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Adsterra traffic source template Adsterra is a self-serve ad network selling popunder, Social Bar, in-page push, native and display banner traffic, most of it mobile. This guide sets up Adsterra as a traffic source in ClickFlare. It covers passing Adsterra’s click data into your reports and sending conversions, with payout, back to Adsterra so its optimization and your stats agree. You do everything from the campaign editor. The Adsterra traffic source is created inline, without leaving the campaign.

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At a glance

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How it works

1

Adsterra sends the click

A visitor clicks your ad. Adsterra opens your ClickFlare campaign URL and fills in its macros: the click ID in subid, the price of the click in cost, plus the zone, banner, placement, OS, country and other details.
2

ClickFlare stores the Adsterra click ID

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

The conversion reaches ClickFlare

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

ClickFlare posts it back to Adsterra

ClickFlare fires the Adsterra postback, replacing {external_id} with the stored Adsterra click ID and {payout} with the revenue. Adsterra matches it to the original click.
The mirror to keep straight: in the campaign URL you write ClickFlare’s parameter (subid) and Adsterra’s macro (##SUB_ID_SHORT(action)##). The template does this for you. In the postback URL you write Adsterra’s parameter (subid_short) 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.
  • Know your Adsterra username. It goes into the postback URL.
  • Decide which conversions Adsterra should receive. Adsterra optimizes on what you send it. If your funnel has several steps (lead, then sale), decide now whether to send one event or several. See Tracking several events.

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Step 1 – Create the campaign and the Adsterra traffic source

  1. Go to Campaigns and click New.
  2. In Traffic Source, open the dropdown and click + New Traffic Source.
  3. Type adsterra in the search box and select the Adsterra template.
  4. Enter a Name, for example Adsterra.
  5. Leave Cost currency on USD unless your Adsterra account is billed in another currency.
The template fills in the Parameters table for you: The Adsterra template's Parameters table in ClickFlare, with Adsterra's macros pre-filled Each tracking field becomes a column you can group reports by. zoneid and placement are the ones you will use most: they tell you which publisher sites convert, so you can blacklist or bid up zones in Adsterra.
Don’t change or remove the external_id row. Without ##SUB_ID_SHORT(action)## in the campaign URL, Adsterra cannot match conversions, and its Conversion tracking page will warn that an obligatory token is missing.
To pass more Adsterra data, click Add Parameter, give it a name and parameter, and enter the Adsterra macro as the TS Token. ClickFlare assigns the next free tracking field. Check the macros your Adsterra account offers before adding them.

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Step 2 – Set up the postback

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

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Get your postback URL from Adsterra

  1. In Adsterra, open the menu on the left and click Conversion tracking.
  2. Choose Custom as the tracker. ClickFlare is not in Adsterra’s list of built-in trackers.
  3. Choose the postback type:
  1. Generate the postback and copy it. USERNAME is filled in with your Adsterra username.
Choose With payout unless you have a reason not to. Adsterra uses the payout for its CPA bidding and shows it in your Adsterra stats.

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Add it to the traffic source 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:
It already sends the click ID ({external_id}) and the payout ({payout}), both as ClickFlare tokens.
  1. Replace CHANGENAME with your Adsterra username. Compare the result with the With payout URL you generated in Adsterra: apart from the click ID token (Adsterra’s {clickid}, ClickFlare’s {external_id}), the two should match. The result:
  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 Adsterra traffic source selected.
The Traffic source postback URL switched on, showing the Adsterra template's postback
Replace CHANGENAME with your Adsterra username, exactly as it appears in the URL Adsterra generates. If CHANGENAME stays in the postback, Adsterra cannot match the conversions to your account.
Adsterra reads atpay as USD. If your offers pay in EUR or another currency, replace the template’s URL with the With currency conversion URL from Adsterra, with your currency code in the path, so Adsterra converts it. Change its {clickid} to {external_id} and keep {payout}. 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 cost Adsterra passes. See Cost.
  3. Choose Redirect or Direct tracking. Redirect is the usual choice for Adsterra’s popunder and banner traffic.
  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 Adsterra macro from the template, for example subid=##SUB_ID_SHORT(action)## and zoneid=##ZONE_ID##. 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 Adsterra. See Creating a Campaign in ClickFlare.

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Step 4 – Create the campaign in Adsterra

  1. In Adsterra, go to Campaigns and create a campaign.
  2. Choose the ad format, targeting and bid as usual.
  3. Paste the ClickFlare campaign URL into the campaign’s URL field.
  4. Submit the campaign for moderation.
Paste the URL exactly as ClickFlare gives it. Adsterra replaces each ##...## macro when the ad is clicked.

