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TwinRed traffic source template TwinRed is a self-serve real-time-bidding ad platform with adult and mainstream inventory from direct publishers and ad exchanges. It sells popunders, interstitials, banners and video (pre-roll, outstream and sliders) on dynamic CPM, fixed CPM and CPC. This guide sets up TwinRed as a traffic source in ClickFlare. It covers passing TwinRed’s click data into your reports and sending conversions, with their value, back to TwinRed so its statistics and your stats agree. You do everything from the campaign editor. The TwinRed traffic source is created inline, without leaving the campaign.

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At a glance

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How it works

1

TwinRed sends the click

A visitor clicks your ad. TwinRed opens your ClickFlare campaign URL and fills in its macros: the transaction ID in transaction_id, the cost in cost, plus the campaign, ad, creative, source site, format, country and other details.
2

ClickFlare stores the TwinRed transaction ID

ClickFlare saves the value of transaction_id 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 TwinRed

ClickFlare fires the TwinRed postback, replacing {external_id} with the stored transaction ID and {payout} with the revenue. TwinRed matches it to the original click and records it under the tracker in the URL.
The mirror to keep straight: in the campaign URL you write ClickFlare’s parameter (transaction_id) and TwinRed’s macro ({transactionId}). The template does this for you. In the postback URL you write TwinRed’s parameter (id) and ClickFlare’s token ({external_id}). TwinRed’s macros use curly braces like ClickFlare’s tokens, so check which side of the mirror you are on.

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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.
  • Create a tracker in TwinRed. In your TwinRed advertiser account, a tracker is a conversion event, and its ID goes into the postback URL. Step 2 shows how.
  • Decide which conversions TwinRed should receive. Each event you send needs its own tracker. 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 TwinRed traffic source

  1. Go to Campaigns and click New.
  2. In Traffic Source, open the dropdown and click + New Traffic Source.
  3. Type twinred in the search box and select the TwinRed template.
  4. Enter a Name, for example TwinRed.
  5. Leave Cost currency on USD unless your TwinRed account is billed in another currency.
The template fills in the Parameters table for you: The TwinRed template's Parameters table in ClickFlare, with TwinRed's macros pre-filled Each tracking field becomes a column you can group reports by. Source, Source Site and Domain are the ones you will use most: they tell you which sources convert, so you can blacklist or whitelist them in TwinRed.
Don’t change or remove the External ID row. Without {transactionId} in the campaign URL, ClickFlare has nothing to send back in the postback, and TwinRed cannot match conversions.
To pass more TwinRed data, click Add Parameter, give it a name and parameter, and enter the TwinRed macro as the TS Token. ClickFlare assigns the next free tracking field. TwinRed’s macro list also includes {region}, {carrier}, {keywords}, {sspId}, {sourceName}, {adName}, {creativeName}, {campaignGroupId} and {campaignGroupName}. When you set up a creative in TwinRed, the “i” icon shows each macro with its description.

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Step 2 – Set up the postback

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

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Get your tracker ID from TwinRed

  1. In your TwinRed advertiser account, open Manage Trackers from the left menu.
  2. Enter a Tracker name for the conversion event, for example sale, and click Create.
  3. To have TwinRed record the payout ClickFlare sends, tick Allow dynamic conversion value on the tracker. Otherwise TwinRed ignores the value in the postback.
  4. Expand the tracker. Its Postback URL (S2S) looks like this:
  1. Copy the number after /conversion/, here 64164. That is your tracker ID.

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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:
The Traffic source postback URL switched on, showing the TwinRed template's postback It already sends the transaction ID ({external_id}) in id and the payout ({payout}) in cv, both as ClickFlare tokens. INSERT_TRANSACTION_ID in TwinRed’s own URL is where {external_id} goes.
  1. Replace REPLACE_WITH_TRACKER_ID with your tracker ID. 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 TwinRed traffic source selected.
Replace REPLACE_WITH_TRACKER_ID with the number from your tracker’s postback URL. The tracker ID is part of the path, not a parameter, so keep the ? after it. If the placeholder stays in the postback, TwinRed cannot record the conversion.
cv carries your payout as the conversion value. It only counts when Allow dynamic conversion value is ticked on the tracker. If your offers pay in a currency other than USD, 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: Not Tracked to use the cost TwinRed passes, after checking it. See Cost.
  3. Choose Redirect or Direct tracking. Redirect is the usual choice for TwinRed’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 TwinRed macro from the template, for example transaction_id={transactionId} and source_site={sourceSite}. 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 TwinRed. See Creating a Campaign in ClickFlare.

