Link analytics
Link analytics: every click and scan on one timeline
Link analytics in CTAurl records every click on a short link and every scan of a printed QR code at the redirect, then shows the two side by side on one timeline.
Last reviewed 27 October 2026 by the CTAurl team
Together
How do you compare QR code scans with link clicks?
The CTAurl timeline shows link clicks and QR scans as two separate lines on the same chart, so print and digital results stay apart instead of merging into one total. The day a mailer lands shows up as a scan spike next to your email clicks, and you can see which one moved first.
- Time
- Sat 14:02
- Channel
- QR scan
- Device
- Mobile
- Country · city
- Hong Kong · Hong Kong
- Came from
- instagram.com
- Campaign
- spring-drop
Where and on what
What click tracking records: city, device and source
CTAurl click tracking records each click with the details a campaign needs: the time, link or QR scan, device type, operating system, browser family, country and city, the host of the referring site, the platform and your utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign. Reports break results down by city. On the standard privacy setting, no IP address, full referrer or raw user agent is stored.
Honest numbers
Why do click counts include bots? Requests, not people
A CTAurl click count is the number of requests a link received, and some of those requests come from software. Email security systems and messaging apps open links automatically, so a raw click count can include them. That is why CTAurl labels its numbers as requests, not people, and never calls them visitors or reach.
Two documented examples: Microsoft Defender for Office 365 scans the links in an email before delivery, and opens links with no known reputation in an isolated sandbox in the background (Microsoft Learn, October 2026). WhatsApp fetches a shared page with its own crawler to build the link preview (WhatsApp Business Platform documentation). CTAurl's counts include requests like these, and its reports do not filter them out.
Clicks and scans are never billed
CTAurl never bills for clicks or scans, on any plan. Plans are priced on the new links and QR codes you create each month, so a busy weekend leaves your invoice where it was. A printed code that suddenly gets thousands of scans costs the same as one that gets none.
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Frequently asked questions
What does CTAurl click tracking record for each click?
Each CTAurl click record holds the time, whether it was a link click or a QR scan, the device type, the country and city, the site it came from, the platform and your utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign. Counts are requests, not people, so they can include bots, security scanners and link previews. The Minimal and Off privacy settings keep less, as the privacy model explains.
Does every CTAurl plan include link analytics?
Every CTAurl plan records each click and scan on its links, and clicks and scans are never billed. How much of the reporting you see, such as breakdowns by city, device and source, depends on your plan; the pricing page sets it out. Detailed click records are kept for about 90 days.
Do I need to install anything on my website for click tracking?
No. CTAurl counts each click at the redirect itself, so nothing goes on the page you send people to. For behaviour on your own site, use your own analytics tool with the UTM tags you set (see campaign tracking). Its numbers can differ from CTAurl's: Google Analytics 4 removes known bot traffic automatically and does not show how much it removed, according to Google Analytics Help.