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TrafficJunky traffic source template TrafficJunky is a self-serve, CPM-bidding ad network focused on adult traffic. It sells ad spots on a large network of high-traffic adult sites. This guide sets up TrafficJunky as a traffic source in ClickFlare. It covers passing TrafficJunky’s click data into your reports and sending conversions back to TrafficJunky through its conversion tracker, so its stats and yours agree. You do everything from the campaign editor. The TrafficJunky traffic source is created inline, without leaving the campaign.

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At a glance

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How it works

1

TrafficJunky sends the click

A visitor clicks your ad. TrafficJunky opens your ClickFlare campaign URL and fills in its macros: the click ID in ACLID, plus the campaign, site, spot, location, banner and ad creative.
2

ClickFlare stores the TrafficJunky click ID

ClickFlare saves the value of ACLID as the visit’s External ID and redirects the visitor to your lander or offer.
3

The conversion reaches ClickFlare

Your affiliate network or store posts the conversion back to ClickFlare, matched on the ClickFlare click ID.
4

ClickFlare posts it back to TrafficJunky

ClickFlare fires the TrafficJunky postback, replacing {external_id} with the stored TrafficJunky click ID. TrafficJunky matches it to the original click and credits the conversion to your tracker.
The mirror to keep straight: in the campaign URL you write ClickFlare’s parameter (ACLID) and TrafficJunky’s macro ({ACLID}). The template does this for you. In the postback URL you write TrafficJunky’s parameter (aclid, lowercase) and ClickFlare’s token ({external_id}).

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Before you start

  • Set up your own tracking domain. Run the campaign and the postback on your own custom domain. Shared domains get flagged by networks and blocked by browsers. See Custom Domains.
  • Have an offer ready in ClickFlare, and its affiliate network set up to post conversions back to ClickFlare. See Creating an Offer and Adding an Affiliate Network.
  • Create a conversion tracker in TrafficJunky. Its a and member_id values go into the postback URL. You create it in Step 2.
  • Decide which conversions TrafficJunky should receive. If your funnel has several steps (sign-up, then sale), decide now whether to send one event or several. See Tracking several events.

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Step 1 – Create the campaign and the TrafficJunky traffic source

  1. Go to Campaigns and click New.
  2. In Traffic Source, open the dropdown and click + New Traffic Source.
  3. Type trafficjunky in the search box and select the TrafficJunky template.
  4. Enter a Name, for example TrafficJunky.
  5. Leave Cost currency on USD unless your TrafficJunky account is billed in another currency.
The template fills in the Parameters table for you: The TrafficJunky template's Parameters table in ClickFlare, with TrafficJunky's macros pre-filled Each tracking field becomes a column you can group reports by. SiteName and SpotID are the ones you will use most: TrafficJunky sells by spot, so they tell you which sites and spots convert and where to raise or drop your bids. AdID tells you which creative wins. The template has no Cost row: TrafficJunky passes no cost macro. See Cost.
Don’t change or remove the externalId row. Without {ACLID} in the campaign URL, TrafficJunky has no click ID to match, and the postback can’t credit any conversion.
To pass more TrafficJunky data, click Add Parameter, give it a name and parameter, and enter the TrafficJunky macro as the TS Token. ClickFlare assigns the next free tracking field. Ten of the twenty tracking fields are still free. Check which macros your TrafficJunky account offers before adding them.

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Step 2 – Set up the postback

The postback is what sends conversions to TrafficJunky. It lives on the traffic source, so every campaign that uses this TrafficJunky traffic source sends conversions the same way.

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Create a conversion tracker in TrafficJunky

  1. In TrafficJunky, open Tools and go to Conversion Tracker. Click New Tracker.
  2. Enter a name, for example ClickFlare, and select the event type you want to track.
  3. Click Add Tracker.
  4. Find the tracker in the list and click View in its Invocation Code column.
  5. Open the Postback URL tab. TrafficJunky generates the postback for this tracker, in this format:
  1. Copy the values of a and member_id. You need both.

