Capsulink counts the clicks on your short links. To see what visitors do after the click — sign-ups, purchases, leads — use UTM parameters together with Google Analytics 4 (GA4) on your website. It takes a few minutes and no extra code.
1. Add UTM parameters to the destination URL
UTM parameters are tags at the end of a URL that tell Google Analytics where a visitor came from. Add them to the destination URL of your short link, for example:
https://yourshop.com/sale?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=black_friday
- utm_source — where the link is placed (newsletter, facebook, partner-site)
- utm_medium — the type of channel (email, social, cpc, sms, qr)
- utm_campaign — the campaign name (black_friday, spring_launch)
- optional: utm_content (which banner or button), utm_term (keyword)
Shorten this URL in Capsulink as usual — the short link stays short and clean, the tags are passed to your website. Google's free Campaign URL Builder helps to build the URL without typos. On paid plans you can also add or change UTM parameters later by editing the destination URL — the short link doesn't change.
Tip: use one short link per channel (one for the newsletter, one for Facebook, one for the QR code on a poster). Then both Capsulink statistics and Google Analytics show which channel works best.
2. Or add them when you share the short link (parameter forwarding)
You don't need to change anything in Capsulink for this. When you publish your short link, add the UTM parameters after it — Capsulink passes everything after the ? on to the destination URL. So one short link can be shared with different tags in different places:
https://cli.re/sale?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialhttps://cli.re/sale?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email
Both open your destination page with these tags added. This works on all plans and on custom domains too. Don't put the same parameter both in the destination URL and in the shared link — use one place.
3. See campaigns and conversions in Google Analytics 4
- Make sure GA4 is installed on your website and the actions you care about (purchase, sign_up, generate_lead, form submit) are tracked. Mark them as key events in GA4: Admin → Data display → Events → turn on Mark as key event.
- Open Reports → Acquisition → Traffic acquisition and choose the dimension Session campaign or Session source / medium.
- The table shows sessions, key events (your conversions), the key event rate and revenue for each campaign and source — for example, how many purchases came from newsletter / email / black_friday.
To check that tagging works, open your short link and look at Reports → Realtime in GA4 — your visit appears with its source and campaign within a minute.
Good to know
- Use lowercase and the same spelling every time (facebook, not Facebook and FB) — GA4 treats them as different sources.
- Capsulink statistics show clicks; GA4 shows visits and conversions on your site. The numbers differ a bit (bots, blocked cookies, visitors who leave before the page loads) — that's normal.
- Retargeting pixels (Google Tag Manager, Meta Pixel) on your custom domain are a separate feature — see Setting up retargeting links.