CAKE and ClickFlare Integration Guide

• The offer URL sends the ClickFlare click ID to CAKE in s2.
• The postback URL sends it back to ClickFlare with every conversion, together with the payout and a unique conversion ID.

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How the data flows

Ad click
  → https://trk.yourdomain.com/cf/r/CAMPAIGN?...
     (ClickFlare records the click and generates the click ID)
  → [optional lander → CTA uses the ClickFlare click URL]
  → https://network-domain.com/?a=12345&c=678&s2=CF_CLICK_ID
     (CAKE stores the ClickFlare click ID in s2)
  → Visitor converts on the advertiser's page
  → CAKE fires your postback:
     https://trk.yourdomain.com/cf/cv?click_id=CF_CLICK_ID&payout=25.00&txid=CAKE_LEAD_ID
     (ClickFlare matches the conversion to the original click)

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What you’ll need

• An active ClickFlare account with your own tracking domain set up. Shared domains get flagged by networks and blocked by browsers. See Tracking domains.
• An affiliate account on the network’s CAKE portal, approved for the offer you want to run. CAKE only shows the tracking tab for offers you’re approved on.
• If the network reviews affiliate pixels: a few hours for them to approve your postback. CAKE’s default is that affiliate pixels wait for approval.

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What the CAKE template contains

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Setup

1

Set up your own tracking domain

Add a custom tracking domain before anything else, for example trk.yourdomain.com. The postback URL is built on this domain, so changing it later means updating the postback in every CAKE offer too. See Tracking domains.

2

Report conversions by postback time

Go to Settings → General Settings and set Conversion registration time reporting to Postback Timestamp.CAKE reports a conversion on the day it happened. With the default Visit Timestamp, ClickFlare reports it on the day of the original click, so a conversion that comes in days later lands on a different date in each platform. See Conversion registration time.

This is an account-wide setting. It changes the date conversions are reported on for every campaign.

3

Create the campaign

Go to Campaigns → New Campaign, choose Redirect tracking, pick your traffic source and select your tracking domain. See Creating a campaign.

4

Create the CAKE affiliate network

While creating the offer for the campaign, create a new affiliate network in its Affiliate Network field. You can also create it first under Affiliate Networks → + New. Either way:

1. Search for Cake and pick the Cake (getCAKE.com) template.
2. Name it after the network, for example “CAKE - ClickDealer”. Each CAKE network has its own portal and its own postbacks, so create one affiliate network per CAKE network.
3. Change Transaction ID from #tid# to #leadid#.
4. Leave Event Type empty.
5. Under Conversion tracking, select your own Tracking Domain and keep S2S Postback URL as the tracking method.
6. Set Payout currency to the currency the network pays you in.

ClickFlare builds the postback URL from these fields:

https://trk.yourdomain.com/cf/cv?click_id=#s2#&payout=#price#&txid=#leadid#

Copy the postback URL and save the network.

5

Get the offer's tracking link from CAKE

In the CAKE portal, go to Offers, click the offer’s name and open the Creatives tab. Click Get Link next to the creative you want. The link looks like this:

https://network-domain.com/?a=12345&c=678

a is your affiliate ID and c identifies the creative and the campaign. Some portals let you fill in sub IDs before copying. If yours does, type {cf_click_id} in s2. If not, you’ll add it in ClickFlare in the next step.

Use s2, not s1. CAKE reserves s1 for values that repeat, such as a sub-affiliate or placement ID, and limits it to 50 characters. A different value on every click in s1 triggers CAKE’s “Excessive Unique Sub ID” alert. s2 to s5 take up to 100 characters each.

6

Create the offer in ClickFlare

In the offer form:

1. Name the offer.
2. Select the CAKE affiliate network you just created.
3. Paste the CAKE link into Offer URL with &s2={cf_click_id} at the end:

https://network-domain.com/?a=12345&c=678&s2={cf_click_id}

If you pasted the link without s2, turn on Append Click ID to Offer Url instead. ClickFlare then adds s2={cf_click_id} from the template. Use one or the other, not both.

Write {cf_click_id} with braces. Without them CAKE stores the literal text cf_click_id, the postback returns that text, and the conversion cannot be matched to a click.

Set the payout to Auto so ClickFlare uses the payout value from the postback.

7

Add the postback in CAKE

Back in the CAKE portal, open the same offer and go to its Testing & Tracking tab. You’ll see these fields:

Field	What to do
Postback URL	Paste the ClickFlare postback URL you copied
Postback Delay (ms)	Leave empty. It only delays the postback so a browser pixel can fire first.
Pixel HTML	Leave empty. It’s for iframe, image or JavaScript pixels, not for a postback URL.

Click Save. The Tokens section on the same tab lists every token this network supports, so you can check #s2#, #price# and #leadid# are there.

The postback is set per offer. CAKE’s account-wide (“global”) affiliate pixel can only be placed by the network, so if you want one postback for all your offers, send the URL to your affiliate manager. If an offer has both, CAKE fires only the offer’s postback.

If the network reviews pixels, the postback waits for their approval and doesn’t fire until then. Ask your affiliate manager to approve it.

8

Add a lander (optional)

If you send traffic through a lander before the offer, the lander’s CTA must use the ClickFlare click URL, not the CAKE link. ClickFlare then adds the click ID when it redirects to the offer. See Paths with landers and offers.

9

Save the campaign and launch

Save the campaign, copy the campaign URL from the Tracking tab and use it in your ads. Before you spend money on traffic, run the checks in Verify the setup.

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Why the transaction ID matters

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Events and multi-step offers

• One postback covers all published events. CAKE fires your offer’s postback for the conversion and again for every event the network has published to affiliates. Unpublished events don’t fire your postback and pay you nothing.
• There is no per-event postback field in the affiliate portal, and CAKE sends no event name. Every event arrives in ClickFlare as the same conversion type.
• #leadid# keeps them apart. Each event gets its own ID, so ClickFlare counts each one. The payout tells them apart in your reports: each event pays its own #price#.

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Pending and rejected conversions

• CAKE has no status token for affiliates, and it doesn’t send a second postback when a conversion is approved, rejected or scrubbed later.
• ClickFlare therefore counts what CAKE recorded, not what the network finally paid. Compare against the network’s conversion report before payday, and adjust in ClickFlare if the network scrubbed conversions.

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Verify the setup

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Troubleshooting

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FAQ

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