How To Create A Tracking Link

Creating a tracking link is easy and has been proven to produce 79% more sales (on average) than just using discount codes. How? Because it tracks every time someone comes back to your site over a defined period of time, and every sale is attributed to you. This step-by-step guide will show you how to do this.

Just a heads up before we start. A 'Tracking Link' is a widely used phrase across the internet for something called a 'UTM link', but let us be clear:

Tracking Links and UTM Links are not the same.

What are Tracking Links?

Tracking Links are links with a redirect embedded into the link, which drop a cookie onto the person who clicks the link, and then tracks their usage on the browser until they clear their cookies.

A Tracking Link will be formed through a redirect to another site, and may look like this: https://styrkr.avln.me/c/TpwcxQRbZDwW - which looks slightly different from a standard link.

These Tracking Links are mainly used in Affiliate or Influencer marketing, to track the Return on Investment (ROI) of an affiliates marketing efforts, but can be used across other realms of marketing to measure how a consumer returns to purchase.

As an example, let's say Chris Hall is promoting the below brand, Styrkr. He posts a Tracking Link on his website. A consumer clicks this link and a cookie drops onto their browser. This cookie has a pre-determined lifespan of 45-days, meaning that if the consumer comes back to purchase within that 45-day time period, the sale will be attributed to Chris Hall in Avelon.

Avelon's Trackable Links auto-segment in Google Analytics, meaning you can see exactly where the sale came from, too!

You can create your own link via our Trackable Link Builder.

What are UTM Links?

UTM Links are URLs that have additional tags at the end to help you track and analyse website traffic. These tags are called UTM parameters, which stands for Urchin Tracking Module.

When you add UTM parameters to your links, you can capture information about the source, medium, and campaign that drove a user to your website. This is super helpful for SEO because it allows you to identify which channels and campaigns are driving the most traffic and conversions.

For example, if you're running an email campaign promoting a new product, you might use a UTM link with parameters like "newsletter" as the source, "email" as the medium, and "new_product_launch" as the campaign.

When someone clicks on your UTM link, the parameters are sent to Google Analytics, which can then track and analyse the traffic from that specific source, medium, and campaign. This data helps you make informed decisions about how to optimise your marketing efforts and drive more traffic to your website.

You can use Google's UTM Builder here.

What's the difference between a Trackable Link and a UTM Link?

Tracking Links and UTM Links both segment themselves in Google Analytics, but Tracking Links drop a cookie on the user for a pre-determined amount of time. This data auto feeds into Avelon's Dashboard and shows how many times a user comes back to the site after clicking the link, without ever clicking that link again.

How to create an Avelon tracking link

As we have touched on, Avelon's tracking links perform differently to Google's UTM Builder. Whilst you can label your UTM in both a Tracking Link and a UTM, Avelon's Tracking Links.

Step 1: Log in to Avelon

Login via the homepage by clicking Dashboard. Use your normal login email and password to login.

Step 2: Go to Create Link

Click Create Link on your side bar and you'll be taken to your Create Link page.

Step 3: Select an affiliate

Step 4: Enter the commission %

Step 5: Enter a URL

This is solely internal, for your own records. You can name this whatever you want.

Step 6: Name the link

Step 7: Enter UTMs (optional)

Step 8: Press Generate

The system will generate a link for you.

The system will also send this link to the Affiliate in question, notifying them that you created them a new link for them alongside the commission % you gave them.

Head to the My Links section on your Dashboard if you’d like to see the link and how it’s performing. You can copy, generate a QR code, test its destination etc from this section.

How can I see how the Tracking Link is performing?

When you log into your Avelon account, you'll be presented with the Dashboard. The Dashboard is an overview of all sales, clicks and data available to you. You can filter by the affiliate, the promo code, the link or the month.

You can head to the Links section of the dashboard and see more top line info on the link, including what % commission you've offered to the affiliate within it.

If you'd like to take advantage of Tracking Links, just sign up to Avelon with your eCommerce store / website.