PicSee offers a Path-Based URL Parameters feature that lets you "shorten just one short link" to prefill surveys with different default values, track the performance of different influencers, and even see which members opened any of hundreds of thousands of SMS messages.

Core concept

By "manually" appending a string after a short link, you can record how many times each path string is clicked and, depending on your settings (explained below), pass that path string into the destination URL. For example:

• Suppose the short link "pse.is/abc123" redirects to the destination URL "mystore.com/item/".
  
• If you manually append the path string "social" so the short link becomes "pse.is/abc123/social", then it will:
  
  • Separately record how many times it is clicked with the "social" path string.
    
  • Redirect to the destination URL with "social" appended at the end, e.g. "mystore.com/item/?utm_source=social" (you can choose whether to use utm_source; explained below).
    

Use cases

Prefill information in a survey

Say you want to know which group your Google Form got the most responses from, so your Google Form includes a question: "Where did you see this survey?"

You can publish the survey with short links, using "pse.is/abc123/group1" for group one and "pse.is/abc123/group2" for group two. With Google Forms' "prefilled form" setting, when users click the short link, the answer field for "Where did you see this survey?" is prefilled with group1 or group2.

In fact, PicSee's quotation form uses the same concept to prefill the user's PicSee ID into the form. You can try it yourself by replacing "PicSeeID" in https://pse.is/picseeorder/PicSeeID with different text to see the effect.

Measure influencer performance

If you want to know how much traffic each of the 10 influencers helping you promote brings in, you can give all 10 the same short link but append a different path string for each, such as:

• Influencer alice: "pse.is/abc123/alice"
  
• Influencer bob: "pse.is/abc123/bob"
  
• Influencer cindy: "pse.is/abc123/cindy"
  
• and so on…
  

This way, not only can you see the total clicks for the short link pse.is/abc123 in the PicSee dashboard, you can also see the individual clicks for each path string (alice, bob, cindy, and so on), and you can use the utm_source setting with Google Analytics to track the resulting order conversion rates.

Track which members actually open your SMS

Say you are sending 100,000 SMS messages and want to know which members opened them. Instead of creating 100,000 different short links at once, you can use an SMS mail-merge tool to append each member ID to the end of the URL, such as:

• Member a01: "pse.is/abc123/a01"
  
• Member a02: "pse.is/abc123/a02"
  
• Member a03: "pse.is/abc123/a03"
  
• and so on…
  

PicSee records the member IDs that actually clicked so you can export a report. Some PicSee customers also integrate with Salesforce CDP, passing member IDs into their website via SFID to make their CDP data more complete.

How to set it up

Enable the feature

In your link records, click a short link, find the "Tracking Tools > Path-Based URL Parameters" section in the editing panel on the left, and click to enable it.

Viewing the data

Once set up, you can view and download the full report on the links analytics page. Example content:

encodeId/key	value	clicks
audienceorder/	-	10
audienceorder/entry.618265742	119	5
audienceorder/entry.618265742	7	4

Where:

• encodeId: the short link's slug; it is the same throughout the report.
  
• key: the custom GET parameter name; in this example, entry.618265742 is the GET key for Google Form prefilling.
  
• value: the path string content; the first row shows clicks with no path string.
  
• clicks: how many times that path string was clicked; only path strings with clicks appear in the report.
  

Path options

The three settings work as follows:

• Custom parameter: Customize the GET key appended to the destination URL. If set to "utm_source", when the link the user clicks is pse.is/abc123/alice, the destination URL becomes mystore.com/item/?utm_source=alice, attaching alice after the equals sign of utm_source (your custom GET key).
  
• Append path directly: When the link the user clicks is pse.is/abc123/alice, the destination URL becomes mystore.com/item/alice, attaching alice directly to the end of the destination URL.
  
• Don't append path: When the link the user clicks is pse.is/abc123/alice, the destination URL stays mystore.com/item/; alice is not appended to the destination URL, but the data is still tracked.
  

FAQ

• How many short links can use the Path-Based URL Parameters feature? It is available even on the free plan, but the actual quota varies by plan; see the pricing plans table for details. If it is not enough, you can upgrade your plan or purchase a custom add-on.
  
• Can I turn off the feature after enabling it? No. Enabling it deducts from your quota, but you can reuse an existing short link by changing its custom slug or destination URL.
  
• Is there a limit on the number of path strings? No, just as PicSee short links have no click limit. However, path strings have format restrictions: allowed characters are Chinese (not recommended, to avoid garbled text), English letters, numbers, hyphens, and underscores, with a maximum length of 100 single-byte characters.
  
• Can the path option be changed after it is set? Yes. You can freely switch between "Custom parameter", "Append path directly", and "Don't append path". The custom parameter content can also be edited freely, but with format restrictions: allowed characters are English letters, numbers, hyphens, underscores, and dots, with a maximum length of 50 single-byte characters.