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Add it to the traffic source in ClickFlare

  1. Back in the New Traffic Source form, scroll to Passing conversion info to traffic source.
  2. Turn on Traffic source postback URL. The template’s postback appears:
It already sends the click ID ({external_id}) in TrafficJunky’s aclid parameter. It does not send a payout. The Traffic source postback URL switched on, showing the TrafficJunky template's postback
  1. Replace the first REPLACE (after a=) with your tracker’s a value.
  2. Replace the second REPLACE (after member_id=) with your member_id.
  3. To send the payout, add &ctv={payout}. To send ClickFlare’s transaction ID, add &cti={txid}. The result:
  1. Compare it with the URL TrafficJunky generated. If TrafficJunky’s starts with https://ads.trafficjunky.net/ct instead of .../tj_ads_pt, change the start of the template URL to match it. Keep the parameters as above.
  2. In the dropdown on the left, choose the ClickFlare event that should fire the postback. Keep Conversions to send every conversion. If your final action is a custom conversion (for example purchase), choose that instead.
  3. Click Save. You are back in the campaign editor with the TrafficJunky traffic source selected.
The template has two REPLACE placeholders. Replace both: a= takes the tracker’s value and member_id= takes your account’s. If either REPLACE stays in the postback, TrafficJunky can’t match the conversion to your tracker. Don’t copy TrafficJunky’s [ACLID], [RANDOM_NUMBER] or other bracketed placeholders into ClickFlare: ClickFlare sends them as literal text.
If your offers pay in a different currency from your TrafficJunky account, see Multicurrency in ClickFlare. To learn what each postback token does, see How to Configure a Traffic Source S2S Postback URL.

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Step 3 – Finish the campaign and copy its URL

  1. Name the campaign.
  2. Set the Cost Model to CPC and enter your expected cost per visit. See Cost.
  3. Choose Redirect or Direct tracking. Redirect is the usual choice for TrafficJunky banners.
  4. Click Next and, on Destination, add your lander (optional) and your offer.
  5. Save, open Tracking, select your own tracking domain and copy the campaign URL.
The campaign URL already contains every TrafficJunky macro from the template, for example ACLID={ACLID} and SpotID={SpotID}. If you use a lander, its call-to-action must link to the ClickFlare click URL, not to the offer directly. Otherwise the visit reaches the offer without a ClickFlare click ID, and the conversion cannot be traced back to TrafficJunky. See Creating a Campaign in ClickFlare.

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Step 4 – Create the campaign in TrafficJunky

  1. In TrafficJunky, start a new campaign and fill in the required details: format, spots, targeting and bids.
  2. Paste the ClickFlare campaign URL as the ad’s Target URL.
  3. Save the campaign. It runs once your account has funds and the campaign passes TrafficJunky’s approval.
Paste the URL exactly as ClickFlare gives it. TrafficJunky replaces each {...} macro when the ad is clicked.

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Step 5 – Test the integration

There is no TrafficJunky test tool that fires a test conversion, so test with the first live clicks.
  1. Launch the campaign with a small budget.
  2. In ClickFlare, check that visits arrive and that the Spot ID and Site Name columns are filled. If they show {SpotID} or are empty, the URL in TrafficJunky was edited.
  3. Complete the offer the way a real visitor would, or wait for the first real conversion.
  4. In ClickFlare, go to Logs → Postback Status and filter by the campaign. A successful request to ads.trafficjunky.net confirms ClickFlare sent it. Check that a, member_id and aclid all carry real values.
  5. In TrafficJunky, check the campaign’s conversion stats for the tracker. The conversion appears once TrafficJunky has processed it.

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Tracking several events

In TrafficJunky, each conversion tracker has its own invocation code. To track a sign-up and a sale separately, create one tracker per step and send each event to its own tracker:
  1. In TrafficJunky, create a conversion tracker for each step and copy each tracker’s a value from its invocation code.
  2. In ClickFlare, create a custom conversion for each step, for example signup and purchase.
  3. On the TrafficJunky traffic source, click + Another postback URL once per extra event.
  4. Map each postback to its ClickFlare event: the signup custom conversion to the sign-up tracker’s URL, purchase to the sale tracker’s URL.
  5. Test each event with live traffic and check Logs → Postback Status for each.
  • One postback per tracker. The a value decides which tracker TrafficJunky credits.
  • member_id is the same in every postback. Only a changes.
  • Add &ctv={payout} only to events that carry revenue.
  • Compare each URL with the tracker’s own invocation code before you save.
If TrafficJunky should only see your final sale, keep a single postback and map it to that event. Earlier steps (sign-ups, add to carts) still show in ClickFlare. They just don’t reach TrafficJunky.To send a postback only for some conversions, for example only those above a certain payout, use Event filter under the postback to add conditions.

