# How click tracking works

> Tracking domains, campaigns, clicks and postbacks: how a lead learns which ad it came from.
> Source: https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/click-tracking


Click tracking answers one question: **which ad produced this lead, and what was it worth?**

EventsIQ records every paid click on its way to your landing page, gives it an id, and joins that
id to the lead the visitor submits. From then on the lead knows its campaign, its ad, its ad set and
its click id. That is what lets EventsIQ tell the ad network about the sale, and what lets
[Reports](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/reports) put spend and revenue side by side.

This page explains the pieces and how they fit. If you would rather set it up step by step, go
straight to the guide: [Set up paid traffic](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/guide-paid-traffic).

## The pieces at a glance

| Piece                              | What it is                                                                                     | Where you set it up          |
| ---------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------- |
| **Tracking domain**                | A subdomain of yours, like `track.yoursite.com`, that your ad links point at                    | Settings → Domains           |
| **Traffic source**                 | One ad network, its currency, and which of its macros fill which EventsIQ field                | Acquire → Traffic sources    |
| **Campaign**                       | One run of paid traffic: a traffic source, a form, a landing page and the link that goes in the ad | Acquire → Campaigns          |
| **Click**                          | One visit through a campaign link, with its own id                                             | Recorded for you             |
| **Connection**                     | Your login or keys for Meta, TikTok, Google, Snapchat, Microsoft Ads, NewsBreak or AppLovin, borrowed so EventsIQ can act for you | Acquire → Connections        |
| **Integration: Conversion API**    | Which pixel or Google Ads account hears about sales, and which events it hears                 | Acquire → Integrations       |
| **Integration: Cost tracking**     | Which ad accounts EventsIQ reads spend from, and how often                                     | Acquire → Integrations       |
| **Postback**                       | A call your CRM makes later, saying "this click turned into a sale"                           | Settings → Postbacks         |

```mermaid
flowchart LR
    D[Tracking domain] --> C[Campaign]
    T[Traffic source] --> C
    F[Form] --> C
    C --> L[Tracking link in the ad]
    I[Conversion API integration] --> C
    K[Connection] --> I
    K --> S[Cost tracking integration]
    S --> R[Reports]
    C --> R
```

## The journey of one click

```mermaid
sequenceDiagram
    participant Ad as Ad network
    participant Edge as Your tracking domain
    participant Page as Landing page
    participant FW as EventsIQ
    participant Buyer as Destination
    Ad->>Edge: Visitor clicks the ad, macros filled in
    Edge->>Edge: Pick the page, record the click, mint eiq_click
    Edge->>Page: Redirect, with every parameter plus eiq_click
    Page->>Page: The form remembers eiq_click for 90 days
    Page->>FW: Visitor submits the form, carrying eiq_click
    FW->>FW: Join the click to the lead
    FW->>Buyer: Waterfall, first one to accept buys it
    FW->>Ad: Conversion event for the sale
```

In words:

1. **The ad link points at your tracking domain**, for example
   `https://track.yoursite.com/solar-us?eiq_source=…&eiq_campaign=…&campaign_id={{campaign.id}}`. The
   network replaces each macro, like `{{campaign.id}}`, with the real value before the visitor arrives.
2. **The tracking domain decides where the visitor goes.** It checks the campaign's rules (country,
   device, time of day and so on), picks a page, records the click and gives it an id.
3. **The visitor lands on your page** with every parameter they came with, plus `eiq_click=<id>`.
4. **The EventsIQ form on that page remembers the click id** for 90 days. If the visitor comes back next week and submits, the lead still
   carries it.
5. **The lead arrives carrying the click id.** EventsIQ finds the click and fills in what the page
   never saw: campaign, ad set, ad, network click ids, the Meta `fbc` value and so on.
6. **The lead is routed as usual.** When a destination buys it, EventsIQ tells the ad network.


## Through your link domain, or straight to your page

A campaign's **Where clicks go** tab has two choices.

| Where clicks go              | Where the ad points       | What you get                                                                   |
| ---------------------------- | ------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Through your link domain** | Your tracking domain      | Every click recorded, plus rules and split tests across landing pages          |
| **Straight to your page**    | Your landing page itself  | No extra hop. The form on the page asks EventsIQ for a click id instead         |

**Through your link domain** needs a tracking domain that is **Live**. Until you have one, it is
greyed out and every campaign goes straight to your page.

