Before diving into platform setup, it helps to understand exactly what role Swaarm plays in your performance marketing setup and how data moves through the system.

Where Swaarm sits in your setup

Swaarm is the tracking and attribution layer that sits between your publishers (traffic sources) and your advertisers (campaign owners). Every click and conversion passes through Swaarm, which records, evaluates, and routes that data in real time.

In plain terms: a user clicks a publisher's tracking link, Swaarm records the click and redirects to the advertiser's offer, the advertiser (or their MMP) fires a postback to Swaarm when a conversion happens, and Swaarm then decides whether to pass that conversion back to the publisher.

What Swaarm does

🔗 Tracks clicks and impressions: Every click on a publisher tracking link is recorded in real time. Swaarm logs the click ID, timestamp, device data, sub-IDs, and any custom parameters you've configured.

✓ Validates conversions: When the advertiser fires a postback, Swaarm matches it to the original click and runs it through your configured rules to determine whether it's valid.

⚙ Applies optimization rules: Based on your setup, Swaarm can automatically block low-quality traffic, cap budgets, filter sub-IDs, and apply CTIT thresholds - before any conversion is credited.

📤 Decides whether to notify the publisher: After evaluating a conversion, Swaarm either passes a postback to the publisher (confirming the conversion) or drops it - depending on your decision and status rules.

Key concepts

Click ID - A unique identifier Swaarm assigns to every click. It's the thread that connects a publisher's traffic to a conversion later in the flow. Always ensure your advertiser is passing the click ID back in their postback.
Postback - A server-to-server notification sent when a conversion event occurs. Advertisers send postbacks to Swaarm; Swaarm sends postbacks to publishers. Postbacks carry event data like event type, payout, and the click ID.
Macro - A placeholder in a tracking URL or postback URL that Swaarm fills in dynamically at the time of the event. For example, {id} is replaced with the actual click ID when a postback fires.
Event ID - An identifier that maps an advertiser's conversion event (e.g. "install", "purchase") to Swaarm's internal event. Event ID mapping must be confirmed before going live.
Offer - The campaign unit in Swaarm. An offer ties together an advertiser, a tracking URL, targeting settings, payouts, and which publishers are approved to run it.

How Swaarm evaluates clicks and conversions

Swaarm uses 2 separate evaluation systems - one for clicks/impressions and one for conversions. Understanding the difference is important because they produce different outcomes and are configured separately.

Click/Impression evaluation

Applied the moment a click arrives. Clicks that fail are discarded immediately and never reach the advertiser.

Swaarm checks each click against active Click Optimization Rules, like:

Offer status (active / paused)
Targeting rules
Blocked publishers
etc.

Possible outcomes: Passed (forwarded to advertiser) or Rejected (not redirected to the Advertiser)

See more about click/impression rules → here

Conversion evaluation

Applied when a postback arrives from the advertiser. Each conversion gets both a decision and a status - together they determine whether the publisher postback fires.

Decision rules check for fraud and eligibility, for example: