If two affiliates are promoting a specific lead program and AFF1 is doing PPC while dropping cookies; while AFF2 is doing SEO without cookie dropping. If someone goes to AFF1 PPC landing page and gets cookied, but doesn't convert there; and instead converts on AFF2 SEO site (after going back to google and clicking on the SEO site).. who gets credited for that lead? ALSO, what is the industry standard when it comes to cookie tracking? Is it a "last touch" cookie attribution where the one that generated the sale gets credited OR is a "first touch" cookie where the first one that cookies traffic wins?
You make things to complicated, first of all it depend on the Affiliate program they are promoting, the affiliate manager will explain them the rules. from my experience wherever the customer made the purchase that's what counts, so what if he went to few other websites before that. so for the first question- AFF2 wins. Regarding you second subject , while publishers may have an incentive to maximize the reach for those impressions if they are trying to play toward the last touch attribution model, it doesn’t determine how much or if they get paid as it does with a CPA based publisher.
To be honest with you, CpR, the issue of cookie dropping is becoming something of an irrelevance. It was early last year that I saw a massive drop in my visitor stats. Then I got an email through my website and there was simply no record of a visit at that time. I wondered what was going on - and checked my server log. There were around 10x as many visitors as my Statcounter had picked up. It's much the same story with cookies. Most people now have clicked the option to remove cookies at the end of their session. In any case, in marketing terms you're far better off with a mailing list. That way you KNOW they like what you do and want more. It's great too as you can discover what they like by tailoring your offer to them, segmenting and a whole heap of other things. If you're an affiliate, it's the way to go - plus you'll get to know what they want to buy that you're not selling right now.