Clicks & analytics
Every time someone opens one of your short links, e-sat.ly sends them on their way and records that the click happened. Those records are what turn a shortener into a reporting tool: you can see that an SMS campaign was actually opened, on what, from where, and when.
What's recorded on a click
Each click stores a small, deliberately coarse set of details:
| What | Example | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| When | The moment of the click | To the second |
| Which link | The short code that was opened | |
| Country | GR, DE | Country only — never a city or precise location |
| Referrer | The page the visitor came from, if any | Often empty for SMS and Viber, which send no referrer |
| Device | Mobile, desktop, tablet | |
| Operating system | iOS, Android, Windows, macOS | The family only, never the version |
| Browser | Chrome, Safari, Firefox | |
| Visitor fingerprint | — | A one-way hash of the IP address |
IP addresses are never stored
e-sat.ly does not store the visitor's IP address. It stores a one-way hash of it — a fingerprint that can't be turned back into the original address. The same visitor produces the same fingerprint, which is what lets the reports count unique visitors rather than just total clicks, without ever holding the identifying value itself.
Clicks are not tied to a customer's identity. e-sat.ly records that a link was opened, not who opened it. If you need feedback tied to a person, that's what Customers is for.
Recording a click never slows the redirect down — the visitor is sent to their destination first, and the click is written immediately afterwards.
Link previews and bots don't inflate your clicks
When you send a link over SMS, Viber, WhatsApp, Messenger and the like, the messaging app often opens the link itself first — quietly, in the background — to build the little preview card your customer sees before they tap. Search engines, link scanners and other automated "bots" open links the same way. None of these is a real person choosing to visit.
e-sat.ly recognizes these automated opens and doesn't count them. The link still works for them exactly as it does for anyone else — that's what lets the preview card appear — but the open isn't recorded as a click. So the numbers in your reports stay closer to the people who actually opened your message, rather than the apps that previewed it on their behalf.
It's automatic — nothing to set up
This filtering is always on; there's nothing to configure. e-sat.ly can only exclude the automated visitors it recognizes, so an occasional preview or bot may still slip into the totals — but the well-known ones (the major messaging apps, social networks and search engines) are already left out. It's part of why your click count can read a little lower than a "delivered" figure, and closer to reality.
The reports
Overview
The console's home screen: headline counts (projects, links, clicks), 7-day trends for links created and clicks received, and a Top links table. Each card links through to the screen behind it.
Clicks
Analytics → Clicks is the organization-wide view of every click, with a project filter and a date range. It gives you:
- Stat panels — total clicks, unique visitors, and the number of countries.
- Breakdowns — the top operating systems, devices and browsers.
- Top links — which links are actually being opened.
- Clicks over time — a chart across your chosen range.
- The raw click list — individual click events, newest first.
A single link's clicks
From any link's row, View clicks opens that one link's page: its own totals, unique visitors, countries, breakdowns and a full click list. This is the screen to use when you want to know how one specific link performed — a QR code on a poster, say.
Dates and time zones
Click reports are always bounded by a date range — Last 7 days by default, Last 30, or a custom range. As on Short Links, there's no "All time": the range is what keeps these reports fast across a very large amount of click data.
Charts are bucketed in your local days, matching the timestamps shown beside them in the click list. A click at 1am is on the same day in both places, wherever you are.
Clicks aren't survey responses
A click means the link was opened — not that a survey was completed. For response and completion rates, use Response Rate in Insights. e-sat.ly answers "did the message get opened at all", which is a useful early signal when a send looks quiet.
How long clicks are kept
Click data is deleted once it ages past its project's data-retention window — including the clicks on pinned links. Pinning keeps the link working forever; it doesn't keep its click history forever. If you need a longer history than your reports show, check the project's retention setting.