[David Tan]

Cookie duration and commission on recurring sales.

Two very powerful aspect in the affiliate program. If the cookie duration is too short, then merchants get to have more sales by short changing the affiliate's efforts in driving potential customers to the merchant's site. Defeats the purpose for merchants to have an affiliate program if they don't get the affiliates to stay in the long term (by ensuring that they are amply rewarded for their efforts).

Commission on recurring sales also translates to whether affiliates gets commissions on subsequent sales made by the referred customer. Without it, it's like losing multiple times of commission per customer. It is easier for merchants to get recurring sales from existing customers than to get sales from new visitors. So it's likely that the buying customer will buy more than once. Affiliates who knows this, values affiliate programs with commissions on recurring sales.