How to route tracker postbacks to Meta CAPI or Google Ads without losing attribution

How to route tracker postbacks to Meta CAPI or Google Ads without losing attribution

A postback confirms the conversion, but the tracker still has to translate it into the destination's format. Create a separate forwarding rule for each platform and map the offer, event, value, currency, timestamp, and source URL explicitly. Do not pass the entire tracker payload by default.

For Meta CAPI, preserve the original click context where available: fbp, fbc, and the tracker’s unique event ID. Send the correct event name, action_source, event_time, and hashed user data according to Meta’s requirements. If a browser pixel also fires, reuse the same event ID to prevent duplicate conversions.

For Google Ads, route the conversion to the correct conversion action and pass the original gclid, wbraid, or gbraid when available. Match the conversion time and timezone to the platform’s accepted format. A missing click ID usually means the conversion cannot be attributed reliably.

Log the outgoing request, response code, event ID, click ID, and retry status. Retry temporary failures, but avoid sending the same event repeatedly without idempotency protection. Test with one controlled conversion before enabling the rule for all traffic.

Reliable forwarding is mostly disciplined data handling: preserve identifiers, map fields deliberately, deduplicate events, and monitor failures from the tracker to the ad platform.