How Affiliate Routing Works

Affiliate marketing is one of the oldest business models on the internet, but it is often poorly understood - particularly in the context of API-driven services rather than traditional content websites. This post explains how affiliate routing works, why it exists, and how Aether uses it.

The basic model

Affiliate marketing is a referral system. A retailer wants to sell products. A publisher (a website, app, or service) sends potential buyers to that retailer. If the buyer makes a purchase, the retailer pays the publisher a commission. Everyone benefits: the retailer gets a sale they might not have made otherwise, the buyer finds what they are looking for, and the publisher earns revenue for making the connection.

The commission comes from the retailer’s marketing budget, not from the buyer. A customer who arrives via an affiliate link pays the same price as a customer who navigates directly to the retailer’s website.

How tracking works

The mechanics of affiliate tracking rely on a simple redirect chain. When a user clicks a purchase link on a publisher’s site, the link does not go directly to the retailer. Instead, it passes through the affiliate network’s tracking system, which records the click, sets a cookie on the user’s browser, and then redirects to the retailer’s product page. This all happens in milliseconds - the user typically does not notice the redirect.

If the user goes on to make a purchase within the cookie window (which varies by retailer - sometimes 24 hours, sometimes 30 days), the affiliate network attributes the sale to the publisher and calculates the commission owed.

The cookie window matters because people do not always buy immediately. Someone might click through, compare a few options, leave the site, and come back the next day to complete the purchase. The cookie ensures the publisher still gets credit for the referral, within the agreed timeframe.

Affiliate networks

Most affiliate relationships are managed through intermediary platforms called affiliate networks. These networks act as a marketplace connecting retailers (called advertisers or merchants) with publishers. The network handles tracking, reporting, payment, and compliance - so individual publishers do not need a direct contractual relationship with every retailer they refer traffic to.

A publisher registers with a network, applies to work with specific merchants, and gets access to tracking links and product data feeds for approved merchants. The network takes a percentage of the commission as its fee, and pays the remainder to the publisher on a regular cycle.

For a service like Aether, affiliate networks serve a dual purpose. They provide the tracking infrastructure that makes the revenue model work, and they provide the product data feeds that Aether normalises and serves through its API.

How Aether uses affiliate routing

In a traditional affiliate setup, a human visitor clicks a link on a blog post or comparison table. In Aether’s model, the chain is slightly different.

An AI agent queries the Aether API on behalf of a user. Aether returns structured product data, and every product listing includes a purchase URL. That URL points to Aether’s redirect service, not directly to the retailer. When the user decides to buy and clicks the link, Aether’s redirect logs the click, appends the appropriate affiliate tracking parameters, and sends the user to the retailer’s product page. From that point, the standard affiliate tracking process applies - the network records the referral, and if the user completes a purchase, commission is earned.

The key difference from a traditional affiliate site is that the referral originates from an agent’s structured API response rather than from a human-curated web page. The affiliate mechanics are identical. The path to the click is different.

Why this model works for product data services

Affiliate commission aligns naturally with a product data service. Aether only earns when it helps a user find something they want to buy and they follow through. There is no incentive to show irrelevant products, inflate prices, or push users towards specific merchants. The service makes money by being accurate and useful.

This is also why Aether does not charge agents or developers for basic API access. The value of the service increases with the number of queries and click-throughs, so reducing friction for integrators is directly in Aether’s interest.