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CPAlead and ClickFlare Integration CPAlead is a CPA network for publishers. You can promote its offers through direct offer links, an offerwall or content lockers. Its postback is built for publishers: when a qualifying conversion happens, CPAlead sends an HTTP GET request to a URL you choose, with the values you asked for. To CPAlead, ClickFlare is simply that URL. To track CPAlead offers in ClickFlare, two links have to carry the ClickFlare click ID in both directions:
  • The offer URL sends the ClickFlare click ID to CPAlead in subid on your direct offer link.
  • The postback URL sends it back to ClickFlare with every conversion, together with the payout and CPAlead’s unique lead ID. You save it once in CPAlead’s Postback Configuration.
This guide covers the setup for direct links, how event offers come through, CPAlead’s delivery rules, and how to check that it all works.
Only need the two values? The Click ID & postback macros page has them ready to copy with your tracking domain.

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At a glance

To set up CPAlead with ClickFlare:
  1. Set up your domain and postback time.
  2. Create the CPAlead affiliate network.
  3. Save the postback in CPAlead.
  4. Copy the offer’s direct link.
  5. Create the offer and launch.
Each step is explained in Setup.

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How the data flows

The two links mirror each other:
Offer URL = their parameter + your token. Postback URL = your parameter + their token. CPAlead writes the click ID into subid on the way in and reads it back with the {subid} macro on the way out. The names to the left of = are ClickFlare’s; the macros in braces are CPAlead’s.

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What you’ll need

  • An active ClickFlare account with your own tracking domain set up, on HTTPS. Shared domains get flagged by networks and blocked by browsers. See Tracking domains.
  • A CPAlead publisher account.
  • Direct offer links. The offerwall and lockers pass your own user IDs in subid to reward users, which is a different flow. See Offerwall and lockers.

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What the CPAlead template contains

ClickFlare has a CPAlead affiliate network template. It fills in the CPAlead macros ClickFlare needs. The CPAlead template in ClickFlare: Click Id is {subid}, Payout is {payout} and Transaction ID is {lead_id} The offer parameter is subid. CPAlead only accepts the macros it supports, in lowercase, and rejects anything else when you save or test the postback.

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Setup

Everything in ClickFlare is done from inside the campaign editor. Create the offer and the affiliate network inline as you go.
1

Set up your own tracking domain

Add a custom tracking domain before anything else, for example trk.yourdomain.com, with SSL. CPAlead expects an HTTPS postback URL that answers directly, without redirects. The postback URL is built on this domain, so changing it later means updating it in CPAlead too. See Tracking domains.
2

Report conversions by postback time

Go to Settings → General Settings and set Conversion registration time reporting to Postback Timestamp.CPAlead 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 or event 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 CPAlead 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 CPAlead and pick the template.
  2. Name it, for example “CPAlead”.
  3. Check the fields: Click Id {subid}, Payout {payout}, Transaction ID {lead_id}.
  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 of your CPAlead account.
ClickFlare builds the postback URL from these fields:
The Conversion tracking section of the CPAlead network in ClickFlare, with the generated postback URL: click_id={subid}&payout={payout}&txid={lead_id}Copy the postback URL and save the network.
5

Save the postback in CPAlead

In CPAlead, open Postback Configuration. Then:
  1. Paste the ClickFlare postback URL into the URL field.
  2. Leave Postback Password empty. ClickFlare doesn’t check it, and adding {password} to the URL would only send your secret along with every conversion.
  3. Turn on Postback Enabled.
  4. Click Save. Turning on the switch alone doesn’t save it.
CPAlead’s docs describe one postback URL in Postback Configuration, not one per offer, so it covers every conversion on your publisher account.
6

Get the offer's direct link from CPAlead

Copy the tracking link for the offer from your CPAlead account. A direct link looks like this:
id is the offer and pub is your publisher ID. Keep the tracking domain, offer ID and publisher ID as CPAlead gives them.
7

Create the offer in ClickFlare

In the offer form:
  1. Name the offer.
  2. Select the CPAlead affiliate network you just created.
  3. Paste the CPAlead link into Offer URL with &subid={cf_click_id} at the end:
The Offer URL field of the ClickFlare New Offer form with a CPAlead link ending in subid={cf_click_id}If you pasted the link without subid, you can turn on Append Click ID to Offer Url instead. ClickFlare then adds subid={cf_click_id} from the template. Use one or the other, not both.
Write {cf_click_id} with braces. Without them CPAlead 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.
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 CPAlead 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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Transaction ID

By default ClickFlare keeps one conversion per click ID. If several postbacks arrive with the same click ID and no transaction ID, ClickFlare treats them as the same conversion, and you only see one of them (the last one received). When they carry a txid, the same txid replaces the earlier conversion and a different txid adds a new one. CPAlead’s {lead_id} is exactly what ClickFlare needs:
  • Every conversion and every paid event gets its own {lead_id}, so each one counts in ClickFlare.
  • CPAlead can deliver the same postback more than once when it retries after an error. A retry carries the same {lead_id}, so it replaces the first one instead of counting twice.
CPAlead also accepts {transaction_id} as another name for {lead_id}. Either works. Don’t use {subid} or {campaign_id} as the transaction ID: they are the same for every event on the click.

