Exit link tracking is the process of monitoring and recording when users click on links that lead them away from your website. In ecommerce, it is used to understand which outbound links visitors interact with before leaving.
Why Exit Link Tracking matters?
Tracking exit links helps identify where customers are going when they leave your site. This is valuable for understanding referral partnerships, affiliate links, or clicks to external resources like size charts or brand manufacturer pages. It can also reveal distractions or points where you may be losing shoppers unnecessarily.
How Exit Link Tracking works?
Analytics tools can be configured to log clicks on outbound URLs. This data can be segmented by page, device, or visitor type. For ecommerce, exit link tracking can help optimize which outbound resources to keep, move, or integrate directly into the site.
Example in ecommerce
A fashion retailer sees a high number of clicks from product pages to a third-party size guide site. By embedding the size guide directly on the PDP, they keep shoppers on-site and improve add-to-cart rates by 8 percent.
Common mix-ups
Exit link tracking is not the same as exit pages, which show the last page viewed before leaving. Exit link tracking focuses only on outbound clicks.
Best practices
- Track outbound links from high-traffic pages.
- Analyze the value or harm of external clicks.
- Replace external links with on-site resources when possible.
- Tag affiliate or partnership links for ROI measurement.
- Monitor changes after adjusting link placement.
Industry benchmarks
- No fixed benchmark since it depends on strategy. Lower exit link clicks are usually better unless they are monetized.
