How It Works
- URLs are shortened: Links in your messages become trackable short URLs
- Clicks are logged: When recipients click, we record the event
- Redirect happens: User is sent to the original destination
- Attribution flows: Clicks are linked to messages, offers, and revenue
Tracking domains are configured per-account in Account Settings. There is no default shared domain — each account sets up its own tracking domain. See Link Tracking Domains for DNS setup instructions.
What’s Tracked
Short Links
URL Format
Short links use your account’s configured tracking domain:Link IDs
Each link gets a unique 8-character ID:- Randomly generated
- Unique per message
- Includes the offer binding
Multiple Links
Messages can have multiple tracked links:Click Recording & First-Click Attribution
Trackly records every click and uses first-click attribution for analytics:- Every click is recorded in your raw click log — including repeats and clicks classified as bots.
- Only the first non-bot click per contact per message counts as a unique click, and that click is what revenue is attributed to.
Reported click metrics — clicks, CTR, EPC — count unique first clicks only. Repeats and bot clicks stay in the raw click log and never appear in those metrics.
Click Confirmation
Clicks are confirmed immediately:- Real-time logging
- Instant redirect
- No noticeable delay
Interstitial Pages
When an offer has an interstitial configured, the link tracking service shows an intermediate landing page before redirecting to the destination. Three modes:
Interstitials help with compliance messaging, bot filtering, and pre-sell content.
Self-Hosted Conversion Tracking
The link tracking service provides three conversion endpoints that don’t require an external affiliate platform:
Conversions are deduplicated by
txn_id.
Use Cases
Engagement Tracking
See which messages get clicks
A/B Testing
Compare click rates across variants
Revenue Attribution
Link sales back to specific messages
Audience Building
Create segments based on click behavior
Reporting
Message-Level
See clicks per message:- Unique clicks
- Click rate (unique clicks / sent)
Offer-Level
See clicks per offer:- Which offers get the most engagement
- Revenue per offer
Creative-Level
See clicks per creative:- Compare performance across templates
- Identify top performers
Link Tracking + Offers
When you bind an offer to a link:- Offer performance comparison
- Revenue tracking per offer
- Payout calculation
Privacy & Compliance
Data collected
Data collected
We collect:
- Click timestamp
- IP address (for bot detection)
- User agent (for bot detection)
- Message/contact association
Data retention
Data retention
Click data is retained according to your account settings and our data retention policy.
Opt-out links
Opt-out links
Opt-out/STOP links are not tracked to ensure compliance. STOP functionality always works.
Common Pitfalls
Why are my click counts inflated?
Why are my click counts inflated?
Inflated click counts typically come from automated link scanning:
- Bot detection: Carrier and email security bots pre-fetch links to scan for malware. Bot classification runs on every click, and clicks classified as bots never count toward your click metrics.
- Raw vs. unique clicks: Dashboards and reports show unique clicks only — one per contact per message. The full click log, including repeats and bot traffic, is available through the Clicks API.
- Link preview crawlers: Some messaging apps generate link previews by fetching the URL. These appear as clicks but are not from real users.
- Solution: Bot clicks never become a unique click and never attribute revenue, in either bot filter mode, so they are already excluded from your reported metrics. If you want suspected bots stopped before they reach your destination URL, switch to preview page filtering under Account Settings > Link Tracking > Bot Filtering.
Next Steps
Bot Detection
Filter out automated clicks
Attribution
How revenue is attributed