Promotion tool

AdsBridge

AdsBridge is a tracker and a landing-page host in the same login. Campaigns, traffic sources, and offers work as they do in other trackers, and you can also build or upload a landing page that AdsBridge serves. The click still has to be recorded, and the button on that page still has to reach an offer URL you control. This article explains how to make that offer URL a Maxlead tracking link, how to pass the AdsBridge click id, and how the postback returns the conversion to the tracker.

Maxlead is a CPA performance network that has operated since 2015. AdsBridge is a separate product. The network does not own the tracker or the pages hosted there, and AdsBridge does not approve your offers or send the weekly payout. Publishers open a Maxlead account and run the tracking link that already carries their publisher id. Hosting a page does not replace that link. If the AdsBridge interface names a field differently from this article, use the name on the screen in front of you.

Who it is for

AdsBridge is for publishers who want the click record and the landing page in one place. Media buyers use the hosted page when they do not want to run their own site for a test. Publishers who already have a page can still point AdsBridge at it, as long as the button uses the tracker’s click URL. It is a weak fit if you only need to read the advertiser’s page. That reading is what the preview is for. The preview is not a destination for ads, and it is not a destination for a button on a page you just hosted.

A hosted page does not relax the offer. The offer on Maxlead must allow the country and the source. A page served from AdsBridge to a country the offer does not list will not create a stored click on that offer. A source the rules forbid can be rejected after a clean redirect. Read the offer before you design the page, so you do not build a headline for traffic you are not allowed to send.

You will still reconcile two places. AdsBridge shows campaigns, landings, and offers. The dashboard shows clicks, conversions, earnings, EPC, and CVR for tracking-link visits from allowed countries. Earnings are approved payout only. CVR is approved conversions divided by clicks. EPC is earnings per click. The weekly payout pays approved earnings. Pending and rejected conversions are not paid as if they were approved.

Tracker, hosted page, and campaign

The traffic source describes the ad platform and the click id that platform uses if you intend to notify it later. The offer is the affiliate URL. The landing is the page in front of that URL. AdsBridge can host a page you make in the visual editor, a page you edit as HTML, a page from its templates, or a page you upload. Those hosted pages are served by AdsBridge. You can also register a landing that stays on your own host. In that case you place the tracker’s click URL on the button yourself, and the domain of that click URL has to match the campaign domain.

The click URL is the step people omit. A hosted page that looks finished can still send the button to the wrong place. The button has to call the campaign’s click URL so AdsBridge records the continuation and then redirects to the offer. The offer has to be the network tracking link, with the tracker’s click id in a sub ID. A button pointed at the advertiser preview, or at a static copy of the advertiser page, produces page views without a publisher click.

For the first test, skip the landing. Put the campaign on a direct path from the traffic source to the offer URL. You are proving the click id and the postback. Add the hosted page only after a direct click shows up on the network with your sub IDs. Then the page is the only new variable. Give the campaign a name that includes the country and the creative, so the landing report is readable next week.

Pass the click id into the tracking link

Copy the tracking link from the offer on Maxlead after you are allowed to run it. Public offers can be copied once the publisher account is approved. Other offers stay unavailable until the request is approved. The link includes the offer code and your publisher id in pid. Paste it into the AdsBridge offer. Keep every parameter that was already there.

AdsBridge has a tracking sub ID: the affiliate parameter that will receive the tracker’s click id and later return it. Set that field to s1, which is one of the eight sub IDs Maxlead stores. When AdsBridge redirects, s1 should contain its click id, not a label you typed. Put us-native, or whatever source label you are using, in s2, and the creative label in s3. If the offer screen asks you to type the click-id macro yourself, use the macro AdsBridge shows for that tracking id. Do not invent a second name and hope the postback guesses it.

The network creates its own click id when the tracking link is opened. That value returns as {click_id} and identifies the row in Activity. AdsBridge does not use it as the key for its own click. The postback has to send back the value that was stored in s1, using {sub1}. Labels in s2 and s3 come back as {sub2} and {sub3}. They explain the click. They do not identify it. Rewriting s1 into a short word makes every visitor look like one click.

How the postback returns the conversion

A postback goes out when a conversion is approved or rejected. It does not go out while the conversion is pending. Set a global postback if every offer should report to AdsBridge. Set an offer postback if one campaign should use a different URL. The offer postback replaces the global one for that offer. Copy the postback template from AdsBridge rather than rebuilding the host from memory.

On that template, tid carries the click id and amt carries the amount. Set tid to {sub1}, because s1 is the tracking sub ID you chose. Set amt to {payout}. The payout token is filled in dollars with two decimals, from the conversion the network recorded. You can pass {status} if you want approved or rejected visible, and {offer} plus the other sub ID tokens if you want the labels on the same request. Count a payable conversion only when status is approved. A rejected postback is a recorded “no,” not a cue to edit tid and call the URL again.

