404 rescue for paid traffic

Recover the 1–3% of ad spend lost to 404 pages.

When paid traffic hits a dead URL, FF404 automatically reroutes it to a live page — with UTMs intact — and tracks every rescued click.

  • 1 line of code on your 404 template
  • Works with Google Ads, PMAX, Meta, email, SMS & more
  • Custom caps per site, client, or day

This leak is real. We’re already rescuing it.

FF404 is already sitting on real 404s for ecommerce brands and agencies. Every day it quietly catches paid traffic that would have bounced and sends it somewhere useful.

Rescued clicks

182,417

People who would have bounced on a 404 and instead hit a live page.

Budget saved

$1,284,210

Estimated based on your blended CPC and actual rescued clicks.

Accounts running FF404

73

Ecommerce stores, DTC brands, and agencies using FF404 as a safety net.

“We turned FF404 on in monitor mode and found an old promo URL still getting paid clicks. Auto-Rescue caught it and recovered thousands in spend we thought was just ‘normal’ bounce.”

Performance lead, DTC brand — high-seven-figure annual ad spend

Your ads already hit 404s. You just don’t see it.

Ad platforms don’t warn you when they send clicks to dead pages. Analytics just sees a bounce. The leak hides in plain sight.

Things that quietly break paid traffic:

  • Products removed or set to draft while ads still run
  • Old promo URLs and landing pages that got archived
  • CMS changes that moved URLs without updating every link
  • Broken links in emails, SMS flows, and affiliate content
  • Redirect logic that works “most of the time” until it doesn’t

Every one of those still wins auctions, burns budget, and drops people onto a 404 you never check.

Why your paid traffic is leaking

Paid clicks hitting 404s (last 30 days): 3,712

Estimated ad spend wasted: $9,486

% of total ad clicks: 1.8%

FF404 makes this invisible line item visible — then gives you a way to stop it.

One safety net that lives on your 404s.

Install FF404 once on your 404 template. From there, it watches every hit, finds the paid clicks, and rescues the ones you care about.

1. Watch your 404s (Free).

FF404 logs every 404 hit from paid, promo, email, and organic sources — URLs, referrers, UTMs, timestamps. You get a live view of where traffic is breaking, without changing a single redirect.

2. Decide what should be rescued.

Create simple rules: “If Google Ads traffic hits a product 404 → send to the collection page.” “If email traffic hits an expired promo → send to the latest offer.” You’re always in control of what gets redirected and where.

3. Auto-rescue in real time.

When you flip on auto-rescue, FF404 intercepts those dead clicks, routes them to the right live page, and keeps your UTM parameters and click IDs intact so reporting and attribution still work.

Dashboard

The dashboard shows exactly where your budget is leaking, how much of it FF404 is putting back to work, and which sites and campaigns are most impacted.

  • Live feed of 404 hits from paid and non-paid sources
  • “Rescued clicks” and “budget saved” metrics by campaign, URL, source, and site
  • Portfolio view across multiple stores and clients for agencies
  • Top leaking URLs and paths so you can fix root issues upstream
  • Exportable, QBR-ready reports for your team, your clients, or your CFO

Rescued traffic overview

Built not to freak out Google Ads, PMAX, Meta, or your analytics.

FF404 works after the click. Your campaigns and tracking stay exactly where they are.

  • Uses standard server-friendly redirects — no hacks, cloaking, or policy-risk behavior
  • Preserves UTM parameters and click IDs so attribution tools still see the original campaign
  • Plays nicely with Google Analytics, server-side tracking, and common tag setups
  • Respects your existing consent and privacy framework
  • Easy to turn on/off per campaign, per site, or per client

Platform-safe by design

FF404 doesn’t alter your ads or show different content to ad platforms. It simply rescues people who already hit a 404 and gives them a working page instead.

If FF404 is ever unavailable, your 404 behaves like a normal 404 — no hard dependency, no lock-in.

Pricing that scales with rescued clicks.

Watch everything for free. When FF404 actually rescues real people from 404s, you pay a tiny amount per saved visitor — with caps you control.

Monitor

Start free. Watch your 404s.

$0 / month

  • Track 404 hits from paid, promo, email, and organic traffic
  • Log URLs, referrers, UTMs, and timestamps
  • Email alerts when important links start breaking
  • 7-day data retention
Start free

Auto-Rescue

Only pay when we save a click.

When Auto-Rescue is on, pricing is:

  • $1 per month per site
  • 10¢ per rescued paid click
  • 1¢ per rescued non-paid click

Fully configurable. Set limits per client, site, and per day/week so your bill never runs away.

