Can You Track Hits on Craigslist?

There are some services that will help you track hits on your Craigslist ad, either for free or for a fee. Such services include Monitor Hits, Craigslist Ad Tracker and Clicky (links in Resources). These services rely on special HTML code and an embedded Web link that they have you place in your ad, which is then tracked by the service. Every time someone views your ad it is recorded via the HTML code and link, and the service tabulates that information to inform you of the number of hits your ad receives.

Automated and human Craigslist monitors do occasionally flag ads that they consider spam. Sometimes these monitors will flag an ad that has HTML codes embedded with Web links, even if it isn't spam. To prevent this from happening to an ad that you're tracking, don't use the same link in more than one ad, but provide a unique link for each ad you track. Whatever tracking service you use should be able to help you with this.

In the past, you could use the Bitly website (link in Resources) in harmony with a Craigslist ad to track the number of hits. The Bitly site would provide you with a link -- typically including the letters "bit.ly" -- that you placed in an ad, which would then be used to track ad hits. In 2009, though, Craigslist began blocking any link that has "bit.ly" in it, which prevents ad tracking via this method. This serves as a reminder -- and a warning -- that Craigslist could block links from other services, such as the ones already mentioned, thus making them unusable.

If you do succeed in tracking ad hits on Craigslist, you can get even more information about what ads are more effective by doing a little maneuvering of your own. By attaching a unique email address or phone number to each ad you place, you can track which ad generates more responses. This information can complement the data showing how many hits a particular ad gets, and will further help you understand the nature of a particular market and what kinds of ads work best.