Newcomers ask this a lot: "My traffic is small, do I even need a tracker? Maybe UTM tags and a Google Sheet are enough?" The short answer: up to a point, they are. After that point they're not, and waiting too long to switch is painful. This post is about where that line is.
UTM tags solve one problem: knowing where a visitor came from. A tracker usually solves three: traffic routing, bot filtering and conversion tracking via postbacks. If your funnel is just "ad → lander → form", UTM is fine. If anything else is going on — a split test, bot filtering, several offers, affiliate postbacks — it's time to pick a tool.
Where UTM hits its ceiling
A UTM tag is just a URL parameter. The traffic source doesn't understand it: it passes utm_source=fb&utm_campaign=test_01, and you look at Google Analytics to see 1247 clicks came in. That's where the usefulness ends.
What UTM cannot do:
- Route traffic. "If iOS go to lander A, if Android to B" is impossible with UTM alone.
- Filter bots. Google Analytics catches the most primitive ones, the rest get through and pollute your stats.
- Receive postbacks. The affiliate network doesn't know your click_id and can't tell you about conversions.
- Store a click ID. Without one, the network can't tie a sale back to its source.
- Recognise returning visitors. If a visitor comes back an hour later, the UTM is long gone.
If none of those matter to you, you don't need a tracker. Seriously. Some teams run one lander with one offer and plain UTM tags profitably for a long time, and a tracker would add nothing for them.
When a tracker becomes mandatory
If at least one of these is you, it's time to choose: install your own tracker such as Keitaro, or sign up for a cloud service.
1. You're working with an affiliate network
The network wants to send postbacks: an HTTP request when a customer converts. The postback needs your click_id, which the network got from you. Without a tracker there's nobody to pass click_id — UTM tags know nothing about it.
Technically you can hack something together with Cloudflare Workers and Google Sheets, but two weeks in you'll hate it. Conversion tracking via postbacks is a job for a conversion tracker: the TDS.SO plans currently on sale do not include postbacks.
2. You have more than one offer or lander
Say, two prelanders and three offers, and you want to split traffic between them. UTM won't help: you need "route traffic by conditions" logic. In a tracker or a traffic distribution system it's a couple of clicks, in a custom setup it's days of development.
3. You're tired of bots in your stats
If you buy ads on Facebook or Google, your logs have a fair amount of traffic that will never convert: some of it is competitors looking at your prelander, some is bots. For TDS.SO clients the filter cuts about a third of clicks on average. Without a filter you pay full price for that garbage and make decisions on dirty stats. How the filter works.
4. You're doing A/B tests
You want to honestly compare two landers on the same traffic. With UTM that's impossible (a source always sends one tag). You need a tool that splits traffic evenly by itself — and, to compare sales rather than just clicks, conversion tracking too.
5. A team has formed
One person can live with spreadsheets. Two or three already can't: data drifts, someone forgot to update, Monday stats don't reconcile. You need one dashboard where everyone looks at the same numbers.
Self-hosted or cloud
This is the second question after "do I need a tracker at all". Rough rule:
- Self-hosted (Keitaro, Binom) — if data isolation matters, you have a sysadmin or can handle it yourself, and traffic is stable. These are full trackers with postbacks and conversion tracking.
- Cloud tracker (for example, Voluum) — if you want to start working rather than configure a server, and load is spiky.
- TDS.SO — a cloud traffic distribution system: rules, bot filtering and click stats. Postbacks, conversion tracking and ROI per campaign come with the PRO plan; the base plan does not include them.
On cost. A self-hosted tracker adds the server it runs on to the licence, plus your time to set it up and maintain it — and that time is usually underestimated. TDS.SO costs $9.99 for 7 days, $33.99 for 30 days or $339 for 360 days. There is no tracker server to run, but your links need a cheap VPS where a lightweight proxy is installed with one command (preferably a separate one: the installer stops nginx and Apache) — or ready domains from sellers. At large volumes the math shifts, and your own server can come out cheaper on hardware.
Don't set up your own server before you need it. Start in the cloud and see what you actually need: conversion tracking, or traffic routing and bot filtering. If you hit limits, you can move later.
"It's time" checklist
Check a box if this is you:
- Affiliate network postbacks are involved
- More than one offer or prelander
- Want to filter bots
- Need to route traffic by geo or device
- Doing A/B tests
- 2+ people on the team
- Traffic > 5000 clicks per day
Two or more checks — it's time to pick a tool. None — you can stay on UTM, no harm done.
If traffic routing and bot filtering matter most to you, try TDS.SO: registration is open, and you get 3 free days after linking the Telegram bot. If something is unclear, ask in our chat.