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Clicks are not recorded

Find out why clicks are missing from reports, show up with a fallback reason, or never reach the tracking domain.

Last updated 5 min read

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Work through these checks in order. Most "missing click" cases are one of: the request never reached TrackCrown, it was recorded under a refusal or fallback reason, or the report is filtered differently from what you expect.

1. Look the click up directly#

  1. Open Reports → Clicks (the raw click log) or Reports → Live while you click the link yourself.
  2. Or paste the click ID or Google click ID into Transaction lookup (press Cmd-K / Ctrl-K and paste) — it shows the click, its redirect, its conversions and postbacks.
  3. Set the date range wide enough: dates are in your Display time zone (Profile) when set, otherwise in the workspace time zone (Settings → Workspace).

If the click is there, skip to step 4.

2. Does the request reach the tracking domain?#

Test the exact link from a terminal:

Shell
curl -sS -o /dev/null -D - "https://trackcrown.com/r/SHOP01/partner7?sub1=test" | grep -iE '^(HTTP|location)'
ResultCauseFix
Could not resolve hostDNS record missing or wrong.Certificate and DNS problems.
TLS / certificate errorDomain not active yet, or certificate not issued.Same article.
Cloudflare challenge page, 403 from a WAFThe tracking domain is proxied.Set the DNS record to DNS only (grey cloud). Tracking domains must not sit behind a proxy, WAF or bot protection.
HTTP/2 302 with a locationWorking — the click was recorded.Check the filters in the report.
HTTP/2 404 pageUnknown link key (offer or partner code wrong, deleted).Copy the link again from the offer's Tracking tab or the partner portal.

3. The click is not in your reports at all#

  • Unknown link key. A transparent link (/c/…) whose key no longer exists still redirects when url= is allowlisted, but the click belongs to no workspace (unknown_link) and never appears in your reports. Fix the key in the tracking template.
  • Wrong workspace. The link uses another workspace's offer or link key.
  • Compliance probes are excluded. Signed test requests from TrackCrown's monitoring are stored as test clicks and left out of reports — this is expected.
  • Delay. Clicks are written in batches every second; they reach reports within seconds. During a database maintenance or outage clicks are queued on disk and replayed — they appear late but are not lost.

4. The click has a status reason#

A click recorded with a reason was not sent to the offer's destination (partner and smart links) or was refused (transparent links). Common reasons:

ReasonWhat happenedFix
pausedOffer not active or outside its schedule, or its advertiser is Paused or Inactive → fallback URL.Activate the offer, or set the advertiser active again (advertiser page → ⋯).
not_approvedPartner not approved for the offer (or required offer terms not accepted) → fallback. On a smart link: an aff= code that matches no partner.Approve the partner on the offer's Affiliates tab; check the aff= code.
targetingCountry, device or OS excluded → fallback.Check the offer's Targeting tab.
capClick cap reached → fallback.Raise the cap or wait for the next period.
workspace_inactiveWorkspace suspended or pending.Contact your platform administrator.
traffic_control, duplicateBlocked by traffic controls or duplicate-click rules.Review Traffic controls and the offer's unique-click settings.
traffic_sourceThe partner has a forced traffic-source template and the click's sub1–sub5 / source_id contradict it (/r and /click only).Use the link from the partner portal, or change the forced source under Partners → Partner program → Traffic sources. See Forced sources on incoming clicks.
no_matchSmart link: no rule has an eligible offer for this visitor (without aff= only public offers are eligible).Run the smart link's Rule simulator.
not_allowed (403)Transparent link to a host not on the allowlist.Add the host to the offer's Allowed transparent destinations or the workspace allowlist.
missing_url (400), invalid, empty (403)The tracking template does not pass url={lpurl} correctly.Rebuild it on Google Ads → Tracking template.

The complete list is in Error and reason codes.

5. Counts look low, not zero#

  • Unique clicks count the first click per offer, partner, IP and user agent within 24 hours; Clicks count all.
  • Bot clicks are recorded and counted in Clicks, flagged as bots (network view only). They are not removed.
  • Prefetches by browsers and link previews are flagged (prefetch) but recorded.
  • A HEAD request (link checkers) records a click like GET.
  • Your ad platform may count clicks that never loaded the link (accidental clicks, users who closed the page, parallel tracking requests Google did not send). Compare with the ad platform's own "clicks" only as a trend.

6. Landing-page (direct) visits#

Visits that reach the landing page without a tracking link are recorded only when the landing-page SDK is installed with data-offer (direct click) or data-organic (organic click). Open the browser console: the SDK logs a warning prefixed with its object name ArcTrack: when /lp recorded no click (for example offer required — add data-offer to the script tag), and ArcTrack.error() returns the same text. Also check for blocked requests to trackcrown.com/lp and that the SDK is loaded from your tracking domain.

7. Google Ads clicks#

With parallel tracking, Google calls the tracking template in the background. If the template is wrong, Google never reaches the tracker. Run the template through Google Ads → Simulator and see Google Ads test failures.

Still stuck?#

Collect the exact link, the time (with time zone) and the visitor's country, and the output of the curl command above, and contact Web Cue LLC at https://www.trackcrown.com/contact.

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