Link tracking
Short links that tell you who clicked
Tick "Track links" and every link in the text becomes a short one that fits in a part and counts its clicks. One link per recipient, so a click tells you who, and a campaign report tells you how many.
What is SMS link tracking?
SMS link tracking replaces the links in a text with short links that record each click. In CaptiFi Connect each recipient gets their own short link on our domain, so you can see who clicked, when, and how many times, per text and per campaign. The person is sent straight on to your page. Tracking is free, and short links save characters too.
How link tracking works in CaptiFi Connect
Write the text with the full link in it, then tick Track links before you send (campaigns remember the setting). On the way out we swap each link for a short one of the form captificonnect.co.uk/l/ followed by seven characters, different for every recipient. When someone taps it, we note the click and send them straight to your page; there is no landing page in between and nothing for them to accept.
Clicks appear on the Link tracking page, on each text's timeline and on the campaign's report: how many people clicked, how many clicks in total, and the first and last click times. Each click can also be posted to your own system as a link.clicked webhook, with the message, number and contact it belongs to.
A short link is 35 characters however long the original was, so a text with a booking link in it often drops from two parts to one.
What you learn from it
Click data answers the questions a delivery report cannot:
- Which offer people acted on, so the next campaign goes to a list of people who clicked.
- Whether a reminder was read, when nobody replies but the link was opened.
- What time of day your customers open texts, from the click times across a campaign.
- Which contacts never click, so you can stop texting them and save the credits.
Privacy and limits
A click records the time, the link it came from and the kind of device, so you can count unique clicks. We do not store the IP address. Links keep working for as long as your account exists, so a text someone finds months later still goes where it should.
Tracking covers http and https links. It is off by default on one-to-one texts and on by default for campaigns once you turn it on under Settings. Texts sent with a test API key get test links that record nothing.
Questions people ask
How much does link tracking cost?
Nothing. Short links and click reports are included on every account.
Can I use my own domain for the short links?
Not yet. Short links are on captificonnect.co.uk, which also tells the person who the text came from. Your own domain is on the list.
Does the short link look suspicious?
Short links from a named provider are what people expect from businesses, and ours carry the provider's domain rather than a random one. Put your business name in the text as well, so the link has context.
Can I see who clicked, not just how many?
Yes. Each recipient gets their own link, so the Link tracking page lists the number, the contact if there is one, and the click times. The same detail reaches your system as a link.clicked webhook.
What happens if someone forwards the text?
The link still works and the click is counted against the person it was sent to, since there is no way to tell who tapped it. That is the same for every provider.
Send your first text this week
Set up your account and contacts now; we check every new account before it can send.