Conversions & postbacks

A conversion is an action — a lead, a sale, an install — reported to ArcTrack by the advertiser. ArcTrack attributes it to the original click, calculates revenue and payout, removes duplicates and notifies the partner.

Server-to-server (S2S) postback#

https://track.example.com/pb?click_id=CLICK_ID&event=sale&amount=49.90&txid=ORDER-1001&token=TOKEN

GET or POST (form or query parameters). Aliases: /postback, /conversion.

Response (HTTP 200):

{"ok":true,"conversion_id":"5f0c…","status":"approved"}

Errors return {"ok":false,"error":"…"} — with HTTP 200 for business errors (so advertiser systems do not retry endlessly), 401 for a missing or wrong token and 400 for a malformed request.

Pixels#

When the advertiser cannot make server calls, place a pixel on the confirmation page. Pixels are accepted only when the offer's conversion method allows them.

<img src="https://track.example.com/px?offer_id=OFFERCODE&amount=49.90&txid=ORDER-1001" width="1" height="1" alt="">

<script src="https://track.example.com/px.js?offer_id=OFFERCODE&amount=49.90&txid=ORDER-1001" async></script>

The pixel takes the same parameters as the postback except token. The click ID is read from the click_id parameter, or — only if the workspace enabled the pixel cookie — from a first-party cookie set on the tracking domain at click time. The panel's offer page and the advertiser portal generate ready-to-paste snippets.

Browsers increasingly block cookies of other sites, so on a store or checkout domain the most reliable source of the click ID is the landing-page SDK: it keeps the click ID in a first-party atk_cid cookie on the store's own domain, and your thank-you page passes it on as click_id.

Shopify#

Shopify runs tracking code on checkout and thank-you pages only as a custom pixel (Settings → Customer events → Add custom pixel). Load the SDK in your theme (Online Store → Themes → Edit code → theme.liquid, before </body>) so the click ID is stored on your store's domain, then add this custom pixel:

analytics.subscribe("checkout_completed", async (event) => {
  const clickId = await browser.cookie.get("atk_cid");
  if (!clickId) return; // not a tracked visit
  const checkout = event.data.checkout;
  const params = new URLSearchParams({
    click_id: clickId,
    offer_id: "OFFERCODE",
    amount: String(checkout.totalPrice?.amount ?? ""),
    currency: checkout.currencyCode ?? "",
    txid: String(checkout.order?.id ?? checkout.token ?? ""),
  });
  fetch("https://track.example.com/px?" + params.toString(), { mode: "no-cors", keepalive: true });
});

The order ID is sent as txid, so the same order is never counted twice even if the event fires again.

How a conversion is processed#

1. Click lookup by click ID (or gclid).
2. Attribution window — conversions later than the offer's window (1–365 days) are rejected as outside_window.
3. Event — the event code selects the payout and revenue rules.
4. Payout and revenue — most specific wins: partner + event override → partner override → event → offer. Percentage types use amount.
5. De-duplication — one conversion per click per event (unless the event allows multiples) and one per advertiser transaction ID. Duplicates are stored as rejected with reason duplicate and never fire postbacks.
6. Caps — over a conversion cap the conversion is rejected with reason cap_exceeded.
7. Postbacks — matching partner postbacks are queued in the same transaction.

Statuses: approved, pending (awaiting your review) and rejected. Approving a pending conversion in the panel fires the partner postbacks that have not fired yet.

Outgoing partner postbacks#

Partners — or you on their behalf — register URLs that are called for their conversions:

https://tracker.partner.example/postback?clickid={sub1}&payout={payout}&event={event}&tx={conversion_id}

• Types: server-to-server URL, image pixel or HTML snippet.
• Method: GET, or POST with a body template (JSON-escaped when the body starts with {, otherwise form-escaped).
• Scope: all offers or one offer; all events or one event. Private events never fire partner postbacks.
• Fire on: approved conversions (default) or any status.
• Delivery: 10-second timeout; a 2xx answer counts as delivered. Failures retry after 1 minute, 5 minutes, 30 minutes, 2 hours and 6 hours, then the postback is marked failed. Every attempt is visible in the postback log with the HTTP status and the start of the response.

See Macros for every placeholder.