Why aren't link clicks being tracked?

Link clicks are counted on the storefront by the Simple Affiliate tracker, after the customer gives the consent that Shopify's privacy settings require. If the tracker is off, or the customer gives no consent, the click count stays the same even when customers open the referral link.

Check the tracker

1. Turn on Simple Affiliate Tracker in your theme's App embeds.
2. Click Save in the theme editor.
3. Open an affiliate referral link on the published storefront, not in the theme editor preview.
4. Accept cookies if your store shows a consent banner.
5. Check that the click count of the link goes up in Simple Affiliate.

The steps are in How to enable the Simple Affiliate tracker.

Other reasons a click is missing

• The customer has not granted the consent that Shopify's customer privacy settings require.
• The link lost its affiliate code, for example in a link shortener.
• The affiliate is not active, or is in no group.
• The affiliate opened their own link while signed in to their customer account, and Enable self-referral is off in Settings > Referral. No click counts, and the affiliate sees an error popup.
• An ad blocker or strict browser privacy settings blocked the storefront script.

On a headless storefront, Simple Affiliate counts the click when the link passes through its redirect, not in the tracker.

A missing click doesn't always mean a missing referral. The affiliate code on the Shopify cart can still credit the order, and a discount code applied at checkout credits the order without a click.