How long after a publisher's click a sale can still be credited to it. The programme's terms set it, usually in days.
When a shopper clicks a publisher's link, the network records the click and something remembers it until the order: a cookie, an identifier kept with the visit, or both. The cookie window is how long that click can still earn commission. With an imagined 30-day window, a click on 1 October can be credited with an order on 20 October, unless a later eligible click takes its place.
The programme sets the window, but the browser decides how long a cookie really lasts. Safari blocks third-party cookies by default and deletes cookies a page's scripts wrote after seven days of browsing without a visit to the site. That's one reason networks ask for their tag on your own pages, and offer server-to-server tracking, which doesn't rely on a browser cookie at all.
- A longer window credits more sales to earlier clicks, and to whoever clicked last within it.
- A shopper who leaves your checkout to look for a code makes a new click, and under last click that one takes the credit.
- Google Ads has a conversion window of its own for its reports, 30 days by default for Search clicks, which has nothing to do with your programme's.
How a sale gets credited follows one click from the link to the commission.
Google's own help and policy pages first.