Building a custom network
A custom network lets you accept orders from an affiliate network Cashback Tracker has no built-in support for.
When you need one
Only when all of these are true:
the network is not in the built-in list
it can call your site when a sale happens — usually called a postback, server-to-server or S2S callback
you are willing to keep the setup working when they change their API
If the network has no postback of any kind, a custom network cannot import its orders. You would be entering every order by hand, and there are better ways to spend an afternoon.
Creating one
Cashback Tracker → Networks → Add custom network.
Name
What you will see in the admin. Anything you like.
Slug
A short id used in the postback URL. Letters, numbers and dashes. It cannot be changed later, and it cannot clash with a built-in network.
Status
Whether to accept orders from this network. While it is off, orders it sends are refused rather than held — a postback arriving would be rejected and logged, not queued for later.
Cashback
The rate every shop on this network gets, unless you give one a rate of its own.
Tracking links
Three fields, explained below.
Approval
Whether a postback may mark an order approved or declined. Leave it on unless you do not trust the network.
Once saved, use Postback setup on the row to connect it — see Postbacks.
How tracking links are built
This is the part worth reading slowly, because there are two ways it can work and Cashback Tracker picks between them by looking at the link itself.
Every shop can have a tracking link of its own, set under Shop catalog. What happens next depends on what that link looks like:
A plain address — we add your member's id and the destination to the end of it, using the two parameter names you set on the network.
A link containing
{{ }}placeholders — we fill those in instead, and the two parameter names are not used at all.
The choice is made per shop, so two shops on the same network can work differently. That is fine.
SubID parameter
Plain links only. The parameter the network expects your member's id in — their documentation calls it subid, sid, aff_sub, clickref or similar.
Destination parameter
Plain links only. The parameter that carries the address the member is going to.
Tracking link pattern
Only for shops you have not given a link of their own.
Saving yourself work with a pattern
Most networks build every merchant link the same way. If yours does, set a Tracking link pattern once instead of pasting a URL for every shop:
{{advertiser_id}}
The shop's id at the network
{{sub_id}}
The member's id, so the order comes back to the right person
{{url}}
Where the member is going, exactly as it is
{{url_encoded}}
The same address, URL-encoded
Any shop you give a link of its own ignores the pattern, so you can set the pattern for the many and override the few.
Which of the two url placeholders to use
Look at where you are putting it.
After a
?, as the value of a parameter — use{{url_encoded}}.As the last part of the address, after a
/— use{{url}}.
This matters the moment a member is sent to a page that has its own ? in it — a product with a size or a colour in the address, which is most of them.
Put a raw address into a parameter and everything after that product's own ? stops belonging to it. The network reads a destination cut short, never sees your member's id, and the order comes back attributed to nobody.
Using the wrong one is silent. Nothing errors, the link still opens, and the shop still loads — the member just arrives untracked, and you find out weeks later when the orders never appeared.
Copy the finished link out of a shop page and read it before you trust it. If your network's own documentation shows an example link, match its shape: a raw address after a slash, an encoded one after an =.
Giving one shop a different rate
On the shop itself: Cashback Tracker → Shop catalog, Edit under the shop's name, then What this shop pays a member.
The rate you set when creating the network covers every shop on it. Give a shop its own rate only when it should differ — a merchant paying you 3% cannot fund the same cashback as one paying 12%.
A share of the commission — a share of what you earn. The safe choice: you can never pay out more than you were paid.
A share of the order total — a share of what the member spent. Check your commission covers it.
A fixed amount per order — the same cash amount every time, in the currency you choose.
Anything left on Use the network's rate keeps the network rate.
The Cashback column on the Networks screen tells you how many shops differ, and links to them.
What a custom network cannot do
Real limitations, not oversights. All of them follow from there being no API to ask.
No shop import. You add its shops by hand with Add shop on the Shop catalog screen. A Tracking link pattern saves you giving each one its own link.
No coupon import.
No order check. Nothing polls it, so a postback that never arrives is an order you never get. The Orders column on the Networks screen shows a dash rather than a time, for exactly this reason.
Do not run one alongside a built-in network
Never set up a custom network for a network that already has a built-in module — Admitad, AWIN, CJ and so on.
Cashback Tracker would treat them as two separate networks. The same purchase would arrive twice, be stored twice, and credit the member twice. The two would also use different cashback rates, so neither figure would be right.
If you want a built-in network to report faster, change Download new orders in Settings → General instead.
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