Links
Create tracked short links and record where your products are listed on other sites.
The Links page helps you track the links you share and keep a list of where your products appear elsewhere. It has two tabs that do quite different jobs.
Short links send visitors from /l/{slug} to any destination. They add UTM parameters, and Litestore counts their clicks in your own database.
External links record where a product, variant or campaign is listed on another site, such as Instagram, TikTok, Amazon or YouTube. They're only a record. Visitors never pass through them.
What a short link holds
A short link has a slug, a destination and a title. It has five UTM parameters. It can belong to a campaign, a product or a collab, but it doesn't have to. You can switch it on or off with the active flag, and you can give it an expiry date.
The five UTM parameters are:
source
medium
campaign
content
termWhat the redirect does
When someone visits /l/{slug}, Litestore does five things before the visitor lands:
- Adds the link's UTM parameters to the destination. It doesn't overwrite any parameters the destination already has.
- Tags the destination so the order can be traced back to this link.
- Sets the affiliate cookie if the link belongs to a collab.
- Sets the campaign cookie if the link belongs to a campaign.
- Counts the click.
If the slug is unknown, inactive or expired, Litestore sends the visitor to your home page instead of an error page. A dead link loses you a visitor's intended landing page, but they never see a broken page.
Bot clicks are not counted
Before Litestore adds to the count, it checks whether the visitor looks like a bot.
Click counts feed into affiliate payouts. If bots could raise them, you would pay people for clicks that never happened.
Clicks are stored, revenue is calculated
Litestore stores the click count on the link itself.
It doesn't store conversions or revenue per link. It calculates them each time you open the page. It looks at the orders whose recorded source is that link, credits the last link clicked, and subtracts refunds.
Because Litestore keeps no running total, no stored figure can drift away from the orders behind it.
Customer referral links are counted elsewhere
A customer's refer-a-friend link uses /r/{code}. Litestore credits it at
signup, not by the last link clicked. These rows correctly show no
link-attributed revenue here. You'll find their numbers on the Referrals
page.
Generated campaign and product links
When you attach a product to a campaign, Litestore can create the tracked link for that pair. The link already has the campaign's UTM parameters.
Litestore creates it inactive. It's only switched on if the product is fit to advertise. Generating the link doesn't decide whether it goes live.
External links
An external link records the platform, the address, a title and any notes. You add it to a product, a variant or a campaign.
Mostly it's a list of where you're listed, but Litestore also uses it in one place. When a synced ad's landing page matches one of these addresses, Litestore uses the external link to find the right product.
Choosing between the two
Use a short link when you want to count the click and trace the order back. Choose it for anything you'll judge by its numbers.
Use an external link when the destination isn't yours and there's nothing to redirect. Marketplace listings, social profiles and videos are good examples.
When a link should stop working, set an expiry date or turn off its active flag. Neither one deletes the link. Later visitors go to your home page instead of a dead end.
Before you hand out a link, ask yourself one question:
Do I need to count this click and credit the order, or am I only recording where the product is listed?