The affiliate fallback decides what happens to an affiliate's click when the offer they sent it to can't accept it: Aftrad can find an alternative offer, send the click back to the affiliate's Traffic Back URL, or show a blank page.
Go to Affiliates → [your affiliate] → GENERAL → Main setup → Affiliate fallback.
Network default and each affiliate
The fallback policy is first set for the whole network, in Control → Configuration → General → Main setup → Affiliate fallback. Every affiliate uses that default until you change it for them, and a change to the default applies to every affiliate that hasn't overwritten it.
To change it for one affiliate, open the affiliate's Affiliate fallback section. While the affiliate uses the default, the options show There are default values. Click to overwrite: click them, choose the option you want and click Save.
The Traffic Back URL is always set on each affiliate.
When does the fallback apply?
A click goes to the fallback when the requested offer can't accept it:
The offer isn't accepting traffic — for example, it's paused, its advertiser isn't active, it has reached a cap or it's outside its start and end dates.
The click doesn't match the offer's targeting — for example, the offer only accepts traffic from Poland and the click comes from Spain.
The click is blocked by the offer's firewall — Datacenter, NonHTML, IFrames or Blank referer. The click counts as invalid traffic for that offer.
The three options
Under When requested offer is not available, choose one:
Option | What happens |
Find alternative offer and report to the affiliate | Aftrad sends the click to another offer and reports its conversions to the affiliate. |
Return click to traffic back URL | The click goes to the URL in Traffic Back URL. Nothing else is tried. |
Show blank page | The click gets a blank page. Nothing else is tried. |
Find alternative offer and report to the affiliate
The click is redirected inside Aftrad, with no extra jumps, so it stays tracked. Where it goes is explained in Where the alternative offer comes from, below.
Then choose which payout the affiliate sees for conversions on the alternative offer:
Option | What the affiliate gets |
attributed offer's payout value | Every conversion, with the payout of the offer that actually converted. |
requested offer's payout value | Conversions on the alternative offer add up, and the affiliate gets a postback each time they reach the payout of the offer they requested. |
Example: the requested offer pays the affiliate $2.00 and the alternative offer pays $0.50. With requested offer's payout value, the affiliate gets one $2.00 conversion for every four conversions on the alternative offer. The affiliate always sees the payout they expect, so your statistics and the affiliate's show a different number of conversions.
Return click to traffic back URL
The click goes back to the affiliate, to the URL in Traffic Back URL. The field becomes mandatory when you choose this option.
Show blank page
The click lands on a blank page and isn't redirected anywhere.
Where the alternative offer comes from
With Find alternative offer and report to the affiliate, Aftrad checks the requested offer's own fallback:
The requested offer's fallback (Offers → [offer] → GENERAL → Fallback):
Enable fallback | What happens |
On | The click goes to the offer, smartlink or URL chosen in Redirect to. |
Off | Aftrad picks the best-performing offer that matches the click's targeting, among the offers with Accept Cascade Traffic on. |
No alternative found: if no offer can take the click, it goes to the affiliate's Traffic Back URL if one is set, or to a blank page.
Note: ⚠️ An offer only receives fallback traffic when Accept Cascade Traffic is on in its GENERAL → Main setup. This also applies to an offer you choose in another offer's Fallback tab.
How to set up each offer's fallback is explained in Offer fallback.
A different policy on one offer
The affiliate fallback applies to all the affiliate's offers. To use a different option on one offer, open the offer's AFFILIATES tab, click Edit on the affiliate's row and change When requested offer is not available. The Fallback policy column shows Inherited while the offer uses the affiliate's own setting.
Note: 💡 Keep fixed category: in the offer's tracking link builder, the Keep fixed category option adds kfc=true to the affiliate's link. If the offer isn't available, the click is redirected to another offer of the same category.