Why are some clicks not being tracked?

Question

I am setting all my links as variables, i.e. @preheaderURL, @heroURL, etc. but the clicks on the preheader and body text links aren't being tracked. The preheader itself is a variable, @preheader and here is the code:

set @preheader = Concat('<a alias="preheader" href="',RedirectTo(@preheaderURL),'" target="_blank" style="color:#028ade;text-decoration:underline"><span class="msolink">Register</span></a> and start earning now.')

Everything looks good, works fine...but the clicks don't show up in the Tracking tab. The body and CTA clicks show up, as do clicks on the links in the template. Any ideas?

Answer 1

The reason should be that the RedirectTo function has to be used as %%=RedirectTo()=%% inside an href. In other words, is has to be inline AMPScript.

You are using it in an AMPScript definition block, enclosed in %%[]%%, within a concat function. So, if you get rid of that concat and keep the rest of the HTML in the plain email, you can just use the above in the href.

See also:

AMPScript Link Tracking - Does RedirectTo has to be Inline? Understanding

In your scenario that looks easily doable, yet for completeness I will mention another solution that involves support and does not seem to scale well:

How to track URLs included in HTTPGet()

Dynamic trackable links in ExactTarget email