Create a partner and set up tracking

With partner tracking, you can see which clicks and which inquiries came to your site from which partner website. It works completely without Google Analytics, without third-party trackers, and without a mandatory cookie banner.

This guide walks you through, step by step, how to create a partner in the WaaS backend, what you can configure, and how the tracking works technically.

What this is about

You’re cooperating with one or more partner websites — say a trade association, a partner company, or a referrer who sends visitors to your site. Until now, you probably didn’t know — or only roughly knew — which partner delivered which inquiries.

Partner tracking changes that: every partner gets their own unique tracking link. As soon as someone arrives on your site through that link and fills out a form, the inquiry is automatically assigned to the right partner — visible in your CRM and your analytics dashboard.

Requirements

Access to the WaaS backend with admin rights
The name and website address of your partner
Optional: the domain (or multiple domains) the partner links to you from

Step 1: Navigate to the Partners area

In the WaaS backend, you’ll find the new “Partners” area in the left navigation (between “Contacts” and “Analytics”).

Screenshot: Left navigation in the WaaS backend with the “Partners” entry highlighted.

Click “Partners” — you’ll see an overview of all partners already created. The first time you open it, the list is empty.

Step 2: Create a new partner

Click ”+ New” in the top right. The creation form opens.

Screenshot: Empty creation form for a new partner.

Fill in the following required fields:

Name

The display name of your partner, e.g. “Sample Association” or “Example Cooperation Ltd.”. This name later appears in your CRM and analytics dashboard. Pick something you’ll easily recognize.

Code

The code is the partner’s unique identifier in the tracking link. Allowed are lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens — no umlauts, no spaces, max 40 characters.

Examples:

sample-association
example-coop-2026
partner-süd → automatically becomes partner-sued

The backend automatically suggests a suitable code based on the name. You can take the suggestion as-is or adjust it.

⚠️ Important: If you change the code later, tracking links you’ve already distributed will no longer work. So pick the right code when you first create the partner.

Website

Your partner’s main page (e.g. https://sample-association.com). This is for internal orientation only — it helps you see at a glance who the partner is in the overview.

Step 3: The optional settings

You can fill in the following fields, but you don’t have to. As soon as they’re set, they unlock additional features.

Referrer domains (auto-assignment)

Here you can store a list of domains the partner links to you from. If someone arrives via a link from one of these domains — even without the tracking parameter in the URL — the inquiry is automatically assigned to this partner.

Example: Your partner has the main domain sample-association.com and a blog at blog.sample-association.com. Enter:

sample-association.com
*.sample-association.com

The second pattern catches all subdomains. That way you also capture clicks from the partner’s blog.

When does this make sense? Whenever you can’t 100% rely on every link from your partner containing the tracking code — for example, when the partner has older content that linked to you before tracking was set up.

Your partner’s email address

Optional. In future versions this will be used for automatic monthly reports to the partner. You can leave this field empty for now.

Notes / terms

A plain notes field for internal arrangements — like “10% commission per qualified lead” or “referral for referral”. This is not processed automatically anywhere and serves only as your own reference.

Status

Choose between:

Active (default) — tracking is running, incoming clicks and leads are assigned.
Paused — the tracking link still works (visitors reach your site normally), but the background assignment is no longer carried out. Useful for partnerships on temporary hold.
Archived — the partner is hidden from the overview, old data is kept.

Disabled by default. If you turn this toggle on, the partner gets their own read-only link to a small dashboard. There they can see the number of their clicks and leads per day — without login and without seeing any of your personal contact data.

More on this below under “Share partner dashboard”.

Step 4: Save

Click “Save”. The partner is created — and you’ll now see the detail view.

Screenshot: Detail view of a created partner with tracking link, statistics preview, and action buttons.

Step 5: Distribute the tracking link

In the detail view you’ll find the ready-to-use tracking link to copy:

https://your-domain.com/?p=sample-association

Click “Copy link” and send it to your partner — by email, in the contract, in an agreement, or directly over the phone.

Variants of the tracking link

The partner can append the code to any subpage of your website. Examples:

https://your-domain.com/?p=sample-association
https://your-domain.com/services/consulting?p=sample-association
https://your-domain.com/blog/article-title?p=sample-association

All variants work identically. So the partner can link directly to a specific landing page and the assignment stays intact.

When the partner wants to set multiple links

If your partner has multiple existing links to your website (e.g. several blog articles that link to you) and you don’t want to ask them to update each one individually, there are two ways:

Referrer auto-assignment (recommended, easier): Add the partner’s domain in the “Referrer domains” field. Then incoming clicks are assigned even when the tracking parameter isn’t in the URL.
Embed snippet: We can provide the partner with a small JavaScript snippet that automatically adds the tracking code to all links to your website on their site — without the partner having to touch each link individually. The embed snippet is coming in one of the next versions. If you already need it now, get in touch.

