Troubleshooting: Referrals Not Tracking

A sale came in through an affiliate and no commission appeared — this page is the checklist for finding out why. Work through it top to bottom: first confirm whether the click was ever recorded by Affiliate and Referral Program for WooCommerce, then narrow down where the credit went. Part of the plugin documentation.

Step 1: Was the click recorded?

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Go to: WooCommerce > Affiliate & Referral > Affiliates, open the affiliate, and check the Traffic tab. Every registered click leaves a visit row — page, device, browser, IP and date. If a row matches the time of the promotion, tracking worked and your problem is attribution: continue to step 3. If there is nothing, the click never registered: step 2.

Step 2: Why a click never registers

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• The link was not made by the generator. Tracking resolves the affiliate’s personal code — a hand-built URL with a username or guessed parameter opens the page but credits nobody. Affiliates must copy links from their dashboard; see How to Create and Share Referral Links.
• The link parameter was renamed after sharing. Changing Slug in Affiliate Link makes links that carry the old parameter stop resolving.
• Scripts were blocked. Tracking is JavaScript in the visitor’s browser — content blockers, script-stripping optimizers or disabled JavaScript stop it, and there is no server-side fallback.
• Cookies were refused. Private windows and cookie blockers discard the referral cookie, so the visit may log while the later purchase carries no credit.

Step 3: The click recorded, but no commission

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• The window had closed. The purchase came later than your Cookie Expiration allows — see How Referral Tracking and Attribution Work for the timing rules.
• Someone else took the credit. Attribution is last-click: a later click on another affiliate’s link, or another affiliate’s coupon applied in the cart, replaces the credit. A lifetime mapping to a different affiliate outranks the click altogether.
• It was a self-purchase. With Restrict commission on own referral enabled on the Commission screen, an affiliate buying through their own link earns nothing — the usual reason a logged-in affiliate’s “test order” shows no commission.
• The products were not eligible. Items under Exclude products from affiliate commission, or on sale while Restrict commission on sale items is on, pay nothing; a product-restricted link pays only on its own product when Commission for only the URL opened? is enabled.
• The rate came to zero. A 0 rate — store-wide or from the matched rule — records no commission at all.

Step 4: The commission exists but was never paid

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If the record is sitting on the Manage Referrals screen, tracking was never the problem. A Pending record has simply not been approved yet — your Affiliate Referral Automation status may not have been reached, or the order was refunded and Reject commission on refund stepped in. The lifecycle is covered in Approve, Reject and Manage Referrals.

FAQ

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Why does my own test order never earn a commission?

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Most often because you are logged in as the affiliate whose link you clicked and Restrict commission on own referral is on. Test with a separate customer account in a private window instead.

Can a customer be credited if they type the store address later?

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Yes, as long as their referral cookie from the earlier click is still within its window — the credit does not require arriving through the link a second time. Once the cookie has expired, only a coupon code, a checkout code, or a lifetime mapping can credit the sale.

A caching plugin is on my store — does it break tracking?

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Page caching itself is fine, because the click is recorded by a browser request that bypasses the page cache. Problems come from optimizers that delay, combine or strip scripts — exclude this plugin’s scripts from those features. More questions are answered in the Affiliate and Referral Program: FAQ.