AdsBridge treats a standard cost-per-action offer as one conversion for one click id. Do not switch offer types inside the tracker to force extra conversions from the same click unless you understand that you are changing what the report means. The network still has its own status. Test with a real click on the campaign link. Activity should show pid, s1 as a long id, s2 and s3 as your labels. After approval, AdsBridge should show the conversion on that same id, with the amount the postback carried. A silent tracker means tid, the postback host, or an inactive URL, not a bad headline.

Read the page and the approval before you scale

A hosted landing can collect views while the tracking link collects nothing. Compare AdsBridge clicks that reached the offer with clicks on the dashboard. The network counts a click only when the tracking link is opened from an allowed country. If the page has visits and the offer step is empty, the button is wrong. If AdsBridge shows offer clicks and the dashboard does not, the URL is not your tracking link, or the country is outside the offer.

Use EPC and CVR after approved conversions exist. EPC is earnings per click from approved earnings. CVR is approved conversions divided by clicks. One hour of landing traffic mostly tells you whether the page loaded and the button fired. It does not tell you the weekly payout, because that payout uses approved earnings only. Pending leads are absent from the reports that count for you. Wait for approved or rejected before you call the page a winner.

When you scale, keep the landing, the country, and the sub IDs fixed. A new headline on the hosted page needs a new creative sub ID, or the report will blend two pages. A new source needs a new source sub ID and an offer that allows it. Adding traffic to a page whose button skips the tracking link scales the mistake.

A worked example

The offer in this example must allow the United States and must allow native traffic. Hosting the page on AdsBridge does not add those permissions. If the offer disagrees, do not point the native campaign at it.

Create the native traffic source. Create the offer from the copied tracking link, with the tracking sub ID set to s1 so AdsBridge writes its click id there. Set s2 to us-native and s3 to headline-a. us-native names this United States native test. headline-a names the first headline you will put on the page. For the first run, do not use a landing. Send the campaign link to the native ads and confirm a click on both sides.

Then add the hosted page, with headline-a as the only headline, and put the tracker click URL on the button. A visitor hits the campaign, sees the page, and clicks through. AdsBridge continues to the tracking link with pid, the click id in s1, us-native in s2, and headline-a in s3. The network stores the click and sends the visitor to the advertiser. The postback sets tid to {sub1} and amt to {payout}. On approval, AdsBridge records the conversion against the click id it created and the amount the network sent.

Break the network report out by sub ID. You want us-native and headline-a beside clicks, approved conversions, EPC, and CVR. AdsBridge should show the same offer clicks and the conversions the postback delivered. If the landing has clicks and the offer does not, the button is not the click URL. If the offer has clicks and the network does not, the tracking link or the country is wrong. If the network approved the conversion and AdsBridge did not, tid is not {sub1}.

Mistakes

Sending people to the advertiser preview is especially easy once a page looks done. You open the preview to copy a layout, then paste that address into the button or into the offer URL. The preview has no publisher id. Those visitors never become your clicks, and tid has nothing to return. The offer URL is the tracking link. The button is the AdsBridge click URL that leads to that offer. The preview stays a reference.

Rewriting the click id happens when the tracking sub ID is “cleaned up.” The value AdsBridge writes into s1 has to come back unchanged as {sub1} in tid. Do not shorten it, do not replace it with the word click, and do not put the network’s {click_id} in tid. That token is a different id, created on the network after the redirect. Also do not change s1 to s5 on the offer and leave tid on {sub1}. The postback will send an empty id, or a label, and the conversion will not join the click.

Judging the hosted page on one hour of traffic confuses a loaded page with an approved offer. The page can be fast and the advertiser slow. Read network clicks, then approved conversions, then EPC and CVR. A spike of landing views with no approvals is not a signal to raise the bid. It is a signal to check the button, the country, and the postback.

A forbidden country or source is not fixed by a better landing. us-native assumes the United States and native are both allowed. Traffic outside that list is not stored on the offer, no matter how the page is hosted. A forbidden source can produce a rejection with a perfect tid. Stop the ads when the offer is paused or the tracking link is removed. AdsBridge will keep serving the page for as long as the campaign link is in the ads.

Open the publisher account before you host the page

A landing page needs a real offer URL underneath it. Open a publisher account from the Maxlead homepage, choose an offer that allows the country and the source, and put the tracking link into AdsBridge with the click id on s1 and labels such as us-native and headline-a on the next slots. Point tid at {sub1} and amt at {payout}. Prove one direct click, then add the hosted page, and compare clicks with approved conversions before you scale. The tracker can host the page and store the click. The network records the status and pays approved earnings weekly.