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ADxAD traffic source template ADxAD is an ad network with strong Asian and worldwide reach. It sells popunder, display banner, native and push traffic, all on a CPM basis, through a self-serve trading desk. This guide sets up ADxAD as a traffic source in ClickFlare. It covers passing ADxAD’s click data into your reports and sending conversions, with payout, back to ADxAD through its Conversions Import Service. You do everything from the campaign editor. The ADxAD traffic source is created inline, without leaving the campaign.
The ADxAD template is incomplete. Its External ID row is empty and it has no postback. Without both, ADxAD never receives a conversion. Steps 1 and 2 show exactly what to fill in.

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At a glance

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How it works

1

ADxAD sends the click

A visitor clicks your ad. ADxAD opens your ClickFlare campaign URL and fills in its holders: the click ID in clickid (once you add it), plus the user, impression, creative, campaign, project, site and partner.
2

ClickFlare stores the ADxAD click ID

ClickFlare saves the value of clickid as the visit’s External ID 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 ADxAD

ClickFlare fires the ADxAD postback, replacing {external_id} with the stored ADxAD click ID and {payout} with the revenue. ADxAD imports the conversion against the original click.
The mirror to keep straight: in the campaign URL you write ClickFlare’s parameter (clickid) and ADxAD’s holder ({clickId}). In the postback URL you write ADxAD’s parameter (clickid) and ClickFlare’s token ({external_id}). Both sides use the parameter name clickid. The value in braces is what changes.

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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.
  • Have an ADxAD advertiser account with funds. ADxAD works on prepayment, with a minimum of 150 USD.
  • Decide which conversions ADxAD should receive. ADxAD accepts up to three conversion types. If your funnel has several steps (registration, then sale), decide now whether to send one or several. See Tracking several events.

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Step 1 – Create the campaign and the ADxAD traffic source

  1. Go to Campaigns and click New.
  2. In Traffic Source, open the dropdown and click + New Traffic Source.
  3. Type adxad in the search box and select the ADxAD template.
  4. Enter a Name, for example ADxAD.
  5. Leave Cost currency on USD. ADxAD bids and balances are in USD.
The template fills in the Parameters table for you: The ADxAD template's Parameters table in ClickFlare, with ADxAD's macros pre-filled Now fill in the empty externalId row:
  1. In TS Parameter, enter clickid.
  2. In TS Token, enter {clickId}, with a capital I, as ADxAD writes it.
  3. Leave ClickFlare Token on {external_id}.
Without this row, ADxAD’s click ID never reaches ClickFlare. Every visit has an empty External ID, and the postback in Step 2 has nothing to send back. ADxAD’s own setup guide makes this its first step.
Each tracking field becomes a column you can group reports by. Site ID is the one you will use most. It tells you which publisher sites convert, so you can black- or whitelist them in ADxAD’s targeting. To pass more ADxAD data, click Add Parameter, give it a name and parameter, and enter the ADxAD holder as the TS Token. ClickFlare assigns the next free tracking field. ADxAD’s Click URL also offers Country, Device, Browser, Language, Bid, Sub Id 1 and Sub Id 2. Click a holder in ADxAD’s Click URL tab to see its exact macro before you copy it here.

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Step 2 – Add the postback

The postback is what sends conversions to ADxAD. It lives on the traffic source, so every campaign that uses this ADxAD traffic source sends conversions the same way. The ADxAD template has no postback URL. You add ADxAD’s own.

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ADxAD’s postback

ADxAD’s Conversions Import Service accepts conversions as a GET request with three parameters: ADxAD’s example postback is:
ADxAD’s guide says to replace %insertyourtoken% with your tracker’s click ID token, and to set payout and type yourself.

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Add it to the traffic source in ClickFlare

  1. In the New Traffic Source form, scroll to Passing conversion info to traffic source.
  2. Turn on Traffic source postback URL. The field is empty, because the template has no postback.
  3. Paste ADxAD’s postback, with ClickFlare’s tokens filled in:
Three changes from ADxAD’s example. %insertyourtoken% becomes {external_id}, the ADxAD click ID ClickFlare stored. The fixed payout=1 becomes {payout}, so ADxAD gets the real revenue of each conversion. And type is goal1 for your main conversion. ADxAD’s http:// address redirects to https://, so use https:// directly.
  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 ADxAD traffic source selected.
Don’t leave %insertyourtoken% in the URL, and don’t use {clickId} in the postback. Both are ADxAD placeholders, not ClickFlare tokens, so ClickFlare sends them as literal text and ADxAD can’t match the conversion. In the postback, the click ID is always {external_id}.
ADxAD reads payout as USD. If your offers pay in another 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. ADxAD doesn’t pass cost, so use CPC for popunders. See Cost.
  3. Choose Redirect or Direct tracking. Redirect is the usual choice for 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.
Check that the campaign URL contains clickid={clickId}. If it doesn’t, the externalId row from Step 1 wasn’t saved. The other holders from the template are there too, for example siteId={siteId}. 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 ADxAD. See Creating a Campaign in ClickFlare.

