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.
Turn it on first
Tracking Links is an Advanced Feature and is off by default on new accounts. Enable it from Settings → Advanced — or simply set one up during your first-time setup tour, which turns the feature on for you automatically.
Why it matters
HotiLINK already recognizes traffic from major platforms automatically — a visit that arrived from Instagram or X shows up labeled that way in Analytics even without any setup at all. Tracking links go a step further: instead of "some traffic came from Instagram," you get an exact, guaranteed count per source, because you control exactly which link you post where — a specific platform, a newsletter, a single event. Use them when you want certainty instead of a best-effort estimate. See Understanding Traffic Sources, Devices, and Countries for how the automatic recognition works.