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Smart Tracking URLs

See which social channels your advocates actually share to, and which ones drive real clicks and conversions.

Overview

Smart Tracking URLs is a tracking feature that identifies where a click and a share came from when an advocate uses built-in sharing buttons (e.g., WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and tracks which social media channel the share link was shared to.

This feature works across:

  • Email automations
  • SMS automations
  • Website Sharing Widget

It allows you to understand:

  1. Which channel an advocate used to share
  2. When someone later clicks that shared link, which channel drove the visit and downstream conversions

Why It Matters

When advocates share a referral link through social media, it’s normally hard to tell:

  • Which platform was used (WhatsApp vs. Instagram vs. Twitter)
  • What channel actually drove clicks, signups, or purchases

Smart Tracking URLs solves this by ensuring that each social platform’s share message contains a channel-specific tracking link.

How It Works (High-Level)

When a user shares through one of our sharing buttons (Email sharing widget, SMS sharing actions, or embedded Widget):

  1. The system generates a platform-specific link (example: WhatsApp share intent URL).
  2. The message prefill contains a smart tracked shareable link.
  3. When recipients click that shared link:
    • We record that the click originated from the corresponding platform (e.g., WhatsApp).
  4. This data can be used for attribution reporting (see Conversion Attribution).

Smart Tracking URL Schema

 
{your-custom-domain}/{tracking-id}/{share-code} example: refer.your-webiste.com/-i34/johndoe

Supported Touchpoints

A) Email Automations (Sharing widget Buttons)

In automations where the outcome is Send Email, templates can include Email sharing widget buttons.

These buttons:

  • Redirect users to “intent-based share” flows on different platforms
    (e.g., WhatsApp intent: api.whatsapp.com/send?text=...)
  • Include a platform-specific prefill message
  • Contain a tracking-enabled share link inside the message

✅ What gets tracked:

  • When an advocate clicks a share button
  • Which social platform was used (WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
  • When someone later clicks that shared link, the system attributes the session to that social platform

B) SMS Automations

Smart Tracking URLs works the same way for SMS flows.

✅ What gets tracked:

  • Shares initiated from SMS automations
  • Which platform was used when a user taps a sharing action (if applicable)
  • Link clicks and downstream conversions from that channel

C) Website Sharing Widget

You can embed a Sharing Widget on their website that includes:

  • Social share buttons (WhatsApp, Facebook, etc.)
  • A copyable share link

Smart Tracking URLs apply here too.

✅ What gets tracked:

  • When users share via a platform button, the platform is recorded
  • When recipients click the shared link, we identify the incoming channel
  • Copy link behavior is also tracked as a share action

D) Other links

Other links landing pages, sign up links, etc. inside email and SMS templates can also be tracked, those links will be replaced by an ambassador short link and will append tracking parameters to the final URL of that link.

Ambassador short link schema:

 
{your-custom-domain}/{tracking-id} example: refer.your-website.com/-t55

 

✅ What gets tracked:

  • If the page of the link that was shortened contains sign up forms or Ambassador Widgets, interactions with them can be attributed to the email/sms template and email/sms automation.

What Data You’ll See

Typical reporting / analytics can include:

  • Share events by social media (WhatsApp vs Twitter vs Facebook)
  • Click-throughs by social media source
  • Downstream performance by channel (when paired with Conversion Attribution)

Example Flow

  1. Advocate receives an email you sent them using Ambassador
  2. Clicks “Share on WhatsApp”
  3. We count a share
  4. WhatsApp opens with a prefilled message containing a tracked referral link
  5. Advocate sends it to someone
  6. Recipient clicks the link
  7. We count a click as: Source = WhatsApp
  8. Any signups or purchases can now be attributed to WhatsApp and the specific email automation and email template (via Conversion Attribution)

Key Benefits

  • Understand which social channels advocates actually use
  • Improve optimization of email and SMS campaigns
  • Measure channel performance and ROI for sharing behavior

Requirements:

  • Custom share link domain
  • Feature flag enabled

Important notes:

  • In order to track shares, you must use the email sharing widget.
  • Smart URLs does not track historical shares and clicks. Emails/SMS sent before Smart URLs was turned on, will still be untracked.

Social media native tracking list:

Smart URLs solve a major issue: most social media platforms do not send referrer tracking information. Without it, we cannot identify where users clicked a share link. Below is a list showing which platforms pass the necessary tracking parameters and which do not:

Common social platforms that often do NOT pass a referrer:

  • Instagram (app only)
  • Facebook (app only)
  • Facebook Messenger
  • TikTok
  • X / Twitter (app only)
  • Pinterest (app only)
  • Telegram
  • Whatsapp
  • Slack
  • Discord
  • Bluesky
  • Outlook
  • Most email providers

Common social platforms that often DOES pass a referrer:

  • Instagram (web only)
  • Facebook (web only)
  • Reddit
  • Linkedin
  • X / Twitter (web only)
  • Pinterest (web only)
  • Youtube
  • Twitch
  • Gmail