Short links are the cheapest analytics you own
Impressions tell you a post was on a screen. A click tells you somebody cared. Tracked short links are how you find out which network actually sends people.
Every network is generous with impressions and stingy with the truth. An impression means your post scrolled past a retina; it does not mean anyone read it, and it certainly does not mean anyone went where you pointed. Clicks are the honest metric, and clicks are exactly what a tracked short link counts.
Built in, no cap, no third party
MBX Flow mints its own short links on mbxfl.com — there is no external service behind it and no monthly plan to run out of. Every post you publish can carry one, from the Pro tier up, and Studio installs can put them on a domain of their own.
The experiment worth running
Publish the same link to all your networks for a month, then look at the click counts side by side. Most people discover their traffic comes overwhelmingly from one or two networks — almost never the ones they were spending the most effort on. That single discovery is worth more than a quarter of guessing.
What to do with the answer
- Double down where the clicks are: post more, reply more, experiment more there.
- Do not abandon the quiet networks — put them on Evergreen and let automation keep them warm.
- Re-run the comparison every few months; audiences migrate, and last year’s answer expires.
Reach is what the platforms sell you. Clicks are what your audience gives you. Measure the second one.