Start auto-rescue

Example: 120 rescued paid + 80 rescued non-paid clicks ⇒ $1 + (120 × $0.10) + (80 × $0.01) = $13.80 / month.

If you run paid traffic and don’t fully control your site, you need this.

Ecommerce & DTC brands

  • Fast-moving catalogs, seasonal promos, constant URL changes
  • Protects always-on campaigns from out-of-stock and retired products
  • Keeps performance marketing off the “404 blame” hook

Performance & creative agencies

  • Multi-client, multi-site overview in one dashboard
  • Protects you from surprise 404s when clients change their sites
  • Share “budget saved” reports as a win, not a post-mortem

Growth & demand gen teams

  • Landing pages ship, move, and get replaced constantly
  • Protects long-tail campaigns, retargeting flows, and old content
  • Simple way to show how much budget you’re saving

You could build this yourself. You probably won’t.

On paper, “just add a redirect script on our 404” sounds easy. In practice, you need to:

  • Capture every 404 hit and know exactly where it came from
  • Decide when to redirect vs when to leave the 404 alone
  • Keep UTMs, click IDs, and attribution intact across redirects
  • Avoid double-counting conversions in different tools
  • Maintain rules across campaigns, promos, and CMS changes

FF404 handles all of that for you, across every client and site, and keeps improving as new edge cases appear. You get the outcome — rescued clicks and saved budget — without owning the plumbing.

“I’ll just write my own redirect script…”

That script becomes a mini-product: logging, rules, edge cases, attribution, alerts, and maintenance every time your site or campaigns change.

FF404 is all of that, packaged, tested, and priced so it only meaningfully costs you money when it’s saving you more.

One line of code that lives where your 404 lives.

Drop a single script tag into your 404 template. That’s it.

  • Works anywhere your 404 lives: Shopify, WooCommerce, custom headless, and most CMS setups
  • No need to touch your ad accounts or existing tracking tags
  • You can deploy in staging, watch Monitor data for a while, then flip on Auto-Rescue when you’re ready
  • Your data stays your data; FF404 uses it only to detect leaks and measure what it rescues

Example install snippet

<script src="https://ff404.com/404.js" data-site-token="YOUR_SITE_TOKEN" async></script>

Questions we hear from teams before they turn this on.

Is this safe for Google / Meta policies?

Yes. FF404 doesn’t alter your ads or change what users see in a deceptive way. It uses normal redirects after the click to route people away from broken pages. No cloaking, no hidden landing pages — just a safety net for traffic that would have bounced on a 404.

Will FF404 mess up our analytics or attribution?

No. FF404 preserves your UTMs and click IDs when it redirects, so tools like Google Analytics, ad platform reporting, and server-side tracking still see the original source, campaign, and creative. In Monitor mode we don’t redirect at all — we only log and report.

What exactly counts as “usage” for billing?

Usage is rescued clicks — 404 hits that FF404 successfully redirects to a live page based on your rules. Plain 404 hits that you choose not to rescue are free. You decide which sources are billed at the paid vs non-paid rates.

How much will this actually cost us each month?

Most teams set caps based on a small fraction of their monthly ad spend (for example, the cost of 0.5–1% of clicks). If your site is healthy, you’ll pay very little; if FF404 is rescuing a lot of clicks, it’s because it’s protecting a lot of spend. Either way, caps keep things predictable.

Does this work with email, SMS, and affiliates?

Yes. FF404 sees any traffic that hits your 404s — including email, SMS flows, referral partners, and organic search. You can choose to rescue some or all of those sources and bill them at the non-paid rate.

What happens if FF404 goes down?

If FF404 is unavailable, your 404 behaves like a normal 404. We don’t hijack or lock your error pages. You can remove the script tag at any time if you ever want to stop using it.

Are there limits on domains, sites, or traffic?

Monitor mode is generous by default and designed to cover everything you care about. For Auto-Rescue, your usage caps determine how much rescue traffic we handle. Agencies and high-volume brands can configure higher caps and custom usage bands on the same plan.

Who gets the most value from FF404?

Teams spending meaningful money on paid traffic where URLs change often: ecommerce, subscription boxes, growth-heavy brands, and agencies with many clients. If you’re only running the occasional boosted post, you can happily sit in Monitor mode forever.

Get started

Ready to stop losing paid clicks to 404s?

Install one snippet, watch Monitor for a week, and then turn on Auto-Rescue when you’re ready. If FF404 doesn’t catch at least one paid 404 in your first 30 days, you probably don’t need us.