Why am I getting clicks but no sales on my affiliate links?

You only see what happens after the click if you go through it yourself. According to Meta, external links on Instagram and Facebook open in the in-app browser by default, meaning the browser inside the app. So a test on your laptop won’t show you what your community sees after tapping.

People also shop on different devices: according to Bitkom, 73% of online shoppers in Germany use a smartphone to shop and 52% a laptop or notebook, with more than one answer allowed. Someone who sees your link in a Story and orders on a laptop in the evening arrives at the shop without your link. How long a click counts is up to the affiliate programme. On Amazon’s German Associates programme (Amazon-Partnerprogramm), a click on your link starts a session that ends after 24 hours at the latest. Anything added to the basket in that time can still count, though, if it is ordered up to 89 days after the click.

These figures describe online retail as a whole, not your links. The 70% is an average of 50 studies from 2006 to 2025, and Baymard’s survey figures come from the US. Bitkom didn’t ask about abandoned purchases but about what matters when choosing an online shop. Your recommendation gets people to the product. They judge the shop themselves afterwards, and that is the part you can check before you link.

Some of your community click to have a look, not to buy straight away. In the Baymard Institute survey, 42% gave just browsing or not being ready to buy as a reason for abandoning a purchase in the past three months. In a YouGov survey for commercetools (more than 4,500 adults in the US and UK, 2023), 14.9% said they abandoned a cart to wait and see if the product would go on sale. 9% got distracted.

So compare products from similar posts with each other. A room tour with 40 linked items is hard to compare with your answer to “Which cream is that?”.

1. Take the ten products with the most clicks in the last full month, note clicks and sales for each and divide sales by clicks.
2. Open each link once the way your community does: on your phone and from inside the app where you shared it.
3. Check that you land on exactly this product, in the colour, size or pack size from your post, and not on the homepage or in a category.
4. Check that it is in stock, and for fashion, in the common sizes too.
5. Look for the same item in two or three other shops and compare the total price including shipping.
6. Go through to checkout without ordering. Look at shipping costs, minimum order value, delivery time and payment methods, and check if you can order as a guest.
7. Fix whatever gets in the way: link the right variant, pick another shop or take the product out. Note the date.
8. After two to four weeks, compare clicks and sales with the period before, ideally for posts with similar reach, leaving out your own test clicks.

When you add a product on wyrld, wyrld recognises the brand, name and variant, for example a particular perfume in 50 ml, and looks for the same item in more than 90,000 partner shops. Your community sees the offers found with prices side by side and buys directly from the shop of their choice, at no extra cost. The cheapest new offer carries the “Best price” label.

On wyrld you earn per click, per sale or both, depending on the shop. If a shop pays per click, a click without a sale can still earn you something. If someone prefers another shop from the comparison, that offer counts for your storefront too. Your dashboard shows what each product earns you, and you can follow clicks and commission there live. That is where you get the clicks for the check above.