Automatically append tracking parameters to your links
ConvertKit has global advanced tracking that lets you easily append parameters to your emails' links.
This will give you the ability to track your emails' performance, personalize the subscriber experience, and pass your subscribers' email addresses to third parties.
You can find these advanced tracking settings by clicking your name at the top right of the navigation > Settings, and then clicking Advanced from the left sidebar.
There are three advanced tracking options:
Subscriber ID
Automatically append a ?ck_subscriber_id=123 parameter to all the links sent via Broadcast and Sequence emails, where "123" will be replaced with the subscriber's unique ID.
When you enable this setting, you can track subscriber activity on the plugins we offer—specifically, WordPress and Insights.
To enable the appending of subscriber IDs, click the toggle next to the Add subscriber_id parameter in email links option. Then, click Save changes.
For WordPress
By enabling the subscriber_id parameter for your email links, you'll be able to:
Track subscribers who have clicked through your emails to visit your WordPress site
Tag subscribers who visit specific WordPress pages
Display custom WordPress website content based on the subscriber's Tags
For Insights
If you're a Creator Pro user, enabling the subscriber_id parameter will enhance the data you get in your Insights dashboard, as the feature will be able to track your subscribers' activity on your website.
UTM codes
Automatically append utm_source, utm_medium, and utm_campaign parameters to all links in your Broadcast and Sequence emails so you can track traffic and activity on Google Analytics (or any other analytics software).
To enable the appending of UTM parameters, click the toggle next to the Automatically append UTM parameters to email links option. Then, click Save changes.
Learn more in our article about automatic UTM parameters.
Hashed subscriber email
Automatically append the sh_kit=id parameter to links in your Broadcast, Sequence, and RSS emails, where "id" will be replaced with an SHA-256 hashed value representing the email address of the subscriber who clicked the link.
By appending hashed subscriber email address values to your emails' links, you can securely share subscribers' email addresses with third parties without exposing these email addresses in your links.
In turn, the third parties can use the hashed values to track subscriber activity across websites and channels, such as for attributing website conversions to your email ads.
To enable the appending of hashed subscriber email addresses, click the toggle next to the Automatically append hashed subscriber email to email links option. Then, click Save changes.
How does the hashing work?
We derive the hashed value using SHA-256, an algorithm that provides a formula for turning data into unique strings of characters. ("SHA" stands for "Secure Hash Algorithm.")
For instance, the SHA-256 hashed value for the email address "[email protected]" is 621a263485d55da4a55a13886990388eef49ac0133e8715cfadc1913a534f164.
Hashing is a one-way process. So, it isn't possible for anyone who has the hashed value to decode it to get the original data. The third party will need to have gotten the original data themselves in some way.
For example, they could have legitimately collected someone's email address after the person used it to create a website account.
The third party can then also use SHA-256 to hash this data in the same way we do.
This way, when the third party receives a hashed subscriber email address value from your ConvertKit emails' links, it can check its database for a matching hashed value.
If it finds one, it'll know which subscriber had clicked your link—even though you hadn't shared the subscriber's email address with it directly!
It can then attribute that user's subsequent activity on the linked page to your subscriber.