Dashboard alerts: link with no clicks and unusual spikes
At the top of your WhatsClicks dashboard, an alert can tell you that a link has had no clicks for 24 hours or that clicks jumped higher than usual. Here is what each alert means and what to check first.
What are the dashboard alerts in WhatsClicks?
The Summary tab shows alerts at the very top, before any chart or table. There are two kinds. The first says that a link has had no clicks for 24 hours. The second says that your clicks reached an unusual peak compared with what is normal for you.
Think of them as a smoke detector, not a verdict. An alert does not say something is broken. It says: look here. Most of the time the explanation is simple, and you can find it in a few minutes if you know where to look.
Alerts only show up when there is something to flag. If you see none, it just means nothing out of the ordinary was detected.
Link with no clicks for 24 hours: what to check
A quiet link is not always a problem. A small business that closes on Sundays may simply get no clicks on a Sunday. But if the link normally gets clicks every day and suddenly goes silent, go through this short list in order.
- Open the page where the button lives and click it yourself. Does it open WhatsApp? If not, the button may have been changed or removed.
- Check the address behind the button. It should be your https://whatsclicks.com/w/ link. If someone edited the page and put back an old wa.me address, clicks go to WhatsApp but are not counted.
- In Links, confirm that the link is not paused. A paused link still sends people to WhatsApp, but it stops counting.
- Look at the page itself. If a campaign ended, a post was removed or the page was unpublished, there is simply nobody to click.
- Remember that crawlers and known robots are not counted, so a link that only receives robot visits will show zero.
Your own clicks count. If you test the button yourself and the number goes up, the link is working.
Unusual click spikes: good news or something to investigate?
A spike alert appears when clicks rise well above your usual level. It can be great news: a post went around, an ad started delivering, a customer shared your page in a group.
It can also be less exciting. Maybe you tested the button twenty times in a row, or your team did. Since the counter does not exclude the owner's clicks, a testing session can look like a surge.
To find the cause, open the Summary and use the period filter to zoom in on Today or the last 7 days. Then read the tables: the By page table shows which page got the clicks, the table of where clicks came from shows the site where the button was (domain only), and the button table shows which button was clicked the most.
- One page and one button standing out usually means a specific post, ad or email worked.
- A spread across many pages and hours looks more like normal growth.
- A single hour with a tall bar in the hourly chart often points to a one-off event, such as a story or a newsletter.
How tags make alerts easier to understand
The more labels you put on your link, the faster you can explain an alert. You can add ?p=/pricing to say which page the button is on, and &src=top to say which button it is. In the address generator below each link in the dashboard, you can set these without typing them by hand.
For example, imagine a link used on a home page and in a campaign. If you tag the campaign button with &src=ad-may, then a spike alert is easy to read: the table by button will show ad-may with a big share of the clicks. Without the tag, you would only know that the link got more clicks, not why.
The numbers in this article are examples. Your own volumes will be different, and that is fine.
A simple routine to follow when an alert appears
This takes about five minutes, and after a few alerts you will recognize the common patterns without thinking.
- Read the alert and note the link name and the day.
- Open the Summary and choose the period that matches, usually Today or Yesterday, or the last 7 days.
- Filter by that link so the other links do not mix into the numbers.
- Compare with the previous period using the percentage and the green or red arrow.
- Check the tables by page and by button to see where the change came from.
- Decide what to do: fix a broken button, keep doing what worked, or ignore the alert if it was your own testing.
What alerts cannot tell you
Be honest about the limits. WhatsClicks counts clicks on the WhatsApp button. It does not know whether the conversation happened, whether it turned into a sale, or who clicked. An alert about a spike does not promise more sales, and an alert about silence does not prove you lost customers.
It also does not send you an e-mail or a WhatsApp message when an alert appears. Alerts are shown inside the dashboard, so make a habit of opening it, for example once a morning, with the app installed on your phone.
Frequently asked questions
Why does my link show no clicks for 24 hours?
Common reasons are that the button on your site no longer uses the WhatsClicks link, the link is paused in Links, or the page simply had no visits. Click the button yourself to test it.
Does a spike alert mean I will get more sales?
No. It only means clicks went above your usual level. The counter measures clicks on the button, not closed conversations or sales.
Are my own test clicks counted?
Yes. Clicks from the owner count, so a round of testing can look like a spike. Robots and search engine crawlers are not counted.
Will I receive an e-mail when an alert appears?
No. Alerts are shown at the top of the Summary tab, so open the dashboard regularly to see them.