Retargeting pixels

A retargeting pixel lets an ad platform recognise someone who clicked your link, so you can show ads to them later. Add your pixels to a link and every click adds the visitor to those audiences, even when the link points to a site that is not yours.

We support Meta (Facebook and Instagram), Google Ads, LinkedIn, TikTok and X. Each pixel records one page view per visit.

Only on your own domain

Pixels work on links that use one of your custom domains, once it is verified and active. They are not available on the shared short domain.

The reason is the cookies. A pixel stores its cookies on the domain the link is on. On your own domain, they are yours. On a shared domain they would be shared with every other customer's links, which would mix audiences and put a cookie question on everyone's links.

Plans

Pro includes 2 pixels per workspace, Team 10 and Business as many as you need. A link can use up to 5 of them. The Free plan does not include pixels.

Set up

1. On the Custom domains page, under your domain, add your business name and a link to your privacy policy. Both appear on the consent question, and pixels do not run on the domain without them.
2. In Workspace settings, under Retargeting pixels, choose the platform and paste the pixel's id. Give it a name if you have more than one.
3. Open a link on your domain, expand Retargeting and tick the pixels it should use. The section only appears once the link uses one of your domains.
4. Save. The next click uses them.

Where to find each id:

• Meta: the pixel (dataset) id in Events Manager, digits only.
• Google Ads: the conversion id, which starts with AW-.
• LinkedIn: the partner id of your Insight Tag, digits only.
• TikTok: the pixel code in Events Manager.
• X: the pixel id in Events Manager.

Paste the id, not the tracking code snippet. Changing or removing a pixel in Workspace settings applies to every link that uses it straight away.

What a visitor sees

Instead of going straight to the destination, the visitor sees a blank page while the platforms' scripts load, then moves on. It usually takes about a second and never more than 1.5 seconds, even if a platform is slow. A browser without JavaScript goes straight on, without the pixels.

Search engines, link previews in chat apps and scripts skip the pixels and get a normal redirect.

Every visit is still counted in your link's analytics, whether or not the pixels ran.

The consent question

Before any pixel loads, the visitor sees a short question from your business. It names your business and the platforms, links your privacy policy, and has two buttons of the same size: Allow ad cookies and Continue without ad cookies.

By default every visitor is asked. On the Custom domains page you can ask only visitors from the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, the UK and Switzerland, and anyone whose country we cannot tell. Everyone else then gets the pixels without the question.

• If they allow it, the pixels run and they move on.
• If they continue without, they go straight to the destination and nothing is loaded.

The answer is kept on that domain for 6 months, so they are not asked again on its links in that time.

A browser that sends a Global Privacy Control signal never gets the pixels, whatever it answered before.

Your responsibilities

You decide to use pixels, so under data protection law they are yours to answer for (our Terms, section 13). In practice:

• Name the ad platforms you use in your own privacy policy, and link to yourdomain/privacy-choices from it, so visitors can change their answer.
• Accept each platform's terms for advertisers, such as Meta's Business Tools Terms and its controller addendum, and Google's EU user consent policy.
• If you ask only visitors from the EU, EEA, UK and Switzerland, you need your own lawful basis for everyone else, for example a "Do Not Sell or Share" link if California law applies to you.
• If a visitor gives you the reference from their privacy-choices page, look it up under Workspace settings, Retargeting pixels, Look up a consent. Answers are kept for 18 months.

One thing to know about referrers

Because a page, not a redirect, sends the visitor on, the destination sees your short domain as the referrer instead of the site the click came from. Add UTM tags to the destination if you report on traffic sources there. They reach the destination unchanged.