Mobile Link Analytics: What to Track and Why It Matters

TL;DR: WarpLink records every click and every attributed install at tap time, with recent taps showing in the dashboard within minutes, per link and per campaign, broken down by device, country, referrer, and UTM parameters. Uniqueness is computed server-side: one click per link, address, and 24 hour window, and bot traffic is excluded before a click event is ever built rather than filtered afterward. Installs join back to the click that caused them once you register an app, and a trend chart shows click-to-install conversion day by day. None of this needs a separate analytics product bolted on afterward: the same SDK and the same dashboard already cover deep linking, install attribution, and analytics. This guide covers what to track, how the numbers differ from in-app product analytics, and the mistakes that make a campaign look better or worse than it actually is.

What Link Analytics Measures

Every link starts producing two kinds of data the moment someone taps it: what happened at the click, and, once the link points at a registered app, what happened at the install it produced.

At the click. Total clicks and unique clicks, per link and across your whole organization. Country, referrer, device type, and UTM source, medium, and campaign, broken down per link. Whether the tap resolved to your app opening or fell through to a web redirect.

At the install. Once an app is registered, the attribution match cascade joins new installs back to the click that caused them, and both the install count and a day-by-day click-to-install conversion rate sit next to the click numbers for the same link.

What	Where it shows up
Total and unique clicks	Per link and org-wide
Country, referrer, device type	Per link and org-wide
OS, browser	Per link
UTM source, medium, campaign	Per link
Installs and conversion rate	Per link, once an app is registered

Two things hold regardless of what a link points at. The click-side numbers are recorded the same way whether the link is a bare web redirect or a deep link into a registered app, so a web-only link in an org that has registered an app gets the same click analytics on day one, before you ship the SDK. And none of it is filtered after the fact: a bot's tap is caught before a click event is ever built, so the number you see is already the human number.

Why Link-Level Data Is Different From In-App Analytics

Link analytics and product analytics answer different questions. Link analytics is about the join: which link, campaign, or channel produced this click, and which install did that click cause. Product analytics is about what happens next: screens viewed, features used, funnels completed, revenue and retention measured over time, inside an app you already got someone to open. WarpLink does the first job: it joins every click to the install it produced. If you need both, you are looking at two categories of product that share one boundary, the install itself. Link analytics vs. product analytics walks through where that boundary sits and how the two fit together.

Reading Campaign Performance in Real Time

Clicks are recorded at tap time, and recent taps show in the dashboard within minutes. A link shared at 9:00 already has numbers worth reading by 9:20.

The date range picker covers Today, 7, 30, and 90 days, plus a custom range, with hourly granularity available for Today and daily granularity everywhere else. How far back you can look depends on your plan: the last 30 days on Free (90 days are retained), up to three years on Scale and Unlimited.

The click-to-install conversion rate lives in the trend chart, computed per day as installs divided by unique clicks. Read it as a trend across days: attribution matches installs within a window, so the chart shows conversion across the whole campaign.

Common Mistakes

Three mistakes account for most of the confusion teams report when they first look at their numbers.

Reading total clicks instead of unique clicks. Total clicks count every tap, including one visitor who taps a link five times testing it before sharing it further. Unique clicks, deduplicated per link, address, and 24 hour window, are the number that reflects actual reach. Use unique clicks to compare campaigns against each other, and total clicks only when you care about repeat engagement with one specific link.

Confusing a link's inbound UTM tags with UTM tags appended to the destination. Every click carries whatever UTM parameters arrived on the incoming request, so a link shared as ?utm_source=newsletter shows up correctly in your UTM breakdown. A link's own saved UTM fields are a second mechanism. They are appended to web destinations on redirect when nothing else has set that key. For a web destination, the click records the UTM values the visitor was sent with, read from the final destination URL, so your breakdown matches what the destination received. A key the destination URL does not carry, and any app store or app scheme destination, keeps the value from the incoming tap.

Assuming bot traffic still needs filtering. It does not. Bot detection runs before a click is ever recorded, so there is nothing to subtract from your totals and no separate "bot clicks" figure sitting inside your numbers waiting to be excluded. Our counts show real visitors only, because bot taps are caught before a click is written.

Setting It Up

Analytics needs no separate setup step beyond registering your app. Create a link, in the dashboard or through the REST API, and clicks start recording the moment it goes live, with no SDK required.

To add installs to the picture, add the SDK to your registered app. Once that is done, new installs from your links join automatically through the match cascade, and the install count and conversion trend appear on the same link you already created. Install attribution without an MMP covers how that match works end to end.

From there, the numbers are reachable from three places: the dashboard, for the full breakdown by device, country, referrer, and UTM, plus CSV export; a REST call; and an MCP client, all reading the same total clicks, unique clicks, time series, source split, and dimension breakdowns, read straight from a script or an AI assistant.

The analytics page covers the dashboard view in full, the analytics concept doc covers how the numbers are computed, and the install attribution page covers the join that puts installs next to clicks. Every plan, including Free, includes analytics: the free tier covers 10,000 clicks a month before analytics freeze until an upgrade or the next period, though your links themselves keep redirecting either way. Compare plans on pricing.

Frequently Asked Questions

What counts as a click in mobile link analytics? Any tap on your link that reaches a real visitor. Bot traffic is caught at the edge before a click event is ever built, so bot taps are never written to your numbers in the first place. There is no separate "bot clicks" count sitting inside your totals waiting to be subtracted, because nothing needs filtering after the fact.

How are unique clicks calculated? A click is unique per combination of link, visitor address, and a rolling 24 hour window, computed server-side at the moment the click is written. One person tapping the same link four times in an afternoon still counts as one unique click, so unique clicks are the number to trust for reach, while total clicks tell you how much repeat interest a single link is getting.

Does link analytics need the mobile SDK, or does it work for web-only links? It works without the SDK. Once you register an app, a link records clicks, devices, countries, referrers, and UTM parameters from the moment you create it, whether or not the link opens the app. Adding the SDK unlocks one more layer, installs joined back to the click that caused them, but click-side analytics needs nothing beyond the link itself.

How is this different from product analytics? Link analytics measures what happens before and at the moment of the tap, plus the install it produced. Product analytics covers what a user does after the app opens. The two are complementary rather than overlapping. Link analytics vs. product analytics covers the boundary in full.

Can I export or query link analytics programmatically? Yes, in three ways. The dashboard exports raw click rows as CSV, org-wide or per link, including UTM term and content fields. A REST call or an MCP client can query total clicks, unique clicks, time series, source split, and a full breakdown by device, country, referrer, or UTM, with the same retention and plan gate as the dashboard.

To compare services on what they measure and charge, see 5 Mobile Link Analytics Services Compared sets click data, install matching, exports, and published pricing side by side for five services.

How WarpLink Helps

Mobile link analytics is not a bolt-on report. It is one of WarpLink's three pillars, deep linking, install attribution, and real-time analytics, all built on the same click a visitor generates the moment they tap. The linking pillar sends that tap to the right destination, the attribution pillar joins it to the install it produced, and the analytics pillar surfaces both within minutes of the tap.

Create a free WarpLink account and start reading device, country, referrer, and UTM breakdowns on your first link today, with 10,000 clicks a month on the free tier and no time limit on how long you can run it. Every plan, including Free, gets the same analytics; compare click ceilings on the pricing page.