Link Slugs and Custom URLs
Understanding URL slugs is essential for creating clean, memorable tracking links.
What is a Slug?
A slug is the unique identifier in your tracking URL that appears after your domain name. For example, in https://yourdomain.com/summer-sale, the slug is "summer-sale".
Slug Format Rules
Slugs must follow these rules:
Letters (a-z) - automatically converted to lowercase as you type
Numbers (0-9)
Hyphens (-) for word separation - spaces are automatically converted to hyphens
Must be unique across your entire account
Cannot start or end with a hyphen
Must be at least 1 character long
The link form automatically formats your slug as you type, converting uppercase letters to lowercase and spaces to hyphens.
Slug Best Practices
Follow these guidelines for effective slugs:
Keep It Short
Shorter slugs are easier to share and remember. Try to keep them under 30 characters.
Make It Descriptive
Use slugs that hint at the campaign or offer: "fb-spring-promo" is better than "link1".
Use Hyphens for Readability
Separate words with hyphens: "summer-sale" instead of "summersale".
Slug Examples
Good slug examples:
facebook-ad-campaign
email-newsletter-jan
yt-video-promo
blog-post-123
spring-sale-2024
Slugs to avoid:
link1 (not descriptive enough)
my_link (underscores not allowed)
promo! (special characters not allowed)
Reusing Slugs
When you delete a link, its slug becomes available for reuse. This allows you to recycle memorable slugs for new campaigns.
However, be careful when reusing slugs. If anyone has the old link bookmarked or saved, they will now be directed to the new campaign.
Catch-All Links (No Slug)
Instead of using a slug, you can enable the "Catch-All" checkbox to create a link that captures all traffic arriving at your bare domain root (e.g., yourdomain.com with no path).
Only one catch-all link is allowed per account.
Ideal for branded domains where you want the root URL to be functional.
Combine with the "Domain" eligibility rule on targets to route traffic from different custom domains to different destinations.
Advanced Topics
URL Structure
A complete ClickerVolt tracking URL consists of:
Protocol: https://
Domain: yourdomain.com (or default ClickerVolt domain)
Slug: /your-slug (or no slug for catch-all links)
Optional parameters: ?param=value
URL Parameters and Tokens
ClickerVolt supports several types of URL parameters that you can pass through your tracking links:
v1-v5 Parameters (Recommended)
Use v1 through v5 parameters for custom tracking values. These parameters map to standard UTM parameters but are less likely to be stripped by ad blockers:
v1 = utm_source
v2 = utm_medium
v3 = utm_campaign
v4 = utm_term
v5 = utm_content
UTM Parameters
You can also use standard UTM parameters (utm_source, utm_medium, etc.) directly. However, some ad blockers strip UTM parameters from URLs, so we recommend using v1-v5 instead.
Cost Parameter
Pass the cost parameter to track the cost of each click automatically: ?cost=0.50
Passing Parameters to Target URLs
Use tokens in your target URLs to pass captured parameters through to your landing pages:
[cid] - Click ID
[v1] through [v5] - Captured URL parameters
Example: https://yourdomain.com/offer?clickid=[cid]&source=[v1]&campaign=[v3]
Path-Based Parameters
You can also pass parameters through the URL path instead of query strings. Segments after your slug are automatically captured as v1 through v5 in order.
Example: https://yourdomain.com/summer-sale/facebook/newsfeed becomes v1=facebook, v2=newsfeed
Slug Conflicts
If you try to use a slug that already exists, ClickerVolt will show an error. You have three options:
Choose a different slug
Add a number or date to make it unique (e.g., "sale-2024")
Delete the existing link if it's no longer needed