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AdsKeeper traffic source template AdsKeeper is a self-serve native advertising network from the MGID group. It shows your ads (teasers) in recommendation widgets on publisher sites, and bills on a prepaid cost-per-click basis. This guide sets up AdsKeeper as a traffic source in ClickFlare. It covers passing AdsKeeper’s click data and click price into your reports and sending conversions, with revenue, back to AdsKeeper so its optimization and your stats agree. AdsKeeper runs on the same platform as MGID, so the setup is close to the MGID guide. The postback host, the client ID and the macro list are AdsKeeper’s own, so use this page and the AdsKeeper template, not the MGID one. You do everything from the campaign editor. The AdsKeeper traffic source is created inline, without leaving the campaign.

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At a glance

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How it works

1

AdsKeeper sends the click

A visitor clicks your teaser. AdsKeeper opens your ClickFlare campaign URL and fills in its macros: the click ID in click_id, the click price in click_price, plus the campaign, teaser, widget and title.
2

ClickFlare stores the AdsKeeper click ID

ClickFlare saves the value of click_id as the visit’s External ID, records the click price as the visit’s cost, and redirects the visitor to your lander or offer.
3

The conversion reaches ClickFlare

Your affiliate network, store or feed posts the conversion back to ClickFlare, matched on the ClickFlare click ID.
4

ClickFlare posts it back to AdsKeeper

ClickFlare fires the AdsKeeper postback, replacing {external_id} with the stored AdsKeeper click ID and {payout} with the revenue. AdsKeeper matches it to the original click and records it under the goal named in e.
The mirror to keep straight: in the campaign URL you write ClickFlare’s parameter (click_id) and AdsKeeper’s macro ({click_id}). The template does this for you. In the postback URL you write AdsKeeper’s parameter (c) and ClickFlare’s token ({external_id}).

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Before you start

  • Set up your own tracking domain. Run the campaign and the postback on your own custom domain. Shared domains get flagged by networks and blocked by browsers. See Custom Domains.
  • Have an offer ready in ClickFlare, and its affiliate network set up to post conversions back to ClickFlare. See Creating an Offer and Adding an Affiliate Network.
  • Plan your AdsKeeper conversion goals. AdsKeeper allows up to three per campaign: a Main goal and two additional ones. Goal names may contain only Latin letters and numbers, for example purchase or lead1.
  • Decide which conversions AdsKeeper should receive. AdsKeeper optimizes on what you send it. See Tracking several events.

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Step 1 – Create the campaign and the AdsKeeper traffic source

  1. Go to Campaigns and click New.
  2. In Traffic Source, open the dropdown and click + New Traffic Source.
  3. Type adskeeper in the search box and select the AdsKeeper template.
  4. Enter a Name, for example AdsKeeper.
  5. Set Cost currency to the currency of your AdsKeeper account. The click price arrives in that currency.
The template fills in the Parameters table for you: The AdsKeeper template's Parameters table in ClickFlare, with AdsKeeper's macros pre-filled Each tracking field becomes a column you can group reports by. widget_id tells you which publisher placements convert, so you can block them or adjust their bids. teaser_id and title tell you which creative won. As their names say, the Targeted Countries and Targeted Regions rows carry your campaign’s targeting, not the visitor’s location. MGID, whose platform AdsKeeper shares, documents {geo} as the countries selected in the campaign settings and {geo_region} as the selected regions or cities. For the visitor’s real country and region, use ClickFlare’s own geo data.
Don’t change or remove the External ID row. Without {click_id} in the campaign URL, ClickFlare has no AdsKeeper click ID to send back, and AdsKeeper cannot attribute any conversion.
To pass more data, click Add Parameter, give it a name and parameter, and enter the AdsKeeper macro as the TS Token. ClickFlare assigns the next free tracking field. AdsKeeper says only its own macros work in tracking links. Its list is {widget_id}, {teaser_id}, {campaign_id}, {geo}, {geo_region}, {click_id}, {click_price}, {client_id} and {title}, so the template already uses almost all of them.

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Step 2 – Set up the postback

The postback is what sends conversions to AdsKeeper. It lives on the traffic source, so every campaign that uses this AdsKeeper traffic source sends conversions the same way.

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Get your client ID and goal name from AdsKeeper

The template’s postback needs two values from AdsKeeper: your client ID and the name of the conversion goal. AdsKeeper shows both in the postback URL it generates inside each campaign.
  1. In AdsKeeper, create a campaign, or open an existing one and click its edit icon.
  2. Go to the Conversion Tracking section and, on the Tracking Settings tab, choose Postback.
  3. Choose Manual Setup. ClickFlare isn’t one of AdsKeeper’s ready-made templates.
  4. Under Main goal, create a conversion goal: give it a Conversion Name, an Event Name (Latin letters and numbers only, for example purchase), and a Conversion Category. Conversion Value is optional. Add Additional 1 and Additional 2 goals if you track several events.
  5. Optional: under Advanced Settings, choose whether each goal counts only unique conversions or non-unique ones too, such as upsells.
  6. Click Get Postback URL and copy it.
The URL AdsKeeper gives you has this shape:
Note two values from it: the client ID after /postback/, and the event name in e. You only need these two. The ClickFlare template already has the click ID and revenue tokens in place. Keep the AdsKeeper tab open for Step 4.

