Tracking Tel (Phone Call) Links
What are tel links?
Tel links, sometimes called telephone links or call links, are links that when clicked, redirect to a telephone number instead of a web address.
How Tel Links Work
Tel links are of the form:
When a user clicks on a tel link, their device will offer to call that number.
Tel links work just like mailto links on Linkly, and support all the normal features.
Creating a Tel Call Link
Linkly allows you to shorten, track and redirect tel links.
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Click Create a New Link from the main menu.
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In the Destination box, enter a number in the format tel:+(country code)-(telephone number), as below.
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In the Nickname field, give your Linkly link a nickname so you can find it later. This is private and the end user will never see this.
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Click Save Link.
Redirecting users to different telephone numbers based on Country
On the Create New Link form, under Targeting, click Country, and enter the telephone numbers for each region.
Any not covered by this list will go to the main Destination at the top.
Creating a QR Code for your Tel Link
When you create a ‘Tel’ link, Linkly automatically generates a QR code that you can distribute that, when scanned, will invite a user’s device to call that number.
You can click on the QR code to enlarge it.
If you can scan the code, you can see the result (for example here, on an Apple iPhone):
Tracking Tel Links
All of Linkly’s automatic click tracking and reporting functions are available for tel links, just as they are for any kind of link.
To see how many clicks your tel link received:
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Click Links from the menu.
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Find your tel link by nickname in the list.
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Click the Report button.
All normal reporting functions work on tel links
Tel links work just like regular links and mailto links on Linkly.
Facts about Tel Links
- How tel links behave depend on the browser and device. A desktop computer may not have the ability to make a telephone calls. It’s impossible to predict exactly how any particular device will respond, but Apple & Android phones respond reliably.
- Most phones can scan a QR code using the in-built camera app.
- QR codes reach the Linkly link, and redirect to the tel number. This is useful as you can change the destination tel number, even if you’ve printed & distributed a QR code.
- Using the Country Redirect function, you can set a different telephone number depending on the visitor’s country.
- Even if someone clicked on a ‘tel’ link, they may not agree to proceed with the call. It’s impossible for Linkly to know whether they continued with the call or not, so click figures will usually be greater than the number of calls placed.
- Tel links are compatible with most Linkly features, including tracking, targeting, link rotator, device targeting, geotargeting, retargeting, custom domains and data export.