My Misadventures in Tracking, Comparing Click Trackers

My tracking links just stopped working! What’s happened? The site handling the links is down as well! 

I’ll get to what happened later…but what the heck is a “tracking link”?

In business, especially online marketing, you need to track your results. This has given rise to the “Click Tracking” industry. For things like emails and web pages, you can use a click tracking service to help track the type of clicks you get. 

Click trackers are like the bloodhounds of the world of online marketing.

Click tracking helps prevent clicks from bots or other fraudulent sources so you don’t waste money on pay-per-click advertising.

The highest recommendation is for ClickMagick.com. My problem was they are $69/month or higher.

The other option was Click.org. Plans started as low as $7/month. Comparing the two, Click.org had a better look and feel as well! So I got started with Click.org.

All was going well until the morning after Thanksgiving, Friday, November 24th, 2023. I was about to launch an email marketing campaign and I was doing one last check before pulling the trigger.

All my tracking links handled by Click.org didn’t work. Also, when I went to Click.org to get some support, their whole site was also down!

There were no obvious support options. I had to email and call the contact I had when purchasing my Click.org account. Even when I had an issue earlier when their site worked, all they had was a webform. I submitted a webform inquiry on November 8th, 2023. It never has gotten a response.

I never got any response to this day. I had to change to ClickMagick.com and change all my tracking links to work with ClickMagick.

Thankfully I was able to get a refund from PayPal after raising a dispute. The Click.org website started working again without warning or notice over a week or two later. I only found out by checking out of curiosity.

ClickMagick has worked much better with great support. They have live chat support 18 hours a day, in addition to phone support.

I am looking for a cheaper option than ClickMagick but they better have good support! Here are some I have an eye on:
Switch.io: $47/month or $39/month for 2 years but have to pay $858 up front.
Rebrandly (was ClickMeter): $0 to $32+/month (need $32/month for 24/7 support)
LinkTrackr: $7/month (pay annual…but only have a webform to contact)

Do you have a recommended click tracker?

How has your click tracking gone?

Regardless of all that, I learned my lesson: Make sure that any tool or service you get comes with great support.