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Step 4 – Create the campaign in ADxAD

ADxAD’s trading desk is organized as Project → Campaign → Creative.
  1. In ADxAD, click Trade desk.
  2. Create a project: click the plus button in the upper right corner, type a name and click create.
  3. Open the project and click the plus button next to campaigns.
  4. Set your bid (CPM in USD) and frequency cap, the campaign name, the media type and the ad format. You can’t change the media type and format later.
  5. On the Click URL tab, paste the ClickFlare campaign URL into Click url.
  6. Set the targeting under Advanced. Anything you leave unselected is included.
  7. Set the activity schedule and click save.
  8. Add creatives to the campaign and wait for them to be approved, usually within 24 hours.
  9. Enable the project, the campaign and the creatives. Traffic only flows when all three are on.
Paste the URL exactly as ClickFlare gives it. ADxAD replaces each {...} holder when the ad is clicked.

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Step 5 – Test the integration

ADxAD doesn’t offer a test-conversion tool, so test with a small live budget.
  1. Launch the campaign with a low budget.
  2. In ClickFlare, open the campaign report and check that the visits have an External ID. An empty External ID means {clickId} isn’t in the campaign URL.
  3. Group by Site ID. Real values mean the holders are filling in. If you see the literal text {siteId}, the URL was edited or pasted in the wrong field.
  4. When the first conversion arrives, go to Logs → Postback Status and filter by the campaign. A successful request to conv.adxadserv.com confirms ClickFlare sent it.
  5. In ADxAD, open Reports, choose the campaign in the filters and check that the conversion shows. ADxAD’s statistics run on UTC.

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Tracking several events

ADxAD accepts three conversion types, set with the type parameter, for example a registration as goal1 and a sale as goal2. Each event needs its own postback:
  1. In ClickFlare, create a custom conversion for each step, for example registration and sale.
  2. On the ADxAD traffic source, click + Another postback URL once per extra event.
  3. Map each postback to its ClickFlare event: registration to the type=goal1 URL, sale to type=goal2.
  • Three events at most: goal1, goal2, goal3.
  • One postback per event. Don’t combine events in one URL.
  • Don’t rename the types. ADxAD only reads goal1 to goal3.
  • Keep the mapping the same across your ADxAD campaigns, so goal2 always means the same thing in ADxAD’s reports.
If ADxAD should only learn from your final sale, keep a single postback with type=goal1 and map it to that event. Earlier steps still show in ClickFlare. They just don’t reach ADxAD.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 doesn’t pass cost. It has no Cost row, and ADxAD sells on CPM only, so there is no per-click price to read from the URL. How to set the cost depends on the format:
ADxAD’s Bid holder carries your CPM bid. You can add it as a tracking field to see it next to each visit, but it is a price per 1,000 impressions, not the cost of the visit. Don’t use it as the cost.
ADxAD’s price is dynamic and depends on demand, so your real CPM can sit below your bid. Compare ClickFlare’s Cost column with ADxAD’s Reports regularly, and correct gaps with a manual cost upload. See Cost Models.

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Delayed revenue

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

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Troubleshooting

  • The externalId row is still empty, so the postback has no click ID to send. Fill it in as in Step 1 and copy the campaign URL again.
  • Traffic source postback URL is off, or the field is empty. The template has no postback, so you must add one.
  • 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 ADxAD returned.
The campaign URL in ADxAD doesn’t contain clickid={clickId}. Add the externalId row on the traffic source, then copy the campaign URL from ClickFlare again and update the Click url in ADxAD.
The postback still has ADxAD’s example payout=1. Change it to payout={payout}.
The holders were not replaced, usually because the URL was edited or pasted somewhere ADxAD doesn’t process them. Paste the campaign URL from ClickFlare unchanged. If only one column stays empty, ADxAD may not fill that holder for your format. Compare it with the holders listed on ADxAD’s Click URL tab. See Traffic Source Tokens Arriving Empty.
For the general checklist, see Conversions not showing.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Q1: Can I use the same ADxAD traffic source for all my ADxAD campaigns?
A1: Yes. Once you fill in the externalId row and add the postback, every campaign using the traffic source sends conversions the same way. Create a second ADxAD traffic source only if a campaign needs a different event setup.
Q2: ADxAD’s FAQ says to contact my manager for postback integration. Do I still need to?
A2: Not for a standard setup. ADxAD’s Conversions Import Service documents the postback this guide uses. Contact your ADxAD manager if conversions don’t appear after you’ve checked the steps above.
Q3: Why {clickId} in the campaign URL but {external_id} in the postback?
A3: {clickId} is ADxAD’s holder: ADxAD fills it in when the ad is clicked. {external_id} is ClickFlare’s token for the same value, stored from that click. ADxAD’s holders only work in the click URL. ClickFlare’s tokens only work in the postback.
Q4: Should I use Redirect or Direct tracking with ADxAD?
A4: Redirect is the usual choice and works with every ADxAD format. Use Direct only if ADxAD must see your lander’s domain as the destination. See Direct Campaign Tracking.
Q5: Does ClickFlare pull my ADxAD spend automatically?
A5: No. There is no ADxAD cost integration. Use CPC for popunders and manual cost uploads for the other formats.

Traffic source postbacks

Every token you can use in a postback.

Custom conversions

Split registrations and sales into separate events.

Manual cost upload

Correct spend when no cost is passed in the URL.

Conversions not showing

The general checklist when postbacks don’t arrive.