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Add the template’s postback in ClickFlare

  1. Back in the New Traffic Source form, scroll to Passing conversion info to traffic source.
  2. Turn on Traffic source postback URL. The template’s postback appears:
  1. Replace the two placeholders:
Leave {external_id} and {payout} as they are. ClickFlare fills them in. AdsKeeper’s own ClickFlare guide describes the same swap: {click_id} becomes {external_id}, {revenue} becomes {payout}. With client ID 12345 and the goal purchase, the result is:
  1. In the dropdown on the left, choose the ClickFlare event that should fire the postback. Keep Conversions to send every conversion. If your final action is a custom conversion (for example purchase), choose that instead.
  2. Click Save. You are back in the campaign editor with the AdsKeeper traffic source selected.
The Traffic source postback URL switched on, showing the AdsKeeper template's postback
Replace both placeholders. If REPLACE_WITH_CLIENT_ID stays in the URL, the postback goes to no account. If REPLACE_WITH_EVENT_NAME stays, or doesn’t match the goal’s event name, AdsKeeper doesn’t know which goal the conversion belongs to.
Only c and e are mandatory. r is optional, but without it AdsKeeper doesn’t know your revenue. AdsKeeper shows revenue in your account’s currency, so send payouts in that currency. See Multicurrency in ClickFlare. To learn what each postback token does, see How to Configure a Traffic Source S2S Postback URL.

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Step 3 – Finish the campaign and copy its URL

  1. Name the campaign.
  2. Set the Cost Model to Not Tracked, so ClickFlare uses the click price AdsKeeper passes. See Cost.
  3. Choose Redirect or Direct tracking. Redirect is the usual choice.
  4. Click Next and, on Destination, add your lander (optional) and your offer.
  5. Save, open Tracking, select your own tracking domain and copy the campaign URL.
The campaign URL already contains every AdsKeeper macro from the template, for example click_id={click_id} and click_price={click_price}. If you use a lander, its call-to-action must link to the ClickFlare click URL, not to the offer directly. Otherwise the visit reaches the offer without a ClickFlare click ID, and the conversion cannot be traced back to AdsKeeper. See Creating a Campaign in ClickFlare.

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Step 4 – Create the campaign in AdsKeeper

  1. Return to the AdsKeeper campaign from Step 2 and finish its targeting, budget and bid.
  2. In Tracking link settings, the click ID parameter in Tracking Tags must be click_id, the name ClickFlare reads. AdsKeeper adds {click_id} automatically for postback tracking.
  3. Check the Tracking link preview. click_id={click_id} must appear only once, because the ClickFlare URL already carries it. Don’t paste the full ClickFlare URL into Tracking Tags.
  4. Save the changes, or publish if this is a new campaign.
  5. Create your ads and paste the ClickFlare campaign URL into each ad’s URL field.
Paste the URL exactly as ClickFlare gives it. AdsKeeper replaces each macro in curly braces when the ad is clicked.

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Step 5 – Test the integration

AdsKeeper records test conversions separately from real ones.
  1. In AdsKeeper, open the campaign’s Ads section. Hover over an ad image and click the eye icon to open the preview.
  2. Click the ad in the preview and complete the offer the way a real visitor would. Only clicks from the preview are flagged as tests. Clicking the ad from the ad list doesn’t work.
  3. In ClickFlare, check the visit. The External ID should hold an AdsKeeper click ID, not the literal text {click_id}.
  4. Go to Logs → Postback Status and filter by the campaign. A successful request to a.adskeeper.com confirms ClickFlare sent the postback.
  5. In AdsKeeper, wait 5–15 minutes and check the Test conversions column for the goal (Main Goal, Additional Goal 1 or Additional Goal 2). If the column is missing, enable it with Columns above the campaign list. It can take up to an hour.
If the offer ends in a real payment you can’t skip, send the ad preview URL to your affiliate manager.

