Apex Links
An Apex Link is a short link you put on a post, an ad, an email, or anything printed. It sends people where you choose, and it tells you which link brought in each person and each sale.
Apex Links or UTM tags?
An Apex Link still adds the standard UTM tags when it sends someone on, so any tool that reads UTMs keeps working. The difference is what you can see afterwards.
| UTM tags typed by hand | Apex Link | |
|---|---|---|
| What people see | yourbrand.com/?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=spring_launch&utm_content=post_3 | yourbrand.links.apex.inc/spring-launch-linkedin |
| Which post brought a visit | Only the campaign. Two posts in the same campaign look the same. | The exact link. |
| Which post brought a person or a sale | You'd have to build that report yourself. | Each link shows the people and the revenue it brought in. |
| Link previews in Slack, iMessage, and the like | Counted as clicks. | Not counted. Previews aren't people. |
| Campaign names | "LinkedIn" and "linkedin" become two campaigns. | You pick the campaign from a list, so every platform adds up to one number. |
| The same post, free and boosted | Only apart if you remember to tag them differently. | Kept apart, because each placement is its own link. |
| A mistake after you post | Posts can't be edited, so the link is stuck. | Change where the link goes. The post stays the same. |
| Not practical. | Every link has a QR code. |
Make a link
Open Links
Go to Links in the dashboard and choose New link.
Say where it's going
Pick the placement: an organic social post, the link in your bio, a paid ad, an email, a partner, a QR code, a text message, a personal share, or somewhere else. The placement decides how the visit is labelled, so a free post never lands in your paid numbers.
Fill in the details
- Where are you posting it? The platform, so you can compare platforms later.
- What campaign is this part of? Shared by every link in the campaign.
- Name it. Only you see the name, and it becomes the link's address.
- Which post is this? Optional. Add it when one campaign has more than one post or ad.
- Stop working on. Optional, for offers that end.
Copy it into the post
Use one link per post per platform. The same launch on LinkedIn and X is two links in one campaign.
Where the link goes on each platform
- LinkedIn, X, Facebook, Threads, and Reddit: in the post, or in the first comment.
- Instagram and TikTok: captions aren't clickable. Use the Link in bio placement, or a story link sticker.
- YouTube: in the description.
- Ads: use the link as the ad's landing URL, with the Paid ad placement.
What you'll see
The Links list shows, for each link:
- Clicks. People, not preview bots.
- People. How many people the link brought in. The column uses your workspace's word for a person. Apex credits the visit your attribution model picks, so a link someone clicks months after signing up doesn't take the credit.
- Revenue. Money from the people that link first brought in, even when they come back another way to buy. The column appears once something in your workspace can report revenue, such as Stripe or Shopify, or revenue events you send.
- Installs. Only when your workspace has a mobile app with the Apex SDK.
People and Revenue count once your site has the Apex snippet or SDK, since that's how Apex sees the visit that follows the click.
Your own domain
Links start on your workspace's address at links.apex.inc. To use your own, such as go.yourbrand.com, set it up in Settings → Links. Links you already shared keep working.
The preview card
Slack, iMessage, LinkedIn, X, WhatsApp, and Discord show a card when someone pastes a link. By default the card comes from the page the link opens. You can set the title, description, and picture for each link, and anything you leave blank still comes from the page.
Good to know
- An Apex Link adds one quick redirect before the page opens.
- On a phone with your app installed, the app opens directly. Apex still counts the tap when your app reports the open through the Apex SDK.
- A link you turn off stops working everywhere it was posted, so change where it goes instead when you can.