Rakuten Advertising and ClickFlare Integration Guide

• The offer URL sends the ClickFlare click ID to Rakuten in u1.
• The postback URL sends it back to ClickFlare with every transaction event, together with your commission and Rakuten’s transaction ID. You register it through Rakuten’s Postback API.

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At a glance

1. Set the domain and reporting time.
2. Create two custom conversions.
3. Create the Rakuten affiliate network.
4. Create the offer with u1.
5. Register the postback with Rakuten.

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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://click.linksynergy.com/deeplink?id=ABC123&mid=12345&murl=...&u1=CF_CLICK_ID
     (Rakuten stores the ClickFlare click ID as u1, the Member ID)
  → Visitor buys on the advertiser's site
  → Rakuten pushes the transaction event to your postback:
     https://trk.yourdomain.com/cf/cv?click_id=CF_CLICK_ID&payout=8.50&txid=ETRANSACTION_ID&ct=N&is_event=N
     (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.
• A Rakuten Advertising publisher account, approved in the advertiser programs you want to promote.
• Signature enabled on your account. Rakuten makes u1 available to publishers enabled for Signature. Ask your account manager or Rakuten support if you’re not sure.
• Access to Rakuten’s Developer Portal (you log in with your Publisher Dashboard credentials), an API access token, and a user account associated with the publisher ID that will use the postback.
• Two custom conversions in ClickFlare, set up in the steps below.

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What the Rakuten Advertising 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 registering the postback with Rakuten again. Rakuten skips any endpoint that takes longer than 400 ms to respond, so use a domain that answers quickly. See Tracking domains.

2

Report conversions by postback time

Go to Settings → General Settings and set Conversion registration time reporting to Postback Timestamp.Many Rakuten advertisers confirm sales later, for example when the order ships. With the default Visit Timestamp, ClickFlare reports each conversion on the day of the original click. See Conversion registration time.

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

3

Create two custom conversions

Go to Settings → Custom Conversions and add two:

Name	Parameter	Main reporting
Rakuten preliminary	Y	Off: don’t add to the main conversions or revenue columns
Rakuten final	N	On: add to the main conversions and revenue columns

The parameter must match the ct value exactly, so enter capital Y and N. A ct value that matches no custom conversion is logged as a general conversion.

4

Create the campaign

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

5

Create the Rakuten 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 Rakuten and pick the Rakuten Advertising template.
2. Name it, for example “Rakuten Advertising”.
3. Check that Click Id is <u1>, Payout is <commissions> and Transaction ID is <etransaction_id>, with no spaces before or after.
4. Check that Event Type is <is_event>.
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 Rakuten pays you in.

ClickFlare builds the postback URL from these fields. Rakuten requires the is_event=<is_event> field in every postback URL, so add it at the end when you copy it:

https://trk.yourdomain.com/cf/cv?click_id=<u1>&payout=<commissions>&txid=<etransaction_id>&ct=<is_event>&is_event=<is_event>

Copy the postback URL and save the network.

6

Build the deep link in Rakuten

In the Rakuten Publisher Dashboard, get the link for the advertiser, or build a deep link by hand. A deep link has your ID (id), the advertiser ID (mid) and the destination page (murl):

https://click.linksynergy.com/deeplink?id=ABC123&mid=12345&murl=https%3A%2F%2Fadvertiser.com%2Fpage

Make sure the destination in murl is URL-encoded, so the u1 you add next is read as part of the Rakuten link and not as part of the destination.

7

Create the offer in ClickFlare

In the offer form:

1. Name the offer, for example after the advertiser.
2. Select the Rakuten affiliate network you just created.
3. Paste the Rakuten link into Offer URL and turn on Append Click ID to Offer Url. ClickFlare adds u1={cf_click_id}. You can also add &u1={cf_click_id} yourself. Use one or the other, not both.

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

A u1 value can be up to 72 characters, and Rakuten recommends no special characters. It shows in Rakuten’s reports as the Member ID.Set the payout to Auto so ClickFlare uses the payout value from the postback.

8

Register the postback with Rakuten

Log in to Rakuten’s Developer Portal with your Publisher Dashboard credentials. With your API access token, use the Postback API to set up a postback for your publisher ID and paste the ClickFlare URL. The same API lets you update, delete, disable or enable the postback, and check its status.Rakuten can rename fields, send only some of them, reorder them or add static values. You don’t need any of that: the URL above already names each field the way ClickFlare expects. If you can’t call the API yourself, ask Rakuten support or your account manager to set up the postback for you with the URL.

9

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 Rakuten link. ClickFlare then fills in the click ID when it redirects to the offer. See Paths with landers and offers.

10

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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Preliminary, final and cancelled events

• Preliminary (is_event=Y). Some advertisers report sales in batches, for example travel and booking sites, pre-orders, or shops that report when the order ships. They send a preliminary event at the time of purchase. Rakuten says to treat every Y event as preliminary: the advertiser can still remove it.
• Final (is_event=N). When the sale is confirmed, the postback fires again with N. With real-time pixel tracking, the Y event is followed almost immediately by its N event.
• Cancellation. If the customer cancels or returns the order, Rakuten sends another event with is_event=N, a negative commission and sale amount, and a new transaction ID. A partial return only carries the returned item’s amount.

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Rakuten’s postback limits

• 400 ms timeout, one attempt. Rakuten doesn’t send data if your endpoint takes longer than 400 ms, and it doesn’t retry a failed send.
• Postbacks can be disabled without notice. Rakuten says you won’t be told if your postback is disabled automatically. Check it now and then with the Postback API’s endpoint status call.
• Clicks older than 30 days. Rakuten’s Events API keeps click data for 30 days for u1 matching, and transactions from older clicks have no u1. The Postback API pushes the same data, so expect those transactions to arrive without a click ID that ClickFlare can match.
• Not for accounting. Rakuten recommends its Signature Reconciliation Feed Reports, not the postback, for reconciling what you’re paid.

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Verify the setup

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Troubleshooting

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FAQ

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