Server-to-server tracking works well when a click ID can travel with the user through their conversion journey. But there are real-world setups where that handoff breaks down: phone calls that bypass the browser entirely, mobile app installs where the app store can’t pass a click ID, and offline events with no digital trail. In those cases, conversion data goes missing and affiliates don’t get credited correctly.
Episode 2 of From Setup to Success covers CAKE’s solution for these scenarios: the clickless postback. Garth Harris, COO of CAKE and TUNE, sits down with Luke Kadillak, Senior Onboarding Manager at CAKE, to explain what the feature does, where it fits into a program’s tracking setup, and how to configure it correctly.
The most common use case Luke sees today is call tracking. When an affiliate phone number is the creative, there is no click to generate a click ID. A call tracking platform like Ringba can detect a qualifying call, fire a clickless postback to CAKE, and record the conversion against the right affiliate. The result is a consolidated view of clicks, leads, and qualified phone calls in a single affiliate portal, without requiring a separate reporting system.
In this video:
- What the clickless postback is and how it differs from a standard server postback
- The most common use cases, including call tracking integrations with Ringba and Retreaver
- How to generate a clickless postback URL in CAKE and which attribution parameters to use
- When to use Affiliate and Offer versus Campaign ID, and the tradeoffs between each
- Why IP whitelisting is a vital security step and how to set it up
