Link tracking
Link tracking lets you measure which links in your emails get clicked, by whom, and how many times. After sending, this data appears in your campaign report under the Link overview and Link map sections. You can also use link tracking to automatically assign interests to contacts based on what they click, building audience profiles passively over time.
How link tracking works
When you enable tracking for a link, Flexmail wraps it in a redirect URL. When a contact clicks the link, the click is recorded before the contact is forwarded to the actual destination. This happens in milliseconds and is invisible to the reader.
Access link tracking
Link tracking is available from the message list or from within the message editor:
- Email builder: click the gear icon next to the message in the message list and select Link tracking.
- Wizard Template: scroll to the Link tracking section at the bottom of the editor.
- HTML editor: scroll to the Link tracking section at the bottom of the editor.
Configure tracking per link
The link tracking screen lists all links in your message. For each link you can:
- Give it a descriptive name, this appears in your campaign reports. "Header CTA button" is more useful than a raw URL.
- Enable or disable tracking, tracking is on by default for all links.
- Enable Google Analytics tracking, adds UTM parameters to the link for reporting in Google Analytics.
- Assign an interest, any contact who clicks this link is automatically subscribed to the selected interest.
Attention To disable link tracking for a single link, make sure to disable 'Automatic link tracking' in Settings > Link tracking first.
Naming your links
If you include the same URL more than once in a message, for example, a button and a text link that both go to the same destination, give them different tracking names. This lets you see in reports whether contacts clicked the button or the text link, which tells you something useful about which design elements are driving clicks.
Pro tips
Support tip Assigning interests via link tracking is one of the most efficient ways to build audience data without asking contacts to fill in forms. After several campaigns, you'll have detailed interest profiles for your most engaged contacts based entirely on their own click behaviour.
- Set up link tracking before you finalise your campaign, not as an afterthought. You can't add or change tracking after a campaign has been sent.
- Check the Link overview section in your campaign reports after sending to see which links performed best. Use this data to improve future email design decisions.
Common mistakes to avoid
Warning Do not change link URLs or tracking settings after a campaign has been sent. Doing so corrupts the click data in your campaign report. Configure tracking before sending and leave it unchanged.
- Leaving all links with default names (raw URLs). Descriptive names make your reports far more readable and actionable.
- Forgetting to configure tracking at all. Scroll to the Link tracking section before every campaign send to verify your key links are set up.
Next steps
- See "Campaign reports" for how to read link click data after sending.
- See "Use interests" for how interests assigned via link tracking work in targeting.