Measurement
Why your click counts never match
Google Ads says 1,240 clicks. Your tracker says 1,187. Neither is broken. Here is where the gap comes from and how wide it is allowed to be.
Notes on click tracking
What we learn building the infrastructure: how redirects work, what invalid traffic really looks like, and what the platforms expect from a tracker.
Fundamentals
Anatomy of a tracking link
Every part of a tracking URL does a job: the redirect path, the identifier, the destination, the campaign parameters. Here is what each one is for.
Click data
What a server actually sees when a click arrives
No cookie, no script, no consent banner. Just what the request itself carries. Here is the full list, and what each field is worth.
Fundamentals
What a click tracker actually does
A click tracker sits between an ad and a landing page, records the visit, then forwards the visitor. Here is what that buys you, and what it does not.
Ad fraud
What invalid traffic actually costs you
Not every click is a person. Scrapers, monitoring tools, competitors and inflated affiliate volume all bill at the same rate as a real visitor.
Standards
Transparent click tracking, and why platforms insist on it
Ad platforms increasingly require the destination of a tracking link to be readable in the link itself. Here is what that means in practice.