A tracking link is your personal version of the offer address. It looks like a normal link, but before the visitor reaches the offer it passes through the network, which writes down that the click came from you. Without it, a sale cannot be credited to you.
A tracking link is a URL on the network’s tracking domain that identifies the affiliate and the offer, records the click and redirects the visitor to the advertiser’s landing page. The usual structure is a tracking domain, a click endpoint and parameters for the offer, the affiliate and, on some platforms, the commission plan, followed by optional fields for the affiliate’s click ID, sub IDs and a deep link. Scaleo treats its base parameters as mandatory: changing or removing them makes the click invalid.
The click is logged in milliseconds and the visitor is forwarded with the network’s own click ID appended to the advertiser URL; that is the value the advertiser later returns in its postback. Some platforms also set a cookie on the tracking domain as a fallback for pixel-based conversions. On top of the base link the affiliate adds their own data: the tracker’s click ID in the dedicated field and labels in sub IDs.
A deep link lets the affiliate choose the exact page on the advertiser’s site, such as a product page or a specific landing variant, while keeping the tracking intact. The destination is passed as a URL-encoded parameter, so its own query string does not collide with the network’s. Many networks also offer custom tracking domains, which look cleaner in ads and keep working if a shared domain is ever flagged by a platform.
Tracking links are not cosmetic. Editing them by hand, running them through a shortener that strips parameters or swapping in the advertiser’s plain URL all break attribution, and a broken link usually fails silently: the visitor still lands on the offer, the conversion still happens, but nobody is credited. Generate links in the network’s link builder, add parameters there and test each one with a real click before traffic starts.
A fictional link as an affiliate would place it behind a prelander button:
https://track.example-network.com/click?o=412&a=1087&aff_click_id={clickid}&sub_id1=native-a&sub_id2=vpn-us-01&deep_link=https%3A%2F%2Foffer.example.com%2Fsale
| Part | Meaning |
|---|---|
| track.example-network.com/click | network tracking domain and click endpoint |
| o=412 | offer ID |
| a=1087 | affiliate ID |
| aff_click_id={clickid} | tracker macro, replaced by the tracker’s unique click ID |
| sub_id1, sub_id2 | affiliate labels: source and campaign |
| deep_link | URL-encoded page on the advertiser site to land on |
Remove a=1087 and the click is rejected or credited to no one. Leave {clickid} as literal text because the tracker campaign was never linked, and every conversion comes back with the same string, impossible to match. Forget to encode the deep link and its own parameters get read as the network’s. Domains and IDs are invented for illustration.
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A URL from the network that identifies you and the offer, logs each click and redirects the visitor to the advertiser, so the resulting conversions can be credited to you.
Only by adding supported parameters such as sub IDs, a click ID or a deep link. Changing the base parameters can invalidate the click.
A parameter that sends the visitor to a specific page on the advertiser’s site instead of the default landing page, while keeping the tracking intact.
Each redirect adds a short delay, usually small. Chains of several redirects across distant servers are what hurt conversion, especially on mobile.
References are listed as plain text on purpose; look them up by title and publisher. Updated: 2026-10-09.
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