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Cost

The template passes no cost. TrafficJunky has no cost macro in the template’s set, so ClickFlare can’t read the price of each click from the URL. On the campaign, set the Cost Model to CPC and enter your cost per visit. TrafficJunky bids on CPM, so work it out from your stats: your spend divided by the number of visits. For formats where one impression is about one visit, your CPM bid divided by 1,000 is a good start.
Don’t use Not Tracked with this template. With no cost in the URL and no cost integration, every visit is recorded at zero cost, and your ROI looks better than it is.
ClickFlare has no TrafficJunky cost-tracking API integration. When the recorded spend differs from your TrafficJunky spend, correct it with a manual cost upload. Upload per day and per campaign, or per spot if you want spot-level ROI. See Cost Models.

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Delayed revenue

If revenue reaches ClickFlare hours or days after the click, for example from a search feed or rebills, you can still pass it to TrafficJunky once it arrives. See Sending Delayed Revenue to Traffic Sources.

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Troubleshooting

  • One or both REPLACE placeholders are still in the postback. Check Logs → Postback Status for the URL ClickFlare actually sent.
  • The a value belongs to a different tracker, or was copied with extra characters.
  • The campaign URL in TrafficJunky is missing ACLID={ACLID}, or the macro was edited. Copy the URL from ClickFlare again.
  • The postback uses TrafficJunky’s [ACLID] instead of ClickFlare’s {external_id}. ClickFlare sends [ACLID] as literal text.
  • The externalId row was removed from the traffic source.
  • Traffic source postback URL is off on the TrafficJunky traffic source.
  • Disable sending postbacks to traffic source is on in the campaign.
  • The postback is mapped to a different event than the one the conversion logged. Check Logs → Event Logs to see which event was recorded.
  • Your TrafficJunky invocation code uses https://ads.trafficjunky.net/ct and the template’s tj_ads_pt path is not accepted. Switch the start of the URL to match the invocation code.
  • Check Logs → Postback Status: a failed request shows the status code TrafficJunky returned.
The template’s postback sends no payout. Add &ctv={payout} at the end of the postback.
The campaign’s Cost Model is Not Tracked, and the template passes no cost. Switch to CPC with your cost per visit, or upload your TrafficJunky spend with a manual cost upload.
The macros were not replaced, usually because the URL was edited or the macro names lost their exact capitalization. Keep each macro’s capitalization exactly as the template writes it, for example {SpotID}, not {spotid}. Paste the campaign URL from ClickFlare unchanged. See Traffic Source Tokens Arriving Empty.
For the general checklist, see Conversions not showing.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Q1: Can I use the same TrafficJunky traffic source for all my TrafficJunky campaigns?
A1: Yes. The postback is set once on the traffic source and every campaign using it sends conversions to the same tracker. Create a second TrafficJunky traffic source only if some campaigns should report to a different tracker.
Q2: TrafficJunky’s default is a tracking pixel. Do I need it?
A2: No. The pixel is for sites where you can place TrafficJunky’s code. With ClickFlare you use the Postback URL tab of the same invocation code instead, and ClickFlare calls it server to server. Don’t run both, or conversions can count twice.
Q3: Why is it ACLID in the campaign URL and aclid in the postback?
A3: They are two halves of the same value. ClickFlare reads TrafficJunky’s click ID from its own ACLID parameter. TrafficJunky expects it back in its own aclid parameter. Keep both exactly as the template writes them.
Q4: Should I use Redirect or Direct tracking with TrafficJunky?
A4: Redirect is the usual choice and works with every TrafficJunky format. Use Direct only if TrafficJunky must see your lander’s domain as the destination. See Direct Campaign Tracking.
Q5: Do I need to send the payout?
A5: It is optional, but recommended. With &ctv={payout}, TrafficJunky shows the value of each conversion next to your spend, so you can judge spots inside TrafficJunky as well as in ClickFlare.

Traffic source postbacks

Every token you can use in a postback.

Custom conversions

Split sign-ups and sales into separate events.

Cost models

How CPC, CPA and RevShare costs are calculated.

Manual cost upload

Correct spend when no cost is passed.