The 22% of sales that vanished when cookies died

The 22% of sales that vanished when cookies died

Everyone blames the algorithm. Sometimes it's just attribution quietly failing.

A SaaS affiliate's traffic was flat for six months but commissions dropped 22%. No ranking loss, no traffic loss. They assumed program shenanigans and almost quit.

Real cause, found by comparing their own analytics to the network's:

— Safari's ITP was clearing the affiliate cookie before the 7-day signup-to-purchase cycle finished.
— ~30% of their audience was Safari/iOS.
— Those sales still happened — they just got attributed to "direct."

Fix: pushed the program onto server-side postback tracking with a click-ID parameter. Recovered 18 of the 22 points in two months.

Your "declining program" might be a cookie that expired before the buyer did. Check attribution before you blame the offer.