Home
Offers & Tracking
Tracking Fundamentals
Introduction To Partner Postbacks
Introduction To Partner Postbacks

SERIES:

Introduction To Partner Postbacks

Learn how to configure and troubleshoot partner postbacks in Everflow, understanding the critical process of tracking conversions and attributing credit to the right partners across your affiliate marketing campaigns.

Overview

Partner Postbacks are a crucial component of tracking and attribution in affiliate marketing. This article will guide you through understanding, setting up, and troubleshooting Partner Postbacks.

Postback Pre-Requisites

A Postback is essentially a “signal” from one entity to another that a Conversion Event has taken place. There’s two types of Postbacks at Everflow:

  • Advertiser Postbacks: Conversion Data sent from Advertiser’s webpage/app to Everflow signaling a conversion
  • Partner Postbacks: Used to send the above conversion data back to your Partners (Affiliates)

Let’s focus on the Partner Postback.

Understanding The Partner Postback

What Is A Partner Postback?

The Partner Postback is a signal from Everflow to your Partner that they drove a Visitor to a specific Offer, and the Visitor ended up Clicking and/or Converting on that Offer.

NoteIf you’re looking for Conversion Event Tracking and how to signal to Everflow that a Conversion has occurred on your or your Advertiser’s (Brand you’re working with) webpage/app, you might be looking for the Advertiser Postback.

How Partner Postbacks Work

The following diagram explains when a Partner Postback is triggered, in reference to the entire tracking cycle.

As shown above, the Advertiser Postback triggers first. Here’s what happens:

  1. Everflow receives the signal that a Visitor has converted via the Advertiser Postback
  2. Everflow attributes the Conversion Event to the correct Partner depending on various attribution settings such as Attribution Priority & previously recorded Click details
  3. Once a Partner has been attributed, Everflow will then fire off a Partner Postback that signals to the Partner that they drove a Conversion Event

How To Configure Partner Postbacks

In order for Partner Postbacks to be fired, you’ll have to create Partner Postbacks. By default, there are no Partner Postbacks setup in the Core Platform.

1 Configure Your Offer To Fire Postbacks Before we create a Partner Postback, we need to make sure that each Offer that we want to fire Partner Postbacks for, has this functionality enabled. By default, when you create an Offer, the option to Fire Partner Postback is enabled for every Conversion Event associated with an Offer. Here’s how to access the Fire Partner Postback setting for an Offer: In the sidebar navigation, click on Offers -> Manage Click on the -> Edit for a specific Offer Navigate to the Revenue & Payout (Events) tab Here you can configure the Fire Partner Postback setting for the Base Conversion Event You can further configure the Fire Partner Postback setting for each Additional Conversion Event if they exist. Each Conversion Event can be configured separately.

You’ll need to make sure for every Conversion Event you’d like to give visibility to your Partners that the Fire Partner Postback setting is enabled.

2 Create & Pull Postback Partner Postbacks To set up a partner postback in Everflow: Go to Partners ->Postbacks in your Everflow dashboard. Click Add New and then Postback Fill in the following details: Set as active or inactive Add a description Choose the postback type (Conversion, Event, or CPC) Select the postback level (Global, Specific, or Global Offer) Choose the delivery method (HTML, META, TikTok, or Server to Server) Enter the postback URL provided by your partner Advertiser Postbacks To find your global advertiser postback in Everflow: Go to Control Center in the left menu. Click on Platform Configurations Scroll down to find your global postback URL.

You can then provide this URL to your advertisers or place it yourself on the advertiser's platform.

Parameters and Macros

Parameters and macros are crucial components of postbacks:

  • Parameters: These are system variables used to carry information. They appear on the left side of the equal sign in a postback URL.
  • Macros: These are placeholders that insert the payload value into the associated parameter. They appear on the right side of the equal sign, usually enclosed in brackets.

Example: transaction_id={transaction_id}

  • transaction_id is the parameter
  • {transaction_id} is the macro
For a full guide to Parameters and Macros, check out this article.

Troubleshooting Postbacks

Formatting Postbacks

Ensure you're using the correct format for each partner's postback. Everflow provides a cheat sheet with correct formats for various platforms. Common issues include:

  • Using the wrong parameter names (e.g., click_id instead of transaction_id)
  • Using incorrect macro formats (e.g., wrong bracket types)
  • Typos in parameter or macro names

You can find the cheat sheet in the Everflow Help Desk.

Advertiser Postback Troubleshooting

For advertiser postbacks:

  1. Ensure you're passing the transaction ID in the base destination URL.
  2. Ask your advertiser to implement the postback on their side, as macro formats can vary between platforms.
  3. Double-check that the advertiser is properly returning the required information.

Bottom Line

By understanding and properly implementing postbacks, you can ensure accurate tracking and attribution in your affiliate marketing efforts. If you encounter any issues or need further clarification, don't hesitate to reach out to Everflow's customer success team.