Introduction to traffic sources

1. To label and segment your traffic
2. To define the URL parameters you expect to capture data from
3. To define how you might like to pass conversion information back to that traffic source later

Traffic source basics

When you create a traffic source, you'll see a list of templates as you type. Click any of these to load that template, else just write a name and move on.

Category allows you to group your traffic sources by type, e.g. Social, Display, Referral, and so on.

Cost type determines how we attribute costs for visitors from this source. CPE is the most common, where we give a "cost per entrance", through adding a parameter to your URLs (and Javascript).

CPA is less common and applies a cost to a visitor when a conversion happens. CPA is common mainly with app install networks that charge per install.

Tracking field config

When you generate links in FunnelFlux you must pick a traffic source. This then tells the system what parameters to add to the URL.

For Javascript on a page, the traffic source ID also lets the Javascript know what URL parameters to look for and log to the database.

Typically the URL will be full of tokens, macros or dynamic variables from a traffic source that transform into real data when users are served your ads, or click links.

Here's an example traffic source config:

Here you can see we have defined some fields we'd like to collect data under (publisher, ad, creative), and some default values to pass for these.

The end result is a URL for this traffic source with the following at the end:

...?campaign={campaign}&publisher={site}&ad={title}&creative={thumbnail}

When used in the actual traffic source, there system would replace these {tokens} by real values, giving something like:

...?campaign=123ABC&publisher=domain.com&ad=ADNAME&creative=CREATIVE1

These values then appear in your reporting under tracking fields.

Conversion tracking

The last thing to configure in a traffic source is its conversion tracking.

You'll track conversions using FunnelFlux, and need to tell the platform to communicate conversion information onward to the original source of traffic.

You can do this using a Postback URL, which is a "server-to-server" request, or by using HTML such as an image pixel or Javascript.

Which option to use depends on the traffic source. Most allow postback URLs, but many platforms, especially those that let you build audiences and retarget like Facebook, Adwords, Taboola, etc., have Javascript-based tracking.

Postback URLs

A postback URL is just a link that our server requests. The end system receives our request, which passes some information, and it uses that to process a conversion.

This always relies on passing unique "click IDs" between systems, as this is the primary way to identify a specific user who converted.

In your traffic source settings, pass any unique click IDs under the external parameter, i.e. so your links have something like this in them:

...?campaign=something&external=some_click_id_value...

Provided this is done correctly, you can use our {external} token in postback URLs to send this value back to the traffic source, e.g.

Here you can also use the {payout} token to pass the revenue for the conversion, and {txid} to pass transaction IDs.

HTML

HTML covers all client-side content, that is content that must be loaded in the user's browser on a conversion page, such as:

• Image pixels
• iFrames
• Javascript code/script tags

Note that you can save HTML and Postback content separately, firing both when a coversion happens, if you'd like.

HTML content is loaded by the user's browser, thus cannot be triggered by a postback URL from some downstream system like an affiliate network.

If you want HTML-type tracking to work, you must put the FunnelFlux conversion javascript code on the page where a conversion happens.

Typically this will be some thank you page, though you can also trigger the conversion manually on any page by directly firing the javascript event.

You can find conversion tracking JS in the settings of any offer, it looks something like this:

<script src="https://domain.com/integration/lumetric.js?1.1.0"></script>

<script>
var lum = new Lumetric();
</script>

<script>lum.event('conversion', {
'query': {
'rev': '',
'tx': '',
'p': 'XXX',
'hit': '',
'vid': '',
},
'onDone': function (response) {}
});
</script>

<noscript><img height='1' width='1' style='display:none' src='https://domain.com/pb/event?type=conversion&hit=&pid=XXX&tx=&rev='/></noscript>

We won't cover how this conversion tracking JS works here, just know that if you want FunnelFlux to fire client-side events like Facebook pixel events, Adwords remarketing tags, etc., you will need to place this Javascript on the conversion page.