The order went through, but the cashback never showed up. The first thought is that the shop cheated. It almost never did: something broke the chain that tells the shop where the buyer came from.
The click has to be the last one
A shop only sees the last place you came from. If you clicked our link, then went hunting for a code somewhere else and came back from there, that other click is the one that counts.
Hence the rule: find the code first, click through second, pay third. Not the other way round.
What wipes the tag
The tag lives in a cookie, so anything that clears cookies clears it too: ad blockers and anti-tracking, private windows, a manual sweep of browser data.
The other common case is buying on a different device. You click the link on a laptop and pay on your phone — to the shop those are two unrelated visitors.
What never counts
- Gift cards and topping up store credit are excluded almost everywhere.
- Cancelled and returned orders: the cashback goes back with the refund.
- Buying inside the shop's own app instead of the browser.
- Orders placed with a code the shop never issued — a corporate or partner one, say.
Waiting is not losing
Cashback lands as pending and stays there until the shop is sure the order will not come back. For clothing that is weeks; for electronics and travel, months. An empty line two days after the purchase means nothing yet.
What to do about it
- Click the link last, right before you pay.
- Pay in the same browser, on the same device where you clicked.
- Turn the blocker off on the shop's pages.
- Do not check out in a private window.
- If the purchase is still missing an hour later, save the order number. With it the case gets solved; without it, it does not.