## How a lead finds its campaign

Not every lead comes through a link. How a lead is matched to its campaign depends on what kind of
form the campaign runs on, and the campaign sheet tells you which one applies.

| The campaign runs on         | How the lead is matched                                       | What you have to do                                     |
| ---------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------- |
| A **website form**           | **By URL**: the parameters in the ad link                     | Paste the tracking URL into the ad                      |
| A Facebook, TikTok, Google or Snapchat **instant form** | **By network**: the network names its campaign on every lead | Pick the **Ad campaign** on the campaign's General tab |
| An **inbound webhook**       | **By caller**: whoever posts the lead sends the parameters    | Ask the sender to include the parameters as fields      |

Instant forms open inside the network's app, so there is no page and no click to record. The network
sends its own campaign id with every lead instead, and that is enough to join spend and sales.

## What the click adds to a lead

The click fills gaps. It never overwrites.

If the lead already has a campaign id, because the page passed one, the click leaves it alone. This
matters because a visitor can come back through a newer ad while an older click id is still in their
browser. Letting the old click win would replace a right answer with a stale one.

The click also never sets the IP address or browser of the lead. Those describe the moment the form
was submitted, which is the moment a conversion is reported for.

:::tip{title="The click and the lead can arrive in either order"}
Occasionally the lead is saved a moment before its click. That is fine: when the click arrives,
EventsIQ fills the lead in then. The lead's log says so while it waits.
:::

## Where you can see clicks

There is no separate list of clicks. You see them where they are useful:

-   **In a lead's log.** Open any lead in [Logs](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/logs) and look for **The click it came
    from**: the campaign, the link, when they clicked, how long they took to submit, where they were
    and the click id.
-   **In Reports.** Group by **Campaign** and turn on the **Tracked clicks**, **Cost per click** and
    **Click to lead %** columns. A campaign that splits traffic across pages also gets a **Split
    test** table, so you can see which page converts.

![A lead's click panel](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs-media/click-tracking/01-lead-click-panel.png "Lead logs, open a lead that came through a campaign link, crop to 'The click it came from'. Campaign, link, place and network blurred.")

## Two ways a sale gets back to the network

**At the moment of sale.** When the waterfall finishes, the routing's **CRM events** fire. A Google
postback reports the sale to a Google Ads conversion action, and a Meta, TikTok or Snapchat postback
tells the network the lead's stage. A Microsoft Ads postback reports it to an offline conversion goal,
a NewsBreak postback to a Postback event, and an AppLovin conversion sends it to your AppLovin pixel.
See [Routing → Events](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/routing#events) and [Global events](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/global-events).

**Later, by postback.** Many sales happen days later in your CRM. The CRM calls EventsIQ's postback
URL with the click id and an event name, for example `sold`. EventsIQ finds the click, then its
campaign, then the campaign's **Conversion integration**, and sends the event there. See
[Postbacks](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/postbacks).

```mermaid
flowchart LR
    CRM[Your CRM] -->|/cv?click_id=..&event=sold| P[Postback]
    P --> Click
    Click --> Campaign
    Campaign --> I[Conversion integration]
    I --> N[Meta, TikTok, Snapchat, Google, Microsoft Ads, NewsBreak or AppLovin]
```

The event never names a pixel. Five campaigns on three ad accounts can all send `sold`, and each one
reports to its own pixel, because the campaign decides where it goes.

## Spend and return on ad spend

A **Cost tracking** integration reads spend from your ad accounts every hour or so, per network
campaign. [Reports](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/reports) then join that spend to your leads by the network's campaign id
and the day, so each row shows spend, revenue, profit and ROAS together.

## What to read next

-   [Set up paid traffic](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/guide-paid-traffic): the whole setup, step by step.
-   [Campaigns](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/campaigns): every tab and field.
-   [Postbacks](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/postbacks): reporting sales that happen later.