What Is a Postback?

A Postback URL in Attribution Analytics is a URL request to a third-party system that notifies you of a conversion (typically a sale).

Technically, a postback is a GET request (a method used to retrieve data from a server) sent to the targeted endpoint (also known as the URL).

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How Does a Postback Get Triggered?

When a conversion is created or updated, our system will automatically send a postback request to the publisher for that conversion, based on the setup in your dashboard.

Check out our other articles on how to set up a Postback.

How Does a Postback Get Disabled?

Postbacks may be disabled by our system when the targeted URL consistently returns errors:

• Traditional Postback (auto-disable): Disabled after returning an error response on the same Postback URL 9 times continuously.

• Improved Postback (with Graceful Retry): Disabled only after repeated failures throughout the grace period and all retry attempts.

What Is the Graceful Retry Mechanism?

The Graceful Retry Mechanism improves the postback experience for publishers by:

• Increasing the chances of keeping your Postback enabled.

• Reducing “lost” conversion postback traffic.

• Auto-retrying any failed postbacks according to our retry policy (4-hour retry interval with up to 6 attempts).

How the Graceful Retry Mechanism Works

• Step A: If policy allows, failed postbacks are queued for retry.

• Step B: If retries are not allowed or continuously fail, the postback URL will be disabled.

Common Issues With Postback URLs

Here are some frequent causes of failure:

• Incorrect URL formatting or missing parameters.

• Network/server issues preventing requests from reaching your server.

• Incorrect data mapping on your side.

Examples of error responses:

• Server not found

• Timeout error

• 500 Internal Server Error