Why didn’t I get commission for a purchase made through my link?

Withdrawal has a statutory deadline: consumers in Germany who buy online can usually withdraw within 14 days (§ 312g(1) and § 355(2) BGB, the German Civil Code). For goods, the period starts once they have arrived, and if several items in one order arrive separately, with the last one (§ 356(2) no. 1(a) and (b) BGB). Some shops voluntarily offer a longer return period, which is then set out in their terms. So a purchase that shows as “pending” today can still be cancelled weeks after the order.

If a shop attributes purchases with a cookie, that cookie sits in the browser where the click happened. The MDN web documentation describes a cookie as a small piece of data a server sends to the browser, which sends it back with later requests. If the person orders on another device, in another browser or in the shop’s app, it may be missing there. Say your link opens in an app’s built-in browser, and the order is placed that evening in the phone’s regular browser: to the shop, those are two different browsers.

Amazon handles this differently. According to the help pages of Amazon’s Associates programme, items that someone adds to the basket and then buys on another device also earn commission, as long as the rules on qualifying purchases and sessions are met. The person has to be signed in to Amazon when adding the items. If they only add the item to the basket after switching devices, there is no commission. If your link opens in the Amazon Shopping app, the attribution to your ID is kept.

Then there’s consent. Under § 25(1) TDDDG, the German law on privacy in digital services, information may only be stored on or read from a device if the person has consented. The exception is what is strictly necessary for the provider to offer a digital service the person explicitly asked for (§ 25(2) no. 2 TDDDG). The law doesn’t explicitly address identifiers used for attribution. Each shop decides what it asks consent for in its cookie banner. If someone declines there and the shop asks for consent for attribution, it may be missing the identifier from your click.

Browsers also limit how long things are stored. According to WebKit, the browser engine behind Safari, its tracking prevention deletes cookies set by JavaScript after seven days without user interaction with the website. A click, a tap or a keyboard entry counts as interaction, scrolling doesn’t. If the tracking prevention detects a so-called click ID in a link, which the landing page reads and stores with JavaScript, it even caps cookies set by JavaScript on that page at 24 hours.

Amazon pays commission on “qualifying sales” (Qualifizierte Verkäufe). According to the policies of its German Associates programme (Partnerprogramm, version of 14 April 2026, read on 20 October 2026), your click starts a session. It ends with whichever comes first: 24 hours pass, the person places an order (digital products excepted), or they visit Amazon through a partner link that isn’t yours. What can count is a purchase in that session, or a product that went into the basket during the session and is ordered no later than 89 days after your click. It must be shipped and paid for within 180 days of the purchase.

Say someone taps your link to a floor lamp at 9 pm on Monday. If they put the lamp in their basket straight away and order it on Friday, the sale can count. If they only add the lamp to the basket on Wednesday without coming through your link again, your session already ended at 9 pm on Tuesday. If they tap another creator’s Amazon partner link at lunchtime on Tuesday before adding anything to the basket, your session ends at that moment. Whatever they add to the basket after that no longer counts for you.

Other programmes set their own time windows and exclusions. On Amazon, the policies exclude these purchases, among others:

• orders for which a cancellation, return or refund has been started
• purchases through your own partner links: the participation requirements prohibit them, and you may not ask friends, family or business contacts to buy through them either
• subscription purchases, unless the agreement says otherwise
• pre-orders of products that aren’t on any product page yet
• purchases through incorrectly formatted links that aren’t tracked properly as a result
• if you promote Amazon’s sites in the EU or the UK: infant food, alcoholic drinks, tobacco and e-cigarettes

1. Collect what you know: the day and rough time of the purchase, the shop, the product and the order value. Only ask the buyer for what they are happy to tell you. You don’t need a name or an address.
2. Check your programme’s dashboard. Are there clicks on this link at the right time? Does the purchase show as pending, confirmed or cancelled? A pending purchase hasn’t been decided yet: it is waiting for the shop to confirm it and can still be cancelled until then.
3. Compare click time and order time with the programme’s time window, on Amazon a session of up to 24 hours and 89 days for the basket.
4. Open your link in a private browser window and check that it lands on the right product in the right shop. Don’t buy anything: Amazon prohibits purchases through your own partner links, and purchases through incorrectly formatted links don’t count there. One test click is enough, as Amazon also prohibits generating clicks or sessions artificially.
5. Read the exclusions in your programme’s terms: product groups, subscriptions, pre-orders, your own purchases.
6. Only then contact the programme, with date, shop, product and order value. How and by when you can do that is up to the programme.

On wyrld you earn per click, per sale or both, depending on the shop. With shops that pay per click, you earn on clicks under that shop’s terms, even if nobody buys afterwards. So your click earnings don’t depend on a later purchase being attributed.

The offers in your storefront’s price comparison run through wyrld and count for your storefront. If your community picks another of the shops wyrld found because it is cheaper, you can still earn on the click, the sale or both there, depending on that shop.

Commission is calculated on the net value after returns and cancellations, and wyrld pays out sales commission once the shop or affiliate programme has paid wyrld. Because wyrld creates the affiliate links for you, you don’t join any network yourself or search several programmes for a purchase: you follow clicks and commission live in your dashboard.