🎯 Sub-ID Tracking For Traffic Sources

A Sub-ID is a label you add to the end of a tracking link to say where the click came from. One link can then tell you which email, ad, video or partner brought each click, lead and sale, without making a separate link for every place you share it. It is built in and needs no setup at all.

The Path Format:

Add a word after your slug with a slash. These all work straight away on any link:

• yoursite.com/inbox-course/email-oct06
• yoursite.com/inbox-course/webinar-replay
• yoursite.com/starter-guide/fb-group
• yoursite.com/starter-guide/blog-sidebar
• yoursite.com/solo-ads/solo-anna

The word after the slug becomes the Sub-ID. The visitor goes to exactly the same destination, and the Sub-ID is stored with the click.

The Query Format:

If a path does not suit you, pass the Sub-ID as a parameter instead. Three names are accepted and they all do the same thing:

• yoursite.com/inbox-course?sid=email-oct06
• yoursite.com/inbox-course?sub_id=email-oct06
• yoursite.com/inbox-course?subid=email-oct06

Setting It Up Step By Step:

1. Create one link for the offer, for example inbox-course.
2. Decide on one short Sub-ID per place you share it, for example email-oct06 for a newsletter, fb-feed for a Facebook ad and yt-desc for a YouTube description.
3. Use the matching address in each place.
4. Open the link's 📊 Stats page after the traffic arrives and read the 📊 Sub ID Breakdown.

Where Sub-IDs Show Up:

• 📊 Dashboard: a Sub ID column in 🖱️ Recent Clicks and 💰 Recent Conversions.
• The link's Stats page: the 📊 Sub ID Breakdown table, with Clicks, Conversions, Sales, Revenue, Conv Rate and EPC for every Sub-ID, plus Cost and P/L with Pro Tools.
• 💰 Conversions: a Sub ID column on every lead and sale.
• W+ Connect and JVZ Connect conversion lists, when those add-ons are installed.
• Every CSV export.

Reading The Sub ID Breakdown:

Sort your thinking by EPC, earnings per click, rather than by clicks. The loudest source is often not the most profitable one. On the course link for yoursite.com, email-oct06 and email-oct20 each brought over 200 clicks, but email-oct06 turned more of them into sales, so its EPC is higher. Clicks with no Sub-ID are grouped on their own row, which is normal.

Good Sub-ID Habits:

• Sub-IDs are case sensitive. /Facebook and /facebook are two different rows, so pick one style and keep to it.
• Keep them short and readable, because they appear in tables and exports.
• There is no limit to how many Sub-IDs one link can have.
• Use one word after the slug. An address with more parts, such as /inbox-course/a/b, is not treated as a tracking link. For values with spaces or slashes, use the ?sub_id= form.

Your Subscriber's Email As The Sub-ID:

In an email you can put each subscriber's own address in the Sub-ID spot with your email app's merge tag, for example yoursite.com/inbox-course/{subscriber email}. The click is recorded with that email, and the visitor is recognised exactly as if the link had used ?email=. In the Sub ID Breakdown, emails used this way are added up into a single Email subscribers row, with Show who clicked to list the people, buyers first. See Tagging Affiliate Buyers In Your Email App and Audience Vault For Visitor Identity.

A Real Example:

yoursite.com buys solo ads from two vendors for the starter guide. Each vendor gets their own address: yoursite.com/solo-ads/solo-anna and yoursite.com/solo-ads/solo-marco. With a Cost Per Click set on the link, the Sub ID Breakdown shows clicks, leads, cost and profit or loss for each vendor side by side, so the owner knows whose traffic to buy again.

A Naming Scheme You Can Keep:

Pick a pattern once and use it everywhere, so the Sub ID Breakdown stays easy to read:

• Email: email- and the send date, such as email-oct06, or the sequence step, such as welcome-3.
• Social: the network and placement, such as fb-feed, fb-group, yt-desc or yt-pinned.
• Partners and solo ads: the partner's first name, such as solo-anna or jv-marco.
• Your own site: the spot on the page, such as blog-sidebar or blog-post.
• Print and events: the item and place, such as flyer-nov or booth-a.

Short, lowercase and dash separated values sort neatly and read well in exports.

Tips:

• Paid ad platforms can fill in Sub-IDs for you, such as the keyword or ad ID. See Dynamic Sub-IDs For Paid Ad Platforms.
• If a partner network needs the Sub-ID passed on to its own URL, see Forwarding Sub-IDs To The Destination URL.
• To send a vendor a live, read only view of just their own Sub-ID, see Share Live Stats Pages With Pro Tools.