Postbacks

A postback is a request that the platform sends to your URL when something happens to a lead: it arrives, goes on hold, is approved or is declined. Your tracker or CRM learns the result at once and does not have to poll the API. Postbacks are for tracker integration, for passing conversions and for notifications.

This page shows where to paste the URL, which macros you can put in it and how to check that the request went out. The values reference explains what each lead phase means. An agency has no flows, so instead of phase checkboxes its page has five URLs, one per phase, and a shared URL. See agency postbacks.

How postbacks work#

The platform sends a request when a lead arrives and when its phase changes. There are five phases: Wait, Hold, Approve, Cancel and Trash. In each postback, you mark the phases it reacts to.

The request is a plain GET to your URL, with the macros replaced by the lead's values. The connection takes up to 3 seconds to open, and the whole request takes up to 5. The platform does not follow redirects and does not retry a request. It records every response in the log: the HTTP code, the request time and the beginning of your server's response. If a request did not get through, resend it manually from the log.

There are two kinds of postbacks, and they work independently: one phase change can trigger the main postback and several additional ones.

Two kinds of postbacks.

The Postback page is in the Flows menu. If your network does not show it, the global and additional postbacks are not available to you, but you can still set the main postback in the flow settings.

The main postback#

The main postback is the one trackers expect: a single URL tells them what happened to a lead, and it does not repeat itself. You set it at two levels.

• Global — one for the whole account. The Global postback field and the phase checkboxes are at the top of the Postback page.
• Flow — each flow has its own: the Postback field and the same checkboxes in the flow settings, in the Postback and tracking section. To find and save them, see the flow settings.

The URL sent for a lead in a given phase is chosen like this:

1. If the lead's flow has a URL and its checkbox for this phase is selected, the flow URL is sent.
2. Otherwise, if a global URL is set and its checkbox for this phase is selected, the global URL is sent.
3. Otherwise, no main postback is sent for this phase.

So a flow URL replaces the global one only on the phases marked in the flow. If a flow has only Approve marked, its URL goes out for that phase, and the global URL goes out for the other phases, provided their checkboxes are selected.

To set the global postback:

1. Open the page. Select Flows › Postback in the menu.

2. Mark the phases. Above the URL field are the checkboxes Wait, Hold, Approve, Cancel and Trash. A new account has all five selected. Keep only the phases your tracker needs to know about.

3. Enter the URL. In the Global postback field, enter the URL together with macros, for example https://track.meow.pro/postback?subid={subid}&status={stage}&payout={cash}. Ready-made URLs for popular trackers are collected on the Third-party trackers page.

4. Save. Click Save. The page reloads with the message “Success”.

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Protection against repeats

The main postback never goes out twice to the same URL. The platform remembers the URL it last sent for a lead, with the values already filled in, and compares it with the new one. If they match, it does not send the request.

This gives you a rule: for your tracker to get every phase change, the URL must contain a macro that has a different value in different phases — {stage}, {phase} or {status}. A URL with only {subid} goes out once, on the first marked phase, and the tracker never sees the other phase changes. The macros {now} and {rand} do the opposite: they give a new value on every send and switch the protection off. Add them only if you need repeats.

Additional postbacks have no such protection.

Sending with POST

The main postback goes out with GET by default. To send it with POST, start the URL with POST:. The part of the URL after the ? becomes the request body. For example, the URL POST:https://track.meow.pro/postback?subid={subid}&status={stage} sends a request to https://track.meow.pro/postback with subid and status in the body.

Additional postbacks#

Use additional postbacks where the main one does not fit: notifications to a messenger, your own CRM, a second tracker, events for one goal only. You can create any number of them. Each works on its own and does not replace the main postback.

To add an additional postback:

1. Open the window. On the Flows › Postback page, click Add. The Add window opens.

2. Name the postback and enter its URL. The Name and URL fields are required. The name only labels the postback in the list and does not affect sending.

3. Mark the phases. A new postback has all five phases marked: keep the ones you need.

4. Add a request body if needed. If the POST body for the request field has any text, the request goes out with POST. Write the body as foo=bar&baz=123, with the same macros as in the URL. The Send POST in JSON format checkbox sends the same body as a JSON object.

5. Bind the postback. Select the Offer. If the offer has goals, select the Goal too. If you leave the fields empty, the postback fires for leads of any offer. Binding is explained in more detail below.

6. Create. Click Create. The postback appears in the list.

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Binding to an offer and a goal

A postback fires only for leads that match its binding.

Binding of an additional postback.

A postback is bound to one offer and one goal. The Goal field appears after you select an offer that has goals. A Goal group combines goals of different offers, for example registrations or deposits. The network defines the list of groups, and the field shows only if there are groups.

For example, a postback to https://hooks.meow.pro/crm/deposits, bound to the goal “First deposit” of the offer Claw Quest and to the phases Hold and Approve, passes only the first deposits for this offer to your CRM.

JSON and the request body

Without the Send POST in JSON format checkbox, the body goes out as is, in the form foo=bar&baz=123. With the checkbox, the same body becomes a JSON object, and its values are strings. For an approved lead 4021 in flow 85 with a commission of 12.50, the body lead={id}&flow={flow}&status={stage}&payout={cash} goes out like this:

{
  "lead": "4021",
  "flow": "85",
  "status": "approve",
  "payout": "12.50"
}

If the POST body for the request field is empty, the JSON checkbox changes nothing: the request goes out with GET.

