> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://doc.trackrev.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Links & Analytics overview

> Branded short links on your own domain with first-party, server-side click tracking that survives Safari ITP and iOS — and joins every click to the revenue it produced.

TrackRev Links & Analytics is a full branded short-link platform — the alternative to Bitly,
Dub, Rebrandly and Short.io — with one thing those tools don't have: every click joins to the
payment it produced, so you can see which channel actually pays your MRR.

## What makes it different

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="First-party & server-side" icon="server">
    Clicks are recorded on TrackRev's server at the redirect, and the visitor cookie is set on
    **your** domain — so tracking survives Safari ITP, iOS, and most ad-blockers.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Branded on your domain" icon="globe">
    Links live at `go.yourbrand.com/spring`, not a generic shortener domain. One DNS record and
    automatic TLS.
  </Card>

  <Card title="One link per channel" icon="layer-group">
    A single "campaign" mints a link for every channel you'll share it on, with the right UTMs
    baked in — so revenue always rolls up by channel.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Tied to revenue" icon="dollar-sign">
    When you connect a payment processor, each click is joined to the charge it led to — the
    thing a link shortener can never tell you.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## What you can do

| Capability                                        | Where                                                               |
| ------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Create branded tracking links, one per channel    | [Create links](/link-tracking/create-links)                         |
| Get AI-suggested memorable slugs                  | [Create links](/link-tracking/create-links#ai-slug-suggestions)     |
| Group links into campaigns and folders            | [Campaigns & folders](/link-tracking/campaigns)                     |
| Put links on your own short domain                | [Custom domains](/link-tracking/custom-domains)                     |
| Import hundreds of links from a CSV               | [Bulk import](/link-tracking/bulk-import)                           |
| Generate branded QR codes for any link            | [QR codes](/link-tracking/qr-codes)                                 |
| Expire links by date or click count               | [Advanced links](/link-tracking/advanced-links#link-expiration)     |
| Password-protect a link                           | [Advanced links](/link-tracking/advanced-links#password-protection) |
| Route mobile vs desktop to different destinations | [Advanced links](/link-tracking/advanced-links#device-targeting)    |
| See geo, device, browser and OS analytics         | [Analytics](/link-tracking/analytics)                               |
| Build retargeting audiences from any link         | [Link retargeting](/link-tracking/retargeting)                      |

## How a click is tracked

<Steps>
  <Step title="The click hits TrackRev's server">
    Your short link points at TrackRev. The redirect endpoint receives the click before the
    visitor reaches your destination.
  </Step>

  <Step title="The click is logged and the visitor is tagged">
    TrackRev records the click — channel, geo (country + city), device, browser, OS, referrer,
    and a bot flag — and reads or mints a first-party `vid` cookie for the visitor.
  </Step>

  <Step title="UTMs and the visitor id are appended">
    TrackRev adds the channel's UTM parameters and a `_vid` handoff parameter to the destination
    URL.
  </Step>

  <Step title="The visitor is 302-redirected">
    The visitor lands on your destination in milliseconds. If the [pixel](/getting-started/install-pixel)
    is installed there, it picks up the `_vid` handoff so the browser session and the
    server-side click share one identity.
  </Step>
</Steps>

<Note>
  Click tracking needs **no pixel** — it happens entirely at the redirect. The pixel is only
  required to attribute **revenue** and record pageviews on your destination.
</Note>

## The workspace boundary

Every own-site link in a workspace must share one **registrable domain** — the domain your
pixel fires on. This keeps a workspace's clicks, visitors and revenue reconciled to a single
product. Links to sites you don't own (a marketplace, a Substack, a YouTube description) are
exempt. If you run a second product on a different domain, put it in a second workspace
(available on Growth and Scale). See [Workspaces](/account/workspaces).

<Card title="Create your first link" icon="plus" href="/link-tracking/create-links">
  Head to Campaigns → New campaign and mint a tracking link per channel.
</Card>