How can you disable link tracking selectively?
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Not every link in your email needs to be tracked. Some links shouldn't be. Knowing how to turn off tracking for specific URLs, without breaking the rest of your tracking, is a useful tool to have.
The most common reasons to skip tracking on a specific link: unsubscribe links, where adding a redirect layer can create delays or technical failures that run afoul of CAN-SPAM's "honor opt-outs within 10 days" requirement. Login or password reset links, where redirecting through a third-party tracking server introduces a privacy and security concern. And links to sensitive destinations where you'd rather not log that the recipient visited.
Most ESPs give you a way to opt specific links out of wrapping. In Mailchimp, you can add a data-no-track attribute or use specific merge tags. In Klaviyo, you can add custom HTML to bypass tracking on individual links. The exact mechanism varies by platform, so check your ESP's documentation.
If you're building a custom sending system, you simply don't replace those URLs during the link-wrapping step. Keep a list of URL patterns or domains that should pass through unmodified.
One thing to keep in mind: untracked links can't report clicks back to your platform, which means those interactions disappear from your engagement analytics. That's usually fine for unsubscribes and security-sensitive links, but think carefully about which links you actually need data from versus which ones you're just tracking by default because everything gets tracked.
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