Postback troubleshooting

Postback Not Received

Trackers show callbacks firing, yet partners insist nothing arrived because firewalls or filters intercepted them.

Introduction

Postback Not Received surfaces when your tracker reports success but partners deny seeing callbacks. The split usually hides between your infrastructure and theirs: blocked IPs, TLS mismatches, or payload validation errors.

You win these disputes by showing evidence from each hop-what left your tracker, how the partner responded, and whether they acknowledged the request.

The goal is not to argue from screenshots. Build a delivery packet with timestamps, endpoint URLs, response bodies, outbound IPs, and the exact click or conversion identifiers involved.

Why the problem happens

Networks juggle anti-fraud and availability. When their defenses misclassify your callbacks, conversions vanish and payout disputes begin.

Analytics platforms that ingest postbacks also reject malformed payloads without warnings.

Partner enables a new WAF rule that blocks your IP range.
TLS handshakes fail because your tracker uses outdated cipher suites.
Payload signatures no longer match after a shared secret rotation.

Common causes

Diagnose where the callback died: on your tracker (delivery), in transit (network), or at the partner (validation).

If the tracker only records an internal success state, do not treat that as partner proof. Confirm whether the callback left the queue, whether the remote server answered, and whether the receiving system accepted the payload into the correct offer or goal.

Firewall blocked the outbound IP.
Rate limits throttled bursts after a queue backlog cleared.
Partner introduced new mandatory fields (currency, goal IDs, statuses).
Callbacks exceeded payload size limits and were silently dropped.

Step-by-step troubleshooting

Mirror the tracker's delivery record with your own tests, then sync timelines with partner monitoring.

Keep the comparison narrow. Use one conversion, one endpoint, and one timestamp window so support teams can search logs without guessing which campaign, offer, or retry attempt matters.

Export tracker logs

Grab the delivery report with timestamps, endpoints, response codes, and any body snippets.
Replay with Postback Tester

Send the same payload manually and capture the full transcript.
Verify infrastructure

Confirm outbound IPs, TLS versions, and firewall rules match the partner's allowlist.
Align with partner data

Share your logs and request theirs for the same timeframe. Highlight discrepancies.
Add heartbeat checks

Schedule Postback Tester pings or lightweight partner endpoints to alert you when delivery stops.

Tools that help solve the problem

Use the postback tools to recreate the disputed request outside the tracker queue. A controlled replay helps separate partner reachability from tracker scheduling or retry logic.

Pair the replay with clean campaign URL evidence when the partner asks for a fresh click ID or a new conversion sample.