I've been running a small online shop on the side, and for the longest time I just shared plain links everywhere email, chat groups, Instagram bio without thinking twice about it. I had no idea who was actually clicking, or from where, or on what device.
A friend who does marketing for a living told me I was basically flying blind. So I started looking into how to actually track this stuff properly, and I found this guide on tracking link clicks that walked me through it. Turns out you can see things like total clicks, unique visitors, what device people are using, and even which app sent them to you all from one short link.
The biggest surprise was the device data. Most of my clicks were coming from mobile, and once I checked my shop page on my actual phone instead of just my laptop, I realized some of the buttons were way too small to tap easily. Small fix, but it probably cost me sales for weeks without me knowing