V2 Link Tracking

A high-level diagram of the link redirection flow.

Ice Cream Social links contain data that provide insight into when, where, and how influencers are created which allows a client to determine whether or not a campaign is performing well. These links follow a commonly used URL tracking scheme using the Urchin Tracking Module (UTM) that allow us to accurately collect data without having to rely on 3rd party cookies. This also allows clients to view their data in their own analytics platform such as Google Analytics or Facebook Pixel. This document includes the following:

What data is held in the url
What the possible values of each parameter are
What measures there are to prevent URL tampering

SOCIAL CHANNELS - IMPORTANT NOTE

You might have noticed that none of these values pertain to any social media platforms. This is intentional due to the nature of our links and how they are created. We cannot accurately determine where a user will end up sharing their personal links without greatly diminishing the sharing experience. We cannot force them to only share on one platform and we cannot reasonably expect them to generate a dedicated link for multiple platforms. Additionally, most people already have tools in place to give them this information more reliably via referer tracking or other analytics platforms. This goes to say that inaccurate data is more harmful than no data and even if the data was accurate, it’s not immediately clear how this data would help a client improve their ICS campaigns.

This type of data will not be included in the links themselves, but we can capture referer information to tell us if they came from a social media platform on desktop.

Conclusion

This document is just to introduce the new ICS link structure and how analytics will be captured moving forward. It is not comprehensive or define a closed feature-set for the links. More can be added in the future or removed if we believe it does not benefit the client or the company. This is also not written to be client facing and should be used for internal knowledge at the moment. Or refined version should be presented to the public later. Please feel free to comment or ask any questions below!