How to Test a Tracking Link (Guide for Singular Partners)

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Dipayan Dhar
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Before you start running campaigns for our shared customer using Singular Links, you can use a demo tracking link (prepared by the Singular team) to test the configuration.

This will let you see what information a user click would send to Singular and from Singular to your servers.  

Guide for Singular Partners
Prerequisites
  1. A Singular attribution integration has been set up with your organization.
  2. You have Singular click and postback templates configured.
  3. You received a dummy tracking link for testing

Tools

A mobile device for testing.

 

Step by Step

1

Reset Your Test Device's Advertising ID

If your mobile device has been used to test Singular attribution before, you have to clear the data before using it again. If this is the first time you are using the device for testing, you can skip this step.

To clear the data:

  1. Uninstall the Singular Device Assist App from the device.

  2. Reset your device's advertising identifier: 

    • For Apple devices: Go to Settings > Privacy, select Advertising, and select Reset Advertising Identifier.
    • For Android devices: Go to Settings > Google > Ads and select Reset Advertising ID.

Note: In iOS 14, if you turn IDFA access off for all apps, your global IDFA will be reset. That means that, technically, one app can cause IDFA to reset for the entire device. Assume that only one app called requestTrackingAuthorization got permission to track.
2

Get the New Advertising ID

Now that your device has a new advertising ID, you need to find out what it is. There are third-party apps that can help you, or you can go into the device settings yourself:

  • For Apple devices: Go to Settings > Privacy, select Advertising, and then see the IDFA.
  • For Android devices: Go to Settings > Google > Ads and see the GAID.
3

Get the Singular Link

You should have received a tracking link from the Singular team that looks like the following.

Note that the link includes parameters, such as "aifa", "idfa", "cl", and "pcid". The values in {curly braces} are macros - placeholders meant to be replaced with actual values by the ad network when it serves the ad (the macros' names and appearance may vary).

https://singularassist.sng.link/D59c0/tpa9&aifa={google_advertising_id}
&idfa={idfa}&cl={click_id}&pcid={campaign_id}&pcn={campaign_name}
&pshid={publisher_id}&psn={publisher_site_name}&psid={publisher_site_id}
&pcrid={creative_id}&pcrn={publisher_creative_name}
4

Insert Advertising ID into Link

Before you can test the link:

  1. Replace the relevant placeholder with the device's advertising ID:
    • If you are testing an Apple device, replace {idfa} with the IDFA of your device.
    • If you are testing an Android device, replace {google_advertising_id} with the GAID of your device.
  2. Delete all the other placeholders unless there are parameters that are mandatory for your postback URL. For example, in some platforms Click ID or Transaction ID is mandatory, so in that case, you would have to insert a valid Click ID in the cl parameter.

Here is an example of what the result should look like (for an Android device):

https://singularassist.sng.link/D59c0/tpa9&aifa=0f9f9e46-df3b-
4012-8b1e-639ebc39a20f&idfa=&cl=&pcid=&pcn=&pshid=&psn=&psid=
&pcrid=&pcrn=

Note: All the parameters in the link have to be given a valid value or left blank. If you click on a link that still has placeholders in curly braces {}, it may not result in successful attribution. To learn more, see Tracking Link Parameters.
5

Trigger the Link

Email or otherwise send the tracking link to your testing device. Then click the link from the device.

You are redirected to the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.
6

Install and Open and Click the App

  1. In the app store, download the app and install it.
  2. Open the app (Singular's attribution process is only triggered once the app is opened).
  3. Click on Copy GAID or Share GAID (Events) and Start Testing (Revenue Event) to send the test event.
7

Verify Attribution

To verify that the install has been attributed correctly by Singular, you can share your GAID/IDFA with the Singular integration engineer. The engineer will share the feedback and the relevant logs of the test.