What happens technically?

As soon as the tracking link is distributed to a visitor, the following runs in the background:

The visitor clicks the tracking link.
When your page is loaded, the system detects the partner code in the URL.
The code is remembered for the duration of the visitor’s session (max. 30 minutes). This happens via a technically necessary session cookie that contains no personal data whatsoever — only the partner code.
While the visitor navigates your site, the partner code stays active.
If the visitor fills out a form, the partner code is automatically saved with it.
The inquiry appears in the CRM (“Contacts” area) — already assigned to the correct partner.
In the analytics dashboard, you additionally see how many clicks came in per partner per day.

If the visitor doesn’t fill out a form (and only views the page), the click is still counted — the assignment happens at the “clicks per partner” level.

Where you see the results

In the analytics dashboard

In the “Analytics” area you’ll find a new report called “Clicks by partner”. There you’ll see:

How many clicks per partner per day
Which landing pages were visited most often
Overall trends over time

In the CRM (“Contacts” area)

In the list of your inquiries you’ll see a new column called “Partner”. You can filter by partner and, for example, analyze how many inquiries a specific partner brought in.

In the detail view of each inquiry, the assigned partner is shown as well — together with the information how the assignment was made (via the tracking link, via the referrer domain, or manually).

If you want to give your partner their own insight, toggle on “Share partner dashboard” in the detail view.

You’ll then get a personal link for the partner to copy — of the form https://your-domain.com/partner/<long-random-token>. You send this link to the partner.

The partner then sees, without login:

Clicks per day (last 30 days)
Number of inquiries per day
Top visited pages
Conversion rate (share of clicks that led to an inquiry)

What the partner explicitly does NOT see:

No names, email addresses, or phone numbers of your inquiries
No form contents
No personal data

If the link is ever lost or falls into the wrong hands, you can invalidate it at any time by clicking “Regenerate token”. The old link will then no longer work — the partner gets a new one.

What else you should know

Typos and wrong codes

If a partner distributes a tracking link with a typo (e.g. sample-assoication instead of sample-association), the incoming inquiries aren’t lost — they arrive in your CRM as usual but aren’t assigned to a partner at first. You can see the raw code in the inquiry’s detail view and either add the code to the partner entry (so future inquiries with the typo are also assigned correctly) or assign the inquiry to a partner manually.

Multiple partners per inquiry

Currently, exactly one partner is assigned per inquiry — namely the one whose tracking link the visitor used last (so-called last-touch attribution). If a visitor arrives via two different partner links and then fills out a form, the most recently used partner is assigned.

Partner tracking is designed so that you don’t need any additional cookie banner on your website. We process exclusively aggregated, non-personal data, and the single technical cookie qualifies as “strictly necessary” under applicable law (TTDSG § 25 para. 2 no. 2).

You should still briefly mention partner tracking in your privacy policy. A pre-written text snippet is already included with your privacy policy — if you’re unsure, get in touch.

What happens to the partner if I delete them?

If you delete a partner, the assignment on existing inquiries is preserved — the inquiries only lose the link to an active partner entry. If you’re not going to use a partner long-term, we recommend the “Archived” status instead of deleting — that way the history stays cleanly traceable.

FAQ

Do I need to create a partner for every referral source? No, only for the ones where you explicitly want to attribute clicks and inquiries. Classic SEO hits, direct visits, and unattributed sources appear as usual in the analytics dashboard, without a partner reference.

What does partner tracking cost? Nothing extra — it’s a standard part of your performance package.

Can I retroactively assign clicks or inquiries to a partner? You can manually assign incoming inquiries to a partner at any time in the CRM detail view (attribution method: “manual”). For pure clicks, retroactive assignment isn’t supported, since we don’t store any personal click data.

Does the tracking also work for QR codes on print material? Yes. If the QR code points to a tracking link (e.g. https://your-domain.com/?p=trade-show-2026), the assignment works just like with a digital link. Practical for trade show appearances, flyers, or business cards.

Can a partner have multiple codes (e.g. for different campaigns)? In the current version: one code per partner. If you want to analyze multiple campaigns from one partner separately, create a separate “partner” per campaign (e.g. “Sample Association — Newsletter May” and “Sample Association — Event June”). We’re working on being able to model campaigns directly under a partner — let us know if that becomes important for you.

Need help?

If you have questions about partner tracking or need support setting up a partnership, reach out to us: help@website-as-a-service.io.