track referral link clicks by source
How to track referral link clicks by source
DealPage is a referral link tracker that gives each place you share an offer its own labelled short link, so clicks are split by source automatically.
One link per place
The only reliable way to know where a click came from is to give each place a different link. Referrer headers are unreliable: many apps and messaging clients strip them, so a click from a DM or a group often arrives with no referrer at all.
A distinct link per place does not depend on any of that. If the click came through the newsletter link, it came from the newsletter.
Which sources to separate
For most creators five buckets cover it: the main post, replies under other people's posts, direct messages, groups such as Telegram channels, and newsletters. Separating replies from the main post is the one people skip and later wish they had, because replies often behave differently.
If you run the same offer twice, for example a launch post and a reminder a week later, give each its own link too.
Doing it in DealPage
When you create short links for a Deal, you choose a source label for each: post, reply, DM, group or newsletter. The statistics page and the brand report both break clicks down by those labels, alongside a click curve and top countries.
All the links for a Deal point at the same destination and the same code, so changing the code later still updates every one of them.
Frequently asked
- Why not just use the referrer to see the source?
- Many apps and messaging clients do not send a referrer, so clicks from DMs and groups often show up as unknown. A separate link per place does not have that problem.
- What source labels does DealPage support?
- Post, reply, DM, group and newsletter.
- Can I see clicks by source over time?
- Yes. The statistics page shows clicks by day and by source; the free tier keeps the last 7 days and Pro keeps a longer history.