The postback list

The list on the Postback page shows your postbacks, newest first, 30 per page. Above it are the filters: the Search field (it searches names and URLs), the “— Offer —” list and the “— Status —” list, which keeps only the postbacks that fire on the selected phase. The columns Name, Goal group (if there are groups), Offer and Goal show the binding, and the five columns with icons show the phases. The Edit button opens the same window with the settings, and the Delete button deletes the postback after you confirm.

Agency postbacks#

Agencies find the page in the Traffic › Postback menu. Instead of phase checkboxes, the top of the page has six fields: one URL for each of the five phases (Wait, Hold, Approve, Cancel, Trash) and a shared Global URL.

The URL sent on a phase is chosen like this:

1. If the field for this phase is filled in, this URL is sent.
2. Otherwise, if the Global field is filled in, its URL is sent. It covers all phases that have no URL of their own.
3. Otherwise, no postback is sent for this phase.

1. Open the page. Select Traffic › Postback in the menu.

2. Fill in the phase URLs. Enter URLs for the phases you need, for example separate URLs for Approve and Cancel. Leave the other fields empty.

3. Set the shared URL. If you need one URL for all other phases, enter it in the Global field.

4. Save. Click Save.

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An agency has no flows. It takes its links from the link generator, and only the fields on this page affect the main postback. Protection against repeats works as it does for the main postback. Below the fields is the list of additional postbacks. It is the same as for other affiliates, and the phases there are marked with checkboxes. The IDs the agency passes in the extu and exts parameters come back in the {extu} and {exts} macros: see macros for agencies.

Macros#

In a postback URL and in the request body, write a macro in curly braces, for example {id}. The platform replaces it with the lead's value. Values are URL-encoded: a space becomes +, and Cyrillic letters become sequences like %D0%9F. A macro that is not in the tables below is not replaced in the URL. Your server receives the literal {name}, so check the names.

Example. For lead 4021 in flow 85, approved with a commission of 12.50, the URL

https://hooks.meow.pro/leads?lead={id}&flow={flow}&stage={stage}&payout={cash}

turns into

https://hooks.meow.pro/leads?lead=4021&flow=85&stage=approve&payout=12.50

Lead status

For most trackers, {stage} or {phase} is enough. You need {status} if your CRM cares about the detailed step of order processing.

Status and phase macros.

Instead of the ready-made values, you can substitute your own with the {phase:…} macro. It takes five values separated by |, in the order of the phases Wait, Hold, Approve, Cancel, Trash. The macro {phase:0|0|1|2|2} gives 0 for wait and hold, 1 for an approved lead and 2 for a declined lead and trash, and {phase:P|P|A|D|D} suits OctoTracker. Give all five values: a missing phase gets an empty string. Write the values in Latin letters and digits. They are substituted without encoding, and the platform does not send a URL with Cyrillic letters.

Click tags

The tags you passed in the flow URL or in the API come back in the postback. They are explained on the Tags and pixels page.

Click tag macros.

Ad network click ID

Ad networks can pass their own click ID. The platform saves it and returns it in the {cuid} macro. The names you may know from different networks return the same value:

• {fbclid} — the Facebook click ID.
• {gclid} — the Google click ID.
• {ttclid} — the TikTok click ID.
• {adclid} — the classic click ID of teaser networks.
• {unique_id} — the classic click ID of rental apps.
• {click_uid}, {clid}, {gbraid}, {wbraid}, {adsclid}, {rb_clickid}, {ttlid}, {twclid}, {msclkid}, {yclid}, {bbg}, {external_id} and {adid}.

Commission

The commission for a lead is passed as a number: a whole sum has no fractional part (12), any other has two decimal places (12.50). Separate macros give the sum only in the phases you need and zero in the others.

Commission macros.

Lead, offer and flow

Lead, offer and flow macros.

Flow data

You can also pass the settings of the flow itself in a postback, for example to send an event to your own service together with a pixel ID. The value comes from the matching field in the flow settings. If the field is empty, an empty string is substituted.

Flow data macros.

Macros for agencies

An agency gets back its own IDs that it passed in the extu and exts parameters. Affiliates do not need these macros, and their values are empty.

Agency macros.

Postback log#

The platform records every request it sends in the log: the URL with the values filled in, the body, the HTTP code, the request time and the server's response. The network may limit how long records are kept, and then old records are deleted. Only the owner of the postbacks can see the log.

1. Open the log. On the Flows › Postback page, click Log. The Postback log page opens. For an agency, the path is Traffic › Postback › Log.

2. Find the record. Enter the lead number in the Order field or select a flow in the “— Flow —” list, then click Find. You can also apply the same filters by clicking the order number or the flow name in a row.

3. Open the details. The button with a magnifier (Information) shows the full URL, the POST body and the server's response.

The table shows 30 records per page, newest first. The columns are:

Log columns.

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Sending again

You can send any record again with the button with arrows (Send again). The platform asks you to confirm and repeats the request to the same URL with the same parameters. The new send appears in the log as a separate record. This is handy for repeating a postback that did not get through because your tracker failed.

A resend does not rebuild the URL: if you changed the postback in the flow settings, it still goes to the old URL. To send the postbacks for leads again after you edit the settings, contact your network's support.

If a postback did not arrive

What to check if a postback did not arrive.