A tracking link is a special version of your profile URL with its own unique slug — for example hotilink.com/yourname/go/instagram. When someone visits through that link, HotiLINK records the visit separately from your plain profile link, so in Analytics you can see exactly how many visits came from Instagram versus TikTok versus your email newsletter.
This is different from a short link: a tracking link always leads to your HotiLINK profile, and its purpose is purely to identify where the traffic came from — not to shorten a URL.
Why it matters
Without tracking links, every visit to your profile just looks like "direct traffic" — you have no way to know which platform is actually driving people to your page. With a separate tracking link on each platform, you can see which channel is worth your time and which one isn't pulling its weight.