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Step 4 – Create the campaign in TwinRed

  1. In TwinRed, create a campaign.
  2. Configure the ad format, targeting, budget, pricing model (CPM or CPC) and bid.
  3. In the Creative tab, set up your creative and paste the ClickFlare campaign URL as its destination URL.
  4. Submit it. Every creative goes through a compliance review before it serves.
Paste the URL exactly as ClickFlare gives it. TwinRed replaces each {...} macro with real values when the ad is clicked.

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Step 5 – Test the integration

  1. Once the campaign runs, check the first visits in ClickFlare. The Source Site column should show real sites, not the text {sourceSite}.
  2. Complete a test conversion on your offer, or post one to ClickFlare from your affiliate network.
  3. In ClickFlare, go to Logs → Postback Status and filter by the campaign. A successful request to ad.twinrdengine.com confirms ClickFlare sent the postback.
  4. In TwinRed, check the campaign statistics. The conversion appears under the tracker you created.

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Tracking several events

TwinRed tracks each conversion event with its own tracker. To send a lead and a sale, create two trackers in Manage Trackers and use one postback per tracker:
  1. In ClickFlare, create a custom conversion for each step, for example lead and purchase.
  2. On the TwinRed traffic source, click + Another postback URL once per extra event.
  3. Map each postback to its ClickFlare event: lead to the lead tracker’s URL, purchase to the sale tracker’s URL.
  4. Test each event.
  • One tracker per event in TwinRed, one postback per tracker in ClickFlare.
  • The tracker ID in the path is what tells TwinRed which event it is. There is no event parameter.
  • Tick Allow dynamic conversion value on each tracker that should record the payout.
If TwinRed should only see your final sale, keep a single postback and map it to that event. Earlier steps still show in ClickFlare. They just don’t reach TwinRed.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 through the Cost row, which sends TwinRed’s {cost} macro. 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. TwinRed doesn’t publish what {cost} holds on each pricing model. Its macro descriptions are only shown inside the account, under the “i” icon in creative setup. Check it there before you rely on it.
Most TwinRed buying is on CPM. If {cost} carries the CPM price, ClickFlare would record a price per 1,000 impressions as the cost of each visit and overstate spend about 1,000 times. After launch, compare the Cost column with your TwinRed spend. 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 interstitial impression is roughly one visit. On dynamic CPM your bid is a maximum, so expect ClickFlare to overstate spend slightly.
TwinRed doesn’t sell on CPA, so the CPA cost model doesn’t apply to TwinRed campaigns. When the recorded spend differs from your TwinRed 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 TwinRed, the feed reports revenue hours or days after the click. To pass that revenue to TwinRed once it arrives, see Sending Delayed Revenue to Traffic Sources.

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Troubleshooting

  • The campaign URL in TwinRed is missing transaction_id={transactionId}, or the macro was edited. Copy the URL from ClickFlare again.
  • REPLACE_WITH_TRACKER_ID was never replaced with your tracker ID.
  • The postback still contains TwinRed’s INSERT_TRANSACTION_ID instead of ClickFlare’s {external_id}.
  • The tracker was deleted in Manage Trackers, so its ID no longer exists.
  • Traffic source postback URL is off on the TwinRed 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.
  • Check Logs → Postback Status: a failed request shows the status code TwinRed returned.
Allow dynamic conversion value is not ticked on the tracker, so TwinRed ignores cv. Tick it in Manage Trackers. Also check that &cv={payout} is still at the end of the postback.
The campaign is on CPM and {cost} carries the CPM price. Switch to CPC with your CPM bid divided by 1,000. See Cost.
The macros were not replaced, usually because the URL was edited or pasted somewhere TwinRed doesn’t process macros. 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 TwinRed traffic source for all my TwinRed campaigns?
A1: Yes. The postback is set once on the traffic source and every campaign using it sends conversions the same way. A tracker belongs to your account, not to one campaign, so one tracker ID serves every campaign.
Q2: Why is it called transaction_id in the campaign URL and id in the postback?
A2: They are two halves of the same value. ClickFlare reads TwinRed’s transaction ID from its own transaction_id parameter. TwinRed expects it back in its own id parameter. Change neither.
Q3: I found an older TwinRed setup with s2sparam and twinrdsrv.com. Which one is right?
A3: Use the template’s. Older tracker guides show a legacy TwinRed postback with an s2sparam click ID. TwinRed’s Manage Trackers page now gives postbacks on ad.twinrdengine.com/conversion/, which is what the template uses.
Q4: Should I use Redirect or Direct tracking with TwinRed?
A4: Redirect is the usual choice and works with every TwinRed format. Use Direct only if TwinRed must see your lander’s domain as the destination. See Direct Campaign Tracking.
Q5: Can I run CPA campaigns on TwinRed?
A5: No. TwinRed sells on CPM and CPC only. The postback still matters: it lets you measure your cost per action in TwinRed while you bid on CPM or CPC.

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.