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Tracking several events

AdsKeeper tracks up to three goals per campaign, for example a lead, a deposit and a purchase. Each goal has its own postback, with its own event name in e:
  1. In AdsKeeper, add a goal for each step (Main goal, Additional 1, Additional 2) and note each event name.
  2. In ClickFlare, create a custom conversion for each step, for example lead and purchase.
  3. On the AdsKeeper traffic source, click + Another postback URL once per extra goal, paste the template’s URL and replace both placeholders.
  4. Map each postback to its ClickFlare event: lead to the e=lead URL, purchase to e=purchase.
  5. Test each goal. AdsKeeper shows test conversions under each goal separately.
  • Three goals at most: a main goal and two additional ones.
  • One postback per goal. Don’t combine goals in one URL.
  • Event names use Latin letters and numbers only. Use a unique name for each goal.
  • The e value must match the goal’s event name in AdsKeeper exactly.
  • Choose unique or non-unique counting under Advanced Settings. Counting non-unique conversions you don’t need inflates your numbers.
If AdsKeeper should only learn from your final sale, keep a single postback and map it to that event. Earlier steps (leads, add to carts) still show in ClickFlare. They just don’t reach AdsKeeper.To send a postback only for some conversions, for example only those above a certain payout, use Event filter under the postback to add conditions.

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Cost

The template passes cost per click. AdsKeeper fills {click_price} with the price of each click, and ClickFlare stores it as the visit’s cost. In the campaign editor, set the Cost Model to Not Tracked. ClickFlare then takes the cost from the click_price value in the URL. A fixed CPC would ignore AdsKeeper’s real bid. See Cost Models. AdsKeeper bills on a prepaid cost-per-click model, so {click_price} is already a per-click value. You don’t divide anything by 1,000.
{click_price} is an estimate. MGID, whose platform AdsKeeper shares, notes that some clicks are discounted after the fact and never charged, so the URL can overstate your spend. Compare ClickFlare’s Cost column with your AdsKeeper spend after the first days.
ClickFlare’s MGID cost integration connects to MGID accounts. It isn’t documented for AdsKeeper accounts, so don’t rely on it here. To correct a day’s spend to the figure AdsKeeper bills, use a manual cost upload. See also Traffic Source Cost Tracking.

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Delayed revenue

If you run search arbitrage (RSOC or AFD) behind AdsKeeper, the feed reports revenue hours or days after the click. To pass that revenue to AdsKeeper once it arrives, see Sending Delayed Revenue to Traffic Sources.

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Troubleshooting

  • REPLACE_WITH_CLIENT_ID is still in the postback, or the client ID belongs to another account. Copy it from Get Postback URL.
  • REPLACE_WITH_EVENT_NAME is still in the postback, or e doesn’t match the goal’s event name exactly.
  • The postback still uses AdsKeeper’s {click_id} instead of ClickFlare’s {external_id}. ClickFlare doesn’t know {click_id} and sends it as literal text.
  • The test click wasn’t made from the ad preview, so AdsKeeper didn’t flag it as a test.
  • Traffic source postback URL is off on the AdsKeeper traffic source.
  • Disable sending postbacks to traffic source is on in the campaign.
  • The postback is mapped to a different event than the one the conversion logged. Check Logs → Event Logs to see which event was recorded.
  • Check Logs → Postback Status: a failed request shows the status code AdsKeeper returned.
The postback has no r={payout}, or r still holds AdsKeeper’s {revenue}. Use ClickFlare’s {payout}.
The macros were not replaced, usually because the URL was edited or Tracking Tags duplicated a parameter. Check the Tracking link preview and paste the campaign URL from ClickFlare unchanged. See Traffic Source Tokens Arriving Empty.
For the general checklist, see Conversions not showing.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Q1: Can I use the same AdsKeeper traffic source for all my AdsKeeper campaigns?
A1: Yes, if they use the same event names. The postback is set once on the traffic source and every campaign using it sends conversions the same way. Create a second AdsKeeper traffic source only if a campaign needs different goals.
Q2: Why is it called click_id in the campaign URL and c in the postback?
A2: They are two halves of the same value. ClickFlare reads AdsKeeper’s click ID from its own click_id parameter. AdsKeeper expects it back in its own c parameter. Both names are fixed. Change neither.
Q3: AdsKeeper’s own ClickFlare guide mentions adding click_id={cf_click_id} to the lander URL. Do I need that?
A3: Not for the AdsKeeper postback. {cf_click_id} is ClickFlare’s own click ID. It belongs on the offer URL, where your affiliate network needs it to post the conversion back to ClickFlare. The AdsKeeper side only needs {click_id} in the campaign URL, which the template adds.
Q4: Can I use the MGID template for AdsKeeper?
A4: No. The postback host and your client ID are different. Use the AdsKeeper template so conversions go to a.adskeeper.com. For MGID campaigns, see MGID as a Traffic Source.

MGID as a traffic source

The sister network on the same platform.

Traffic source postbacks

Every token you can use in a postback.

Custom conversions

Split leads and sales into separate events.

Conversions not showing

The general checklist when postbacks don’t arrive.