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Step 5 – Test the integration

Adsterra can verify the setup before you spend anything.
  1. In Adsterra, open Conversion tracking and paste your ClickFlare campaign URL into the URL check field.
  2. Validate it. A correct URL returns Your URL is correct. Go ahead and make a test conversion. If Adsterra reports a missing token, check that the subid=##SUB_ID_SHORT(action)## part is in the URL.
  3. Click Make a test conversion and complete the offer the way a real visitor would.
  4. Check the status in Adsterra:
  1. In ClickFlare, go to Logs → Postback Status and filter by the campaign. A successful postback to pbterra.com confirms ClickFlare sent it.

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Tracking several events

Adsterra can track up to three conversion events per campaign, for example a registration, a deposit and a purchase. Each event needs its own postback, with an event parameter added:
  1. In ClickFlare, create a custom conversion for each step, for example lead and purchase.
  2. On the Adsterra traffic source, click + Another postback URL once per extra event.
  3. Map each postback to its ClickFlare event: the lead custom conversion to the event=event1 URL, purchase to event=event2.
  4. When you create the campaign in Adsterra, tick I’ve set up events postback for this campaign.
  5. Test each event. Adsterra marks an event VALID only after you complete that action during the test.
  • Three events at most: event1, event2, event3.
  • One postback per event. Don’t combine events in one URL.
  • Don’t rename the events. Adsterra only reads event1 to event3.
  • To optimize CPA bidding on a specific event, contact Adsterra support. They provide the postback URLs for paid-event optimization.
  • In Adsterra’s Statistics, turn on Multievents to see conversions, eCPA and conversion rate split by event.
If Adsterra 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 Adsterra.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. The cost row sends Adsterra’s ##COST_CPC## macro, which is Adsterra’s price for the click, and ClickFlare records it as the visit’s cost. On the campaign, set the Cost Model to Not Tracked so ClickFlare uses the cost passed in the URL.
##COST_CPC## reflects the price on CPC campaigns. On CPM campaigns, compare the Cost column with your Adsterra spend after launch. If it doesn’t match, switch the Cost Model to CPC and enter your CPM bid divided by 1,000 as the cost value. A popunder or Social Bar impression is roughly one visit.
For Adsterra’s CPA goal campaigns, set the Cost Model to CPA, with your price per conversion. When the recorded spend differs from your Adsterra spend, correct it with a manual cost upload. See Cost Models.

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Delayed revenue

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

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Troubleshooting

  • The campaign URL in Adsterra is missing subid=##SUB_ID_SHORT(action)##, or the macro was edited. Copy the URL from ClickFlare again.
  • The postback uses Adsterra’s {clickid} instead of ClickFlare’s {external_id}. ClickFlare doesn’t know {clickid} and sends it as literal text.
  • The external_id row was removed from the traffic source.
  • Traffic source postback URL is off on the Adsterra 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.
  • CHANGENAME was never replaced with your Adsterra username.
  • Check Logs → Postback Status: a failed request shows the status code Adsterra returned.
The template sends atpay={payout}, so it was removed or edited. Restore &atpay={payout} at the end of the postback.Also check that CHANGENAME was replaced with your Adsterra username. Adsterra can’t credit a postback that still contains it.
The macros were not replaced, usually because the URL was pasted somewhere Adsterra doesn’t process macros, or was edited. 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 Adsterra traffic source for all my Adsterra campaigns?
A1: Yes. The postback is set once on the traffic source and every campaign using it sends conversions the same way. Create a second Adsterra traffic source only if a campaign needs a different postback, for example a different event setup.
Q2: Adsterra lists Voluum, Binom, RedTrack and other trackers, but not ClickFlare. Is that a problem?
A2: No. Choose Custom. The built-in options only pre-fill the click ID token for that tracker. With Custom you replace {clickid} with {external_id} yourself.
Q3: Why is it called subid in the campaign URL and subid_short in the postback?
A3: They are two halves of the same value. ClickFlare reads Adsterra’s click ID from its own subid parameter. Adsterra expects it back in its own subid_short parameter. Both names are fixed. Change neither.
Q4: Should I use Redirect or Direct tracking with Adsterra?
A4: Redirect is the usual choice and works with every Adsterra format. Use Direct only if Adsterra must see your lander’s domain as the destination. See Direct Campaign Tracking.
Q5: Does the template work for Adsterra’s CPA campaigns?
A5: Yes. CPA campaigns need the postback, because Adsterra charges and optimizes on the conversions it receives. Set the campaign’s cost model to CPA in ClickFlare.

Traffic source postbacks

Every token you can use in a postback.

Custom conversions

Split leads and sales into separate events.

Cost models

How CPC, CPA and RevShare costs are calculated.

Conversions not showing

The general checklist when postbacks don’t arrive.