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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.
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:
- Everflow receives the signal that a Visitor has converted via the Advertiser Postback
- Everflow attributes the Conversion Event to the correct Partner depending on various attribution settings such as Attribution Priority & previously recorded Click details
- 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.
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.
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
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:
- Ensure you're passing the transaction ID in the base destination URL.
- Ask your advertiser to implement the postback on their side, as macro formats can vary between platforms.
- 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.
