What are Source IDs and how do I add them to a SmartLink?
While SmartLinks have built-in analytics that allow you to see which channel drove your downloads, you might want a more granular look at your data without creating a new SmartLink for each post or placement.
Source IDs allow you to add a piece of code at the end of the SmartLink URL, so you can label where the traffic came from. For example, you can use one SmartLink for a new episode, and use different Source IDs for the twitter post, facebook post, and email blast promoting it.
To add Source IDs to your SmartLink, just add ?sid= + any text to the end of any SmartLink URL. You don't have to "create" or "save" Source IDs in your Chartable account -- any clicks from SmartLinks ending in ?sid= will automatically populate into Chartable.
For example, if you wanted to see how much traffic comes from a banner ad placement, you could add ?sid=banner to the end of your SmartLink before the campaign starts.
Here's some examples of commonly used Source IDs:
- https://link.chtbl.com/demo?sid=twitter
- https://link.chtbl.com/demo?sid=instagram
- https://link.chtbl.com/demo?sid=facebook
- https://link.chtbl.com/demo?sid=newsletter
To filter data from a specific Source ID, select that Source ID from the dropdown menu under "Filter by Source ID" in the SmartLink detail page.
Source IDs will appear in this dropdown menu once the SmartLink with the Source ID has been clicked at least once.
To learn more about Source IDs and UTM parameters, check out this great article from HootSuite.