Although WebClicks offers detailed reporting and analytics, many affiliates use third party or custom tracking software to control their traffic, campaigns and ads. They send traffic to different networks, sites, landing pages and ads and then use the tracking software’s reporting tools to see exactly what is converting and where it is converting. This allows them to fully optimize their traffic and campaigns. One ad or site might work great on US desktop traffic, while another ad or site might work much better on Japanese Mobile traffic. In order for this software to know exactly what traffic generates the most income the software will need to receive conversion notifications called postbacks. This is sometimes also called s2s (server-to-server) or pixel tracking.
A postback is a simple server call to a third party script that notifies the software that there was a sale. It usually includes a unique identifier of the visitor, the payout amount and can also include additional information such as a transaction id.
Third party tracking and reporting software
There are various popular third party performance marketing tracking and analytics solutions such as ItsUp, Voluum and AdsBridge. The way these platforms work is that before sending a visitor to your WebClicks linkcode they first log a lot of detailed information about the visitor such as the banner he clicked, the country he is from, the device he is on, the OS of the device, the browser that was used, which mobile carrier/provide was used, the user’s language setting, and much more. It will then create a unique ID and sends that ID along to your WebClicks link code. This ID is then logged in WebClicks and when the visitor generates a sale this ID is posted back to the software so that the software knows exactly what Ad/Geo/Browser/Device/OS/etc. generated the sale. As you can understand this gives the affiliate access to very detailed reporting and they will know exactly what works and what doesn’t work and can use that information to fully optimize their campaigns. When affiliates do media buying they can also import their costs from the traffic networks, so they can get fully automated ROI reports.
There are of course more uses for postback tracking, if you just have a simple banner script or do some media buys at a traffic network it can already be very useful.
How to set up Postbacks in WebClicks
Setting up s2s postbacks in WebClicks is very easy. You can set global postbacks in your profile so that they apply to all offers, or you can set them for one or more individual offers.
To set up global account wide postbacks just login to your WebClicks account and click on Settings -> Profile. Then scroll down and enter your postback URL like this:
http://yourserver.com/conversion.php?clickid={clickid}
You can also include {amount} and {transactionid} to receive the payout amount and a unique transaction ID. For example:
http://yourserver.com/conversion.php?clickid={clickid}&payout={amount}&transid={transactionid}
Your platform or traffic network will have instructions about which exact parameters to use for the postback url. They will also provide you with the variable that you have to append to your WebClicks link code. You add this by adding &clickid=XXXXX to your WebClicks offer link code. Usually something like &clickid={click_id}.
Setting up postbacks for individual offers works the same as above. To set up a postback for an individual offer log in to your WebClicks account, click on Offers -> Available Offers and select the offer you want to set up the postback for. On the offer’s details page you will see a s2s/postback link on the right of the offer’s link code.
If you have any issues or questions, we are always available to help you set up your postbacks. Just contact your account manager and he will gladly assist you.