What click analytics does refer.is provide?

refer.is provides real-time click analytics that break down link traffic by campaign and channel, country, and browser or device. You can see a monthly click total with a period-over-period change, then drill into which sources drive those clicks. This is useful if you run links across multiple channels — for example an Instagram bio link, a newsletter, and a QR code on a flyer — and need to know which one is actually working. The analytics are part of the same dashboard where you create short and branded links, so there is no separate reporting tool to connect.

What the analytics dashboard shows

The refer.is page presents analytics in a few distinct blocks. Each answers a different question.

Monthly clicks and change

A headline figure shows clicks for the current month alongside a percentage change versus the prior period. The example on the site reads 12,480 clicks, +18%. This gives you a fast read on whether overall link activity is growing or shrinking before you look at any breakdown.

Clicks by channel and campaign

Below the total, refer.is attributes clicks to the source that produced them. The site's example splits a month's traffic as:

This is the part that answers "which campaign or channel drives my clicks." If you tag or separate links by where you place them, the channel breakdown tells you where to invest more effort and where a link is underperforming.

Audience geography

A country breakdown shows where clicks originate. The example lists:

• United States — 4,210
• United Kingdom — 2,380
• Germany — 1,640
• India — 1,120

Use this to check whether your audience matches where you think it is — useful for timing posts, localizing landing pages, or deciding whether a regional campaign is reaching the right people.

Browsers and devices

A browser breakdown shows the environment people click from:

• Chrome — 6,890
• Safari — 3,120
• Firefox — 1,480
• Edge — 990

The site describes this block as showing "the browsers and devices people click from." If most clicks come from one browser or device type, that is a signal about how your destination page needs to render.

How to use these dimensions together

The value comes from combining the views rather than reading them in isolation. A practical sequence:

1. Check the monthly total and change to confirm traffic is moving in the direction you expect.
2. Open the channel breakdown to find which source produced the clicks. If Instagram is 42% and your newsletter is 31%, you know where the bulk of attention is.
3. Cross-check country and browser to understand who is clicking and from where. A spike from a country you do not target, or from a browser your page does not support well, is worth investigating.
4. Act on the link level. Because refer.is shows click counts per link (the site's examples include refer.is/deal at 1,284 clicks and refer.is/promo at 12K), you can compare individual links within a channel to see which message or offer performs.

The site frames the overall purpose as: "See which campaigns and channels drive your clicks, in real time."

What to check before relying on it

• Real-time vs. historical. The site describes analytics as real time. If you need long-term retention or export, confirm what the dashboard keeps and whether your plan covers it — the page does not state a retention window.
• Attribution method. refer.is attributes clicks to channels and campaigns. How you label or separate links determines how clean that breakdown is, so plan your link naming before you launch a campaign.
• Free tier limits. The site states the free tier includes 1,000 tracked clicks and unlimited redirects per month, with no credit card required. Analytics beyond that volume, or on custom domains, may depend on a paid plan — check the pricing page for the current terms rather than assuming the free tier covers heavy campaigns.
• Integrations are not live yet. Zapier, Make, n8n, Slack, and MCP support for AI agents are listed as "coming soon." If your workflow depends on pushing refer.is analytics into another tool, that is not available yet.

Where analytics fits in the wider tool

Click analytics sits alongside the other refer.is features — branded links, QR codes, a browser extension, custom domains, and an API — in one dashboard. The API (POST https://api.refer.is/v1/links) lets you create and manage links programmatically, which matters if you want consistent link structure across many campaigns, since that structure is what makes the channel and campaign breakdowns meaningful. For a quick start, the free tier's 1,000 tracked clicks is enough to test whether the channel and country views give you the answers you need before committing to a paid plan.