How Clakta tracking works
The path from an ad click to a sale in Clakta, step by step, and where to look when something is missing.
Clakta follows a visitor from the ad click to the sale in four steps. Knowing them makes it easy to find what is wrong when a number looks off.
The four steps
- A visitor clicks an ad. The ad's link carries a
clktparameter that the ad platform fills in: which platform, campaign, ad set and ad. - The script records the visit. It reads the link, saves the
clktvalue and the UTM tags, and starts a session. - The visitor browses and buys. Each page they open is added to the same session.
- Your store reports the sale. A connected sales platform, or your own system through the Orders API, sends the order to Clakta together with the details of the visit.
Clakta then looks back from the order at the ads that visitor clicked, keeps the ones inside the attribution window and shares the credit using the project's attribution model.
The script can't create an order. Orders only reach Clakta from your store or your server, so nobody can fake revenue in your account from a browser.
The clkt parameter
This is what links a sale to an ad. It is one parameter in the ad's link, with five parts separated by colons:
A real Meta click looks like this:
You set it up once per platform, and the platform fills in the values on every click. See Tag your ad URLs.
Sessions
A session groups what one visitor did in one sitting. How Clakta builds it depends on the project's tracking mode:
- Full attribution: the script saves an id in the visitor's browser, so the same person is recognized on later visits too.
- Privacy-friendly: nothing is saved in the browser. Clakta builds an anonymous id for the day from the visitor's connection, so it links what they did on the same day only.
See Tracking modes.
Where to look when something is missing
| What you see | Where the problem is |
|---|---|
| No visits at all | The script isn't loading, or the domain isn't in the script's list. |
| Visits but no orders | Your store isn't sending orders: connect your sales platform or check your Orders API call. |
| Orders with no campaign | Your ad links are missing the clkt parameter. |
Orders with clkt but no visit | Your system isn't passing the visit's details along with the order. |
| Ad spend but no conversions | The ad accounts are connected, but tracking isn't. Check the rows above. |
Related articles
Tracking modes
Privacy-friendly or full attribution: what each mode collects, what it costs you, and what changes when you switch.
Track ecommerce events
Record product views, add to cart, checkout started and payment submitted from your site, to see where visitors give up before buying.
Identify customers
Tell Clakta who the visitor is with clakta.identify(), so their journey follows the person instead of the browser.