Real-time cost data
For some ad partners, especially custom ones, you can configure click tracking URLs to include cost parameters. These parameters are different for every ad partner that supports them. When users install your app, we can associate the install event to the tracking URL that's responsible for the install. With all this data, we can calculate the cost associated with the install.
If we calculate your cost data with this method, your dashboard will show the cost data as soon as it's available. However, if something happens to the data, we can't correct it. Because of this and the higher reliability of cost reporting APIs, we try to use the cost import method whenever possible.
Actually, you can pay for user acquisitions for any type of goal, not only installs. For this reason, we call this cost data source a global conversion event because the cost data is dependent on goal conversions.
Example
Here's an example of what the real-time cost data flow would look like in real-life.
Imagine you've created an ad campaign for your game Rainbow Roll. You've configured your campaign to bid $0.50 in order to acquire a user. Acquiring a user, in your case, means that they haven't only installed your game but played it enough to complete level five. For this, you configured your tracking URL in justtrack with a Bid Value and Goal Name:
Read our guide to learn how to configure your tracking URL.
Now that your ad campaign is live, when a user views or clicks your ad, data is sent to our tracking URL with the Bid Value and Goal Name you configured. Now, we're ready to start tracking your cost data for that user.
When the user installs your game after interacting with your ad, we attribute that install to your campaign. But no costs are calculated yet because you wanted to pay for users who complete level five.
When the user completes level five, the goal is reached, and we send a postback to the ad partner. When this postback is successful, we can now calculate some cost data for that user.