Conversion tracking software
Conversion tracking: three ways, and what each one survives.
A conversion is recorded in one of three ways, and they fail differently. Knowing which you are relying on explains most of the gaps between what your ad platform claims and what your bank says.
The first way is a pixel: a bit of script on a thank-you page. It is the easiest to install and the least reliable thing in tracking. Ad blockers remove it, browsers restrict what it can store, and a visitor who closes the tab before it loads never converted as far as the pixel is concerned.
The second is a postback, sometimes called server-to-server. The network or shop calls a URL of yours from its own server when the sale is real, carrying the id of the click that caused it. Nothing in the browser can block it, and it works days later, which is exactly when affiliate payouts get approved.
The third is sending the conversion onward to the ad platform through its own API — Google’s offline conversion import, Meta’s Conversions API, TikTok’s Events API. This is how the platform’s optimiser learns from real revenue instead of from a pixel that may not have fired. It matters more every year as browsers keep tightening.
How it works
The mechanism, not the marketing.
- 01
The click gets an id
Issued at the redirect and carried onward, so every later event has something to attach to.
- 02
The sale happens
On your site or the advertiser’s — often hours or days later, on another device.
- 03
It comes back
By postback from the network, by a goal on your own site, or by a signed server-side order.
- 04
It goes onward
To Google, Microsoft, Meta or TikTok, matched on their own click id, so their bidding sees it.
What to check tonight
You can do all of this without us.
None of it needs an account anywhere. If it turns out your tracking is fine, you have lost twenty minutes and learned something.
Ask which of the three you are using
If the answer is only a pixel, that is why the platform and the network disagree. Adding a postback is usually an afternoon.
Check the click id is reaching your offer page
Open your own tracking link and look at the URL you land on. If the id is missing, nothing downstream can attribute, no matter how good the rest is.
Test a conversion that happens tomorrow
Fire a test postback with yesterday’s click id. If it attaches to the click and appears on the right day, late conversions are safe. If it vanishes, they are not.
Look at what you send Meta and Google
If neither receives a server-side conversion, their optimisers are learning from a weaker signal than they could be, and you are paying for that in CPA.
How UTMCAP does it
What you would get here.
Postbacks with nothing to configure
A dozen common click-id names, six payout names and five status names are accepted without setup; per-network mapping when you need it.
Goals on your own site
One tag, named events, and signed server-side orders for the ones that must not be faked from a browser.
Straight back to the platform
Google Ads, Microsoft, Meta and TikTok, within seconds, on their own click id.
Late is fine
A conversion finds its click days later, and a status change updates the same record rather than making a second one.
Not billable
Conversions and postbacks are never charged here. Some trackers charge for both, and for the send-back too.
Duplicates handled
A retried postback and a revised status collapse onto one conversion, so nothing is counted twice.
Questions
The ones people ask next.
Read next
- What is a postback URL?
- A URL you give a network or shop, which their server calls when a sale happens. It carries the click id, the payout and usually a status. Because it is server to server, nothing in the browser can block it.
- Will conversion tracking work without cookies?
- The postback route never needed them. Page-view measurement uses a first-party cookie on your own domain and falls back to the click id in the URL, which is why a redirect-based tracker holds up better than a pixel-only setup.
- Can I send conversions to Meta without their app review?
- Yes. Meta’s Conversions API works from a token you paste in, and so does TikTok’s Events API. Pulling ad spend automatically is the part that waits on platform approval.
Point a domain at us and run a click through it.
The free plan takes a hundred thousand clicks a month and no card. If it does not do what you need, you have lost twenty minutes.