the buyer typed it straight into checkout without clicking a link.
Is there a product feed?
There are two feeds, and they carry offers rather than a full catalogue: an offers feed with campaign, destination, payout model, countries and the incentive flag, and a coupon feed with live codes, their terms and their end dates. Product-level promotion runs on deep links, and the advertiser decides which categories are promotable.
Can I bid on the retailer's brand name?
Only where the campaign permits it. Brand bidding is prohibited by default across the network, and the brief states each advertiser's position on brand terms and ad platforms.
I run an online store. Is this where I set up my own program?
No — this page is for publishers sending traffic. Brands looking for an ecommerce affiliate platform to run their own program start on the retail and e-commerce brands page, which covers category rates, voucher governance, basket-level attribution and store integrations.
Keep exploring
Related categories
Categories that share an audience, a traffic pattern or a commission structure with retail.
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Mobile Apps & Utilities
iOS and Android campaigns covering utilities, subscriptions and in-app purchases, with GEO and placement rules stated up front.
Open category -
Travel & Hospitality
Booking platforms, accommodation providers and travel services with commission confirmed after stay or departure.
Open category -
Digital Services
Web platforms, hosting, online tools and professional digital products with straightforward, well-documented conversion events.
Open category -
Business Services
B2B service advertisers — from company formation to accounting and operations tooling — paying on qualified business leads.
Open category
Keep reading
- Affiliate programs, compared The terms checklist that applies to every vertical
- Payout models CPA, CPL and RevShare side by side
- Offer categories Hold length and review depth, vertical by vertical
- How earnings clear Pending, approved, held, paid — in that order
- Payment schedule Thresholds, dates and how a run is paid
- Trust & compliance Traffic standards and the ad-claim policy
Promote retail campaigns with the rate table in front of you
Create your publisher account, then apply to the e-commerce campaigns whose categories, codes and markets match what you publish.