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SMS click-through

The SMS click-through page answers the channel-level question per-link analytics can’t: “what is the click-through rate on this campaign or queue?” Per-link stats under Insights → Links show who clicked a given short URL; this panel rolls those rows up per campaign or messaging queue so SMS click-through compares side by side with the email channel’s Clicked metric. Everything the panel shows is a read-only rollup over the same short-link pipeline that mints tracked links on send, so it can never disagree with the per-link drill-down. For the deep walkthrough (reconciliation math, fixing the untracked share, email parity), see the SMS click-through parity guide; for where links get minted in the first place, see short links and click tracking.

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Where to reach it

In the dashboard, open Insights → SMS click-throughs. The same aggregation is available over the API at GET /api/v1/analytics/sms-click-through — see the SMS click-through API reference.

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What the panel reads

For each campaign or queue in the selected window, the table reports:
  • Sends — outbound SMS in the window, whether or not they carried a tracked link.
  • Tracked — sends that carried at least one tracked short link.
  • Clicked — sends whose tracked links recorded at least one click.
  • Clicks — raw clicks across the bucket’s links, including bot and link-preview traffic.
  • Verified — clicks that passed the bot/link-preview filter.
  • CTR — clicked sends divided by tracked sends. A bucket with no tracked sends shows —, not a misleading zero.
  • Verified CTR — verified clicks divided by tracked sends. Use this when comparing against email’s bot-filtered Clicked metric.
A totals strip above the table aggregates the same numbers across every bucket in the window: total sends, sends with tracked links, sends clicked, overall CTR, and overall verified CTR. The totals cover the whole window, not just the page you’re viewing.

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How the panel scopes

Two controls scope the numbers:
  • Group by: Campaign / Queue — Campaign buckets on the campaign_id stamped at send time. Queue buckets on the messaging-service id recorded at send time, falling back to the provider tag when no queue resolves — the same precedence the API’s group parameter uses.
  • Window: 24h / 7d / 30d — the trailing aggregation window for every number on the panel.
Switching either control restarts the table at page 1, and the totals strip always covers every bucket in the window.

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Reading the unattributed bucket

The unattributed row collects sends where the scoped key never resolved — no campaign_id on the campaign grouping, no resolvable queue on the queue grouping. It is not an error grouping; it catches one-off sends, compose-dialog sends, and older payloads. A large unattributed share means attribution is lost upstream, and the fix is to stamp the key at send time — put campaign_id on the outbound payload, or resolve the queue on your messaging service. Whether a send lands in Tracked at all is decided by the short-URL pipeline, in descending precedence:
  1. metadata.shorten_urls on the send payload — explicit per-send opt-in; rewrites every http(s):// URL in the body into a tracked link and stamps your campaign_id onto it.
  2. SMS auto-shorten (tenant channel setting, default ON) — rewrites URLs longer than 30 characters, but only when the minted short URL is strictly shorter than the original.
  3. WhatsApp auto-track (tenant channel setting, default ON) — the WhatsApp counterpart, which also mints for scheme-less www. spans.
Minting is fire-and-forget: if shortening fails, the original URL ships untouched and the send proceeds — a failed mint lowers the Tracked count, never fails the message. Both tenant settings live on the channel-settings pages in the dashboard. See the short links guide for the mint mechanics.

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Verified clicks and bot filtering

The Verified column applies the same predicate the per-link analytics use: a click crosses the verified bar only when its quality score reaches 0.5 — user-agent present, and not a known bot or preview-fetch signature. Raw clicks stay in the store, so the filter lives at the read layer and retro-applies to already-collected data. Comparing raw CTR to email’s Clicked metric is apples-to-oranges — email’s number is already filtered, so use Verified CTR for cross-channel parity. For the scoring rules and why a missing user-agent scores below the bar, see short links and click tracking.

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Troubleshooting

  • A bucket shows — for CTR. The bucket had no tracked sends, so the rate is undefined — the panel and API return null rather than a misleading zero. Untracked volume (sends minus tracked) is visible per bucket; if that share is high, shorten more of what you send (see above).
  • Unattributed is your biggest bucket. Stamp campaign_id on the payload for campaign sends, or fix queue resolution on your messaging service — both are send-time decisions, not panel settings.
  • Raw and verified numbers disagree. Comparing raw CTR to email’s Clicked metric — email Clicked is bot-filtered, so line it up against Verified CTR instead.

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See also