Click validation
Natalya Yefimenko avatar
Written by Natalya Yefimenko
Updated today

Click validation (click signature) provides you an opportunity to sign every single click sent to AppsFlyer or Kochava. It is an anti-fraud measure that prevents a situation when an ad network isn't aware of sending fraud traffic to the advertiser.

The work principle is: the system attaches a unique token (code) with a certain period of validity to a click and sends it via the advertiser's tracking link. If the token is expired or wrong, AppsFlyer or Kochava will mark such clicks as fraud traffic. The blocking of traffic can happen. You can learn more about this feature here (AppsFlyer) and here (Kochava).

Click validation for AppsFlyer

Once a day, Affise makes a request to AppsFlyer using the API token you've provided to get a secret key: a unique signature for clicks. The secret key's period of validity is 36 hours. Affise update the secret key for AppsFlyer once a day (every 24 hours). As a result, there can be two valid secret keys at the same time.

Once Affise gets the secret key and its expiry date, it adds two parameters to the advertiser's tracking link:

  • expires=the_click's_expiry_date (the time of click creation + five mins according to the UTC +00.00)

  • signature=the_secret_key_itself

When click comes to AppsFlyer, it validates values in both parameters. It also looks at the click validation mode, which you selected on Affise.

To check the expire and signature parameters, add &format=json to Affise tracking link and insert in the browser.

🔎 In case of using Affise parallel tracking, the system attaches both parameters to both links: in the Tracking URL and Parallel tracking URL fields in the offer.

There are three positive scenarios depending on the mode:

  • Disabled: clicks signing mode Affise keeps sending two above-mentioned parameters via AppsFlyer tracking link, while it ignores the parameters passed.

  • Enabled: clicks signing mode Affise keeps sending two above-mentioned parameters via AppsFlyer tracking link, while it validates the expedition date and the secret key and blocks the clicks when they're invalid.

  • Report Only (No rejection): clicks signing mode Affise keeps sending two above-mentioned parameters via AppsFlyer tracking link, while it validates the expedition date and the secret key and does not block clicks if they're invalid - report on them.

Click validation for Kochava

The Private key you added in Settings is a click signature itself. Kochava or Affise doesn't change it.

Once you have the key in Settings, the system adds two parameters to the advertiser's tracking link:

  • expires=the_click's_expiry_date (the time of click creation + one min according to the UTC +00.00)

  • signature=the_private_key_itself.

To check the expire and signature parameters, add &format=json to Affise tracking link and insert in the browser.

🔎 In case of using Affise parallel tracking, the system attaches both parameters to both links: in the Tracking URL and Parallel tracking URL fields in the offer.

What to do next


Please contact the Affise Customer Support team regarding all raised questions via the e-mail: [email protected].

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