Conversion tracking might be vital in estimating and measuring the success of your ad campaigns. And it's an absolute must when you run CPA (cost-per-action) based campaigns. Here, we will explain how to set conversion tracking up within Adserver.Online platform.

Adserver.Online supports server-to-server (s2s) conversion tracking as well as client-side (cookie-based) tracking. In most cases, these options are enough to track installs, registrations, and other types of actions.

Postbacks

In order to track conversions, you need to create at least one postback in the Settings / Postbacks menu.

Postback is a conversion tracker. Technically it's a URL (or a piece of JS code) that receives a conversion and saves it to the ad server's database.

You will get a unique URL (or a JS snippet) right after you create a new postback in the system.

You may create as many postbacks as needed for your business. Each postback can be configured with a different set of options. For example, you can allow or disallow passing custom amounts.

Server-to-server (s2s) conversion tracking

If you would like to set up server-to-server conversion tracking, you will need to follow these steps:

  • First of all, you need to create a postback as described above in order to get an endpoint URL. For example, https://track.aso1.net/postback?pid=ABC123&clickid={click_id}
  • Then, you need to append an arbitrary parameter to your landing page URL in your ads. For example: https://www.mywebsite.com/offer/?click={click}
  • The placeholder {click} will be automatically replaced with a unique token, and a visitor will be redirected to the URL like this https://www.mywebsite.com/offer/?click=a0b2f5acf01.

After that, you need to store that a0b2f5acf01 token and pass it back to our server by calling a postback URL in case of conversion. For example, https://track.aso1.net/postback?pid=ABC123&clickid=a0b2f5acf01.

You can do it with PHP:

<?php file_get_contents('https://track.aso1.net/postback?pid=ABC123&clickid=a0b2f5acf01');

Or HTML on a thank you page:

<script>(new Image).src="https://track.aso1.net/postback?pid=ABC123&clickid=a0b2f5acf01";</script>

This way, the conversion will be recorded. 

Moreover, you can send a custom amount in your URL (if you've enabled it in a postback). To do that, you need to append the "&amount=AMOUNT" parameter to the postback URL above. Please note the AMOUNT value overrides the set CPA rate of the campaign and will be used in stats as a CPA rate.

Client-side tracking

In order to implement client-side (cookie-based) conversion tracking, you need to follow these steps:

1. First of all, you need to create a postback as described above and obtain two JS snippets. You need to choose "Client-based" at the top of the postback view page.

2. Then, you need to append _aso_clk={click} parameter to your Landing URL. Please note, the parameter name should be exactly _aso_clk otherwise, the tracking won't work correctly.

3. After that, place the first snippet on your landing page and on a thank you page.

4. Finally, place the second snippet on your "Thank you" page.

Besides, you can send a conversion dynamically by calling "_ASO.Postback.send()" function in your code. In this case, you don't need to insert the second snippet to the page, but the first one is still required.

Just like with s2s tracking, you can also send a custom amount (if it's enabled in a postback). In order to do that, you need to set the amount you need as the first parameter of _ASO.Postback.send function.

<script>_ASO.Postback.send(AMOUNT);</script>

Please note that cookies can be blocked by some browsers/anti-ad plugins. In this case, conversions may not reach our server.

You can have a look at the example here.

Tester tool

When you configure conversions, you may need test tokens. For example, to test your script or a 3rd-party tracker setup.

We created a useful tool for you. It's located on a postback view page. Press the "Tester" button above the postback URL.