How Dub's Conversion Analytics Works
Dub's conversion analytics connects a click on a short link to the leads and sales that follow, then reports revenue by link, campaign, and partner. It is designed for teams that already run marketing through links and want to see which ones produce outcomes rather than just traffic. The mechanism is an attribution engine layered on top of Dub's short links: the link carries identifying information, and conversion events are matched back to it.
The three metrics Dub tracks
Dub's analytics are built around a click-to-revenue chain rather than a single traffic number:
- Clicks — recorded when someone follows a short link.
- Leads — a conversion event such as a signup or form submission.
- Sales — a revenue event, shown with a dollar value.
The product page shows this as a funnel-style summary (for example, clicks, leads, and sales with a revenue figure) alongside per-link click counts. The stated goal is to move past "vanity metrics" toward outcomes, so the useful comparison is the ratio between stages, not the click total alone.
How attribution actually works
The short link is the anchor. Because Dub both creates the link and receives the conversion event, it can associate the two without relying only on a third-party cookie.
- A short link is created on a Dub domain (for example, a branded domain like
acme.link). - A visitor clicks it, and Dub records the click along with available context such as device and geography.
- A conversion event fires — a lead or sale — and is matched back to the originating link.
- The dashboard aggregates those matches into revenue and conversion figures per link, campaign, or partner.
Dub describes this as a "powerful attribution engine" that shows how marketing drives revenue. The practical implication: attribution quality depends on conversion events being sent to Dub, so the setup work is on the event side, not just the link side.
What you can see in the reporting
The page evidence shows two reporting surfaces worth distinguishing:
| Surface | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Link-level analytics | Clicks per link, plus status indicators such as Verified or Pending for domains |
| Conversion and revenue view | Clicks, leads, and sales with a revenue total, presented as a time-based summary |
For affiliate and referral programs, Dub also reports per-partner figures — revenue and payouts listed by partner name — which is the same attribution data grouped by who drove the conversion.
Where conversion analytics fits with the rest of Dub
Dub bundles three things that feed this system:
- Short links — the tracking unit, with features like device/geo-targeting, A/B testing, deep links, and QR codes.
- Conversion analytics — the attribution and reporting layer described above.
- Affiliate programs — partner management that uses the same conversion data to calculate revenue and payouts.
If your goal is only branded short links, the analytics layer is optional overhead. If your goal is knowing which campaigns or partners produce revenue, the conversion events are the part you cannot skip.
Practical conditions to check before relying on it
- Conversion events must be instrumented. Dub can only attribute leads and sales it is told about; a link with no events will show clicks and nothing downstream.
- Domain verification matters for trust. The evidence shows domains in Verified and Pending states, with DNS records (A and CNAME) required before a custom short domain works. Unverified domains affect whether links resolve as intended.
- Pricing and plan limits are not covered here. Dub has a pricing page, but the available material does not specify which analytics or affiliate features sit behind which plan — check that page directly before committing.
- Attribution is link-based. Conversions that never pass through a Dub link, or that are blocked before the click is recorded, will not appear in the revenue figures.