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Event offers

Some CPAlead offers pay on several events for the same user, for example an install and then a level reached in an app. Each paid event arrives as its own postback, with its own {lead_id} and the event’s payout in {payout}. With txid={lead_id}, ClickFlare records each event as a separate conversion on the click. Events can arrive in any order. To see events as their own conversion types, use CPAlead’s {event_key} macro as ct. It holds a key such as event_1, and is empty for ordinary conversions:
  1. Create a custom conversion in ClickFlare for each event you want as a column, with the parameter event_1, event_2 and so on.
  2. Add &ct={event_key} to the end of the postback URL in CPAlead:
The ct value must exactly match a parameter of a custom conversion in ClickFlare. If it doesn’t, ClickFlare records a regular conversion instead. That also covers ordinary conversions, where {event_key} is empty. Event keys can differ between offers, so check them in the postback logs before you create the custom conversions.
To keep the event name for reporting without changing how it counts, add &param1={event_name} instead. See Postback parameters.

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Delivery rules

CPAlead is strict about the receiving URL. Your ClickFlare tracking domain meets these rules once it’s set up with SSL:
  • HTTPS, and the final URL: CPAlead doesn’t follow redirects.
  • A fast HTTP 2xx response, well within 15 seconds.
  • Reachable without a login, cookies or JavaScript. If anything in front of your tracking domain filters traffic, allow CPAlead’s postback relay IP, shown in the postback section of your account.
If deliveries keep failing, CPAlead shows a postback error warning and can pause delivery. Fix the cause first, then save the configuration again. Two things never produce a postback: CPC earnings, and reversals. If CPAlead reverses a conversion later, ClickFlare isn’t told. Compare ClickFlare with your CPAlead stats before payday.

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Offerwall and lockers

On the offerwall and content lockers, subid is meant for your own user ID, so CPAlead knows which of your users to reward. There’s no ClickFlare click in that flow, so ClickFlare can’t match those conversions. And if your account has a single postback URL, as CPAlead’s docs describe, the same URL receives offerwall conversions too: they reach ClickFlare with a user ID as click_id and don’t match any click. If you already use the postback to reward users on your own site, don’t replace it with ClickFlare’s URL. Ask CPAlead support whether your account can send a second postback, or keep ClickFlare tracking on a separate publisher account.

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Verify the setup

1

Click through the campaign

Open the ClickFlare campaign URL (with a lander, also click the CTA). When the offer loads, the first request goes to CPAlead’s tracking domain. In your browser’s network tab, check that it has subid= followed by a real ClickFlare click ID, not the literal text {cf_click_id}. Copy that click ID.
2

Send a test from CPAlead

Open CPAlead’s Testing page. Replace the sample subid with the click ID you copied, set a small payout and a test lead ID, and send it. The tester sends a real request: check that the resolved URL is your ClickFlare postback and that the response is 2xx. Tester values aren’t saved to your configuration.
3

Check the conversion in ClickFlare

The test conversion should appear on the campaign with the payout you set, and with a txid. After real conversions, check CPAlead’s Postback Logs for delivery results.

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Troubleshooting

Work through these in order:
  • The postback isn’t saved. Turn on Postback Enabled and click Save in Postback Configuration.
  • CPAlead rejects a macro. Every macro must be on CPAlead’s supported list, in lowercase. {click_id} and {status} are not CPAlead macros.
  • Delivery fails. Check Postback Logs for the HTTP status. A redirect, a 4xx or a timeout means the URL isn’t your final HTTPS tracking domain.
  • subid is empty in CPAlead. The offer URL is missing subid={cf_click_id}, or the lander CTA links straight to CPAlead instead of using the ClickFlare click URL.
  • The earnings are CPC. CPC earnings don’t send postbacks.
See Troubleshooting S2S postbacks for the general checks.
  • A user ID means the conversion came from your offerwall or a locker. See Offerwall and lockers.
  • A literal cf_click_id means the offer URL in ClickFlare has the token without braces. It must be {cf_click_id}.
The postback has no txid. Add txid={lead_id} in the ClickFlare network and save the updated URL in CPAlead.
  • Check that the postback has payout={payout} and the offer’s payout is set to Auto in ClickFlare. Don’t use {virtual_currency}: it’s usually 0.
  • Set the affiliate network’s Payout currency in ClickFlare to the currency of your CPAlead account.

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FAQ

Yes. ClickFlare has a CPAlead affiliate network template. You pass the click ID in subid on the direct link and save the ClickFlare URL in CPAlead’s Postback Configuration.
Yes. Direct links also take subid2 and subid3, and CPAlead returns them with {subid2} and {subid3}. Use them for your own labels, such as the traffic source or placement, and keep subid for the click ID. For mobile traffic you can also pass idfa and gaid.
Add &param1={campaign_id} or &param1={campaign_name} to the postback in CPAlead. ClickFlare stores it as an extra parameter you can report on.
Yes. Once ClickFlare records the CPAlead conversion, it can send it to the traffic source through the traffic source’s postback or conversion API integration. Nothing changes on the CPAlead side.

Macro reference

Every network’s values

Custom conversions

Events as columns

Postback issues

Troubleshoot S2S