Awin explained: how the network works and pays

Awin is one of the older classic affiliate networks. Companies, which Awin calls advertisers, list their programs on it. Affiliates, which Awin calls publishers, join once, apply to the advertisers they want to promote, and get one dashboard and one payment for all of them.

So far that is every network. What is worth knowing about Awin is how a sale moves from a click to money in your account, whose rules apply at each step, and what changed when ShareASale started moving onto it.

If networks are new to you, what an affiliate network is covers the general model first.

How Awin works for publishers

The path from sign-up to first payment has five steps.

1. You create a publisher account. You describe your site, channel or app and how you plan to promote. Awin reviews the account before you can work with anyone.
2. You apply to advertisers. Joining Awin does not let you promote every program on it. Each advertiser reviews your application and accepts or declines it, and some accept almost everyone while others are picky.
3. You take your links. Once accepted, you build tracking links to any page on the advertiser's site, and some advertisers also offer banners, voucher codes or product feeds.
4. Awin tracks the sale. A customer clicks your link, buys, and the sale shows up in your account as pending.
5. Awin pays you. After the advertiser approves the sale and pays Awin for it, the commission joins your balance and goes out in the next payment run, provided you have cleared the minimum.

Steps four and five are where most questions come from, so they get their own sections below.

How Awin tracks a sale

An Awin tracking link carries two IDs: one for the advertiser and one for you. When someone clicks it, Awin records the click and sets a cookie, then sends the visitor on to the advertiser's page. If that visitor buys within the advertiser's cookie window, the advertiser's site reports the sale back to Awin, which matches it to your click.

Two details trip people up.

• The cookie window belongs to the advertiser. Awin provides the tracking, but each company sets its own window, so two programs on the same network can be very different here.
• Attribution usually goes to the last click. If the customer clicked another affiliate's link after yours, most advertisers credit that one. Some programs set their own rules for this, and they are written in the program's terms on Awin.

How Awin pays publishers

A commission on Awin passes through three states, and knowing them saves a lot of worried emails.

Pending. The sale is recorded but not yet confirmed. The advertiser is waiting out its return or cancellation period, or checking the order against its rules.

Approved or declined. The advertiser decides. An approved sale moves towards payment. A declined one is removed, and the usual reasons are a return, a cancelled order, a duplicate, or traffic the program does not allow, such as bidding on the brand name.

Paid. Awin pays you once the advertiser has paid Awin for that commission. This is the step that surprises people: an approved sale can still wait if the advertiser is slow to settle its invoice, because a network passes on money it has received rather than paying from its own pocket.

The payment schedule, the minimum payout and the payment methods are Awin's, not the advertiser's, and they apply across every program you run there. They also change from time to time, so read the current figures on Awin's own help pages rather than trusting an old forum post. Our guide to payout terms explains pending periods and thresholds in general.

Who decides whether an Awin sale is approved?

The advertiser. Awin records the sale and holds it as pending, but the company checks it against its own rules, such as returns and cancellations, and then approves or declines it. Awin pays you once an approved commission has been paid in by the advertiser.

If you think a sale was declined wrongly, raise it through Awin rather than only emailing the company. The network sits between both sides and has a reason to keep them both on the platform.

Who pays for Awin

The advertisers do. A company on Awin typically pays a setup fee and a cut on top of the commissions it pays out, with the exact pricing agreed with Awin rather than published as one price list.

That cost matters to you indirectly. A company paying network fees has less margin left for commission, which is one reason the same company can offer different terms in-house. Our side-by-side guide to affiliate networks vs in-house programs covers what to compare when a company runs both.

Whose terms apply on Awin

Two sets of rules stack up, and it helps to keep them apart.

• The advertiser's terms set the commission, the commission type, the cookie window, which traffic sources are allowed and which sales are excluded.
• Awin's terms set the account rules, the payment schedule, the minimum payout and how disputes are handled.

So "how much do I earn on this sale?" is a question for the program's terms, and "when will it reach my bank?" is a question for Awin.

Awin and ShareASale

ShareASale belongs to the same group as Awin, and its publishers and advertisers have been moving onto Awin's platform. If you promote programs on ShareASale, expect to find them on Awin, and treat any old ShareASale guide with some care, because the dashboard, the links and the payment rules you end up with are Awin's.

If a ShareASale program you promote moves over, check that your links still track and that the terms did not change on the way. A move is a natural moment for a company to revisit its rates.

How can you tell if a program runs on Awin?

Look at the sign-up link on the company's partner page. If it sends you to Awin to log in or join, the program runs there. A tracking link that points at an Awin domain and carries an advertiser ID and an affiliate ID is the other giveaway.

Plenty of companies run on more than one network, or on Awin and in-house at the same time, often with different terms on each. Finding the program on Awin does not mean it is the only version, or the best one for you.

When Awin suits you

Awin tends to suit you when:

• you promote many retail, travel or subscription brands and want one login and one payment for them;
• you are starting out and need a shared minimum so small commissions add up;
• you want a third party involved when a sale is declined without a clear reason.

It suits you less when the company you care about runs its program only in-house, or offers clearly better terms there, which is worth checking before you apply.

Before you apply

Open the program's terms on Awin and note the commission, the commission type, the cookie window, the traffic rules and the typical approval time. Then compare them with any other version of the same program. Every program listing in this directory shows each network a company runs on, with the terms we read for each and a link to the source, and the network pages group the companies by network. Our data is not complete and terms change, so check the program's own page on Awin before you sign up. That page is the one that counts.