The platform applies a rule you chose in advance. Under last click, the most recent partner inside the window gets the commission; under first click, the earliest does. Either way the customer is attributed once and stays with that partner for later payments. Splitting credit is a policy decision, not a default.
It happens sooner than most program managers expect. A buyer reads a review from one partner, forgets about it, and a week later clicks a coupon-site link on the way to checkout. Two partners now have a claim on one sale and only one commission exists to pay.
The right answer is whatever your written rule says. The wrong answer is having no rule and deciding case by case, because the second time it happens a partner will ask why the first was different.
Standard ways to decide who gets credit
Last click. The most recent partner click inside the attribution window wins. It is the default in most programs because it is easy to state and matches intuition: whoever sent the buyer at the end earns the sale. It tends to favor partners positioned at the point of purchase, like coupon and deal sites.
First click. The earliest partner click inside the window wins. This rewards whoever introduced the product, which is useful if your best partners are reviewers and educators and you do not want a late discount link to take their credit.
Some programs use hybrids: a split, a position-based share, or a manual review for sales above a threshold. They exist, but each adds rules to explain and cases to argue, so a small program usually does better with one plain rule and a published exception process.
In Affiliate Tabs, last click wins by default, and first click is a setting on the group. Because you can run several groups, each with its own terms, a reviewer program could use first click while a coupon-oriented one stays on last click.
Two clicks, one sale
Say your window is 60 days and the commission is 20% of a $100 first payment, so $20.
- Day 1: a buyer clicks Maya's review link and reads it.
- Day 12: the same buyer, on the same browser, clicks Leo's deal-site link and buys.
Under last click, Leo is credited and earns $20. Maya earns nothing, even though her review did the work. Under first click, Maya earns $20 and Leo, who arrived at the checkout, earns nothing.
If Leo's page is a coupon listing, you may prefer the second outcome. If Leo is a comparison site that moves buyers from interest to decision, you may prefer the first. The rule is a statement about what your program values, which is why it belongs in your terms and not in a developer's head.
Why is the customer attributed only once?
The conflict above concerns the first purchase. After the customer is attributed, later payments follow the customer. If Sam is credited to Maya and then clicks Leo's link in month 4 while renewing, Sam does not move. Without that rule, recurring revenue would flip between partners with every click, and nobody could forecast their earnings. If you ever need to move a customer, treat it as a deliberate edit by the company, not an automatic outcome.
A click against a coupon code or a registered lead
Links are only one kind of signal. A buyer may also have a coupon code at checkout, or may belong to a lead that one partner registered weeks earlier. When those disagree with a click, the situation is different from two clicks: you are comparing different kinds of evidence.
A sensible principle is that a deterministic signal, such as a code typed at checkout or a registered lead, carries more weight than a cookie, because the buyer or partner took an explicit action. But if two explicit signals point at different partners, nobody should guess. Hold the commission, let a person look at both, and apply a consistent default if no one decides in time. Affiliate Tabs keeps the signal and confidence behind every customer's attribution so the reviewer can see what each side had. For how codes and links compare as signals, read when coupon code attribution beats links.
When the window is the real problem
Many "two partner" disputes are really window disputes. If your window is 90 days, a click from March and another in May can both be live, and the argument is about which one counts. A shorter window shrinks the number of overlaps but also drops legitimate slow buyers. A useful check before changing anything: pull ten recent conflicts and look at the gap between the two clicks. If most are a day or two apart, the rule is the issue. If most are two months apart, the window is.
It also helps to let partners see the outcome. A partner told "a later click from another partner took this one, under last click" can accept it. A partner who sees a sale vanish with no trace assumes the worst, and the next message you get mentions their lawyer or their competitor's program.
How do you keep partners from gaming the rule?
Every attribution rule creates a behavior to exploit. Last click invites partners to inject their link at the last moment: a browser extension that rewrites the click, a pop-up that appears at checkout, or a coupon page that opens a tracked link for visitors who were about to buy anyway. First click invites someone to cookie visitors early with a hidden or forced click.
The defense is less about the rule and more about watching the pattern. A partner whose conversions are nearly all clicks that happen minutes before purchase deserves a look. Your terms should prohibit forced clicks, cookie stuffing and extensions that overwrite another partner's credit. See partner fraud patterns for the signs.
Which rule belongs in your terms?
Four sentences are enough: which rule applies (last click or first click), how long the window is, that each customer is attributed once, and how you handle a code or lead that conflicts with a click. Add the contact address for disputes. Partners accept almost any clear rule. What drives them away is discovering after the fact that the rule was unwritten.
Common questions
- Is last click or first click better?
- Neither is better in general. Last click pays the partner nearest the purchase and is easier to explain. First click pays the one who introduced the product. Pick the one that matches the behavior you want to reward, and publish it in your terms.
- Can two partners split a commission?
- Some programs do it by agreement, but most tracking systems credit a single partner per customer. Splitting means extra rules, extra disputes and more math. If you want it, write the split into the terms and expect to handle it by hand.
- What if a partner's link and another partner's coupon code both apply?
- That is a conflict between two different kinds of signal. Decide in advance whether a code outranks a click, or whether a person reviews the case. Having no rule means the answer changes depending on who complains loudest.
- Does the winning partner keep earning on renewals?
- In most setups the customer is attributed once, and later payments follow the customer. A later click from another partner does not move an existing customer unless you change the attribution yourself.