A non-crediting event behaves like any other event in that it fires when the user reaches it, but its reward value is zero and it is never credited. It is a measurement checkpoint wearing the same clothes as a rewarded step.
How it works
The advertiser marks a milestone as worth observing but not worth paying for: a registration started, a page viewed, a tutorial opened. When the user reaches it, a postback fires so both sides can record that it happened. No reward is issued and no payout is made.
Why advertisers use them
They make a funnel legible without changing its economics. An advertiser who pays on purchase still wants to know how many users registered and then stopped, because that gap tells them whether the problem is their offer or their signup flow. Non-crediting events supply that visibility at no cost, and they often lead to the advertiser improving the funnel in ways that benefit the publisher too.
The integration mistake to avoid
Rendering non-crediting events in the user-facing step list is the single most common error with this feature. It makes the offer appear to pay more than it does, and it produces a complaint the moment a user completes one and no currency arrives. The user did exactly what the screen told them to and received nothing, which from their side is indistinguishable from the wall being broken.
Filter them out of the reward display. Users should only see steps that pay.
Keep handling their postbacks. Your own analytics want the funnel data even though no reward is issued.
Exclude them from the advertised total. They contribute nothing to what the user can earn.
Do not count them as conversions. They will inflate completion counts and distort EPC against the offer.
Where non-crediting events appear
They cluster at the start of funnels, where an advertiser wants visibility into early drop-off without paying for it. A typical subscription offer might track the registration page, the plan selection, and the payment screen while paying only on the completed subscription. From the publisher's side that means a single offer can fire several signals before any revenue arrives, and treating each as a conversion will badly overstate both completion counts and EPC until the discrepancy is noticed.
Common misconceptions
A non-crediting event is not a failed conversion. It fired exactly as intended; it simply does not pay.
It is not a tracking error. Zero reward is the configured behaviour, not a misconfiguration.
It does not mean the offer is low value. Offers with substantial payouts frequently include tracking-only checkpoints along the way.
Frequently asked questions
Q: Why would an advertiser track something they do not pay for?
Q: Should non-crediting events appear on the wall?
Q: Do they count as conversions?
Keep reading
Technical
An event is a single rewarded step within an offer. Simple offers have one; multi-step offers have several, each carrying its own reward and payout so a user can be paid progressively as they go deeper.
Concept
Sequential tasks are the steps of a multi-step offer that must be completed in a fixed order. Each one unlocks the next, so the offer describes a funnel rather than a checklist.
Technical
A postback is a server-to-server message that confirms a user completed an action, such as finishing an offer, so the right data and rewards can be delivered. It is the backbone of accurate conversion tracking in performance advertising.
Metric
EPC is the revenue a publisher earns per click sent to an offer. It is the publisher-side mirror of an advertiser's CPC, and the correct way to rank offers against each other.