Oct
Yesterday I published my stats for September and had a nice surprise when I discovered that I had made $1,659 on something I had not promoted, at least not recently.
Where Did the Sales Come From?
I made three sales, two high priced ones at over $700 each and a lower one, all of a membership site called Teaching Sells. This originally opened up in October 2007 and I joined it but didn’t get around to reviewing it on my blog until April 2008 when they launched a $1 trial.
It’s this review, written in April ‘08 that brought in the $1,659 in sales in September ‘09 – almost a year and a half later! I also made some sales back then too but the reason this has paid out now is due to the way that cookies work with affiliate programs.
How Cookies & Affiliate Programs Work
The vast majority of affiliate programs work by storing what is known as a cookie on the computer of anyone who clicks on the affiliate link. A cookie is simply a tiny text file with some information in it. In the case of affiliate programs it would store the ID of the affiliate who referred that customer. Cookies have an expiration date and with many affiliate programs, they last a long time.
What this means is that if a customer, Bob clicks on an affiliate link of mine today then a cookie is stored in his computer with my affiliate ID. But Bob might not want to buy the product today, or next week or next month. However, as long as that cookie is on Bob’s computer, if he goes back at a later date and follows through to make that purchase, I will get credit for the sale.
Many cookies last 3, or 6 months, some are even a lifetime cookie that never expire. I had a look at the sales report from Teaching Sells. The two high priced sales that I made came from the same referring link – that review post in April and the other was from a stats post. When they clicked through to those links, that would have put that cookie on their computer.
In September, Teaching Sells opened its doors again for a limited time. Usually I would have promoted it but this occurred whilst I was away on holiday with no Internet access so I completely missed the opportunity and it was all over by the time I got back. However… anyone who was previously a member of Teaching Sells, including all those people who signed up for the $1 trial would have been on their mailing list and would have received the promotional emails that the Teaching Sells guys came out with.
When those three people got those emails and decided to make a purchase, my affiliate link was still stored in that cookie on their computer from my original review post back in April 2008 hence how I got credited for the sales!
I hope that has clarified the source of the unexpected sales in the September stats and it just goes to show that a blog post can bring in money for a very long time, even if you happen to be on holiday 
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