Overview
Smart Links let you redirect and distribute traffic across offers in your inventory or to an external URL. Common use cases include:
Redirecting discarded or rejected traffic - clicks filtered out, because they didn't meet at least 1 of the optimization rules - to other offers or an external partner
Splitting direct traffic across multiple offers
Creating a global catch-all redirect for all rejected traffic across your inventory
ℹ️ Discarded clicks and impressions are generated by your Click and Impression Optimization Rules.
Where to Find Smart Links
Navigation path: Traffic → Smart Links
To create a new Smart Link, click + Create in the top right.
How a Smart Link is Configured
Step 1 - Settings
Add a Name
Add Description (optional)
Set Random Percentage (optional) - defines how traffic is split between random distribution and performance-based optimization across offers with the same targeting
ℹ️ For example: 4 offers all target the US and Random Percentage is set to 90%. When US traffic arrives, 90% is distributed randomly across all 4 offers, while the remaining 10% is directed to the best-performing offers based on revenue. Set to 100% for fully random distribution, or lower to prioritize performance.
Check Shared with Publishers to control Smart Link visibility on the Partner Platform:
If unchecked - no publisher will see the Smart Link
If checked and no redirection rule is set in Step 2 - all publishers will see the Smart Link
If checked and a redirection rule is set but empty - no publishers will see the Smart Link
If checked and specific publishers are selected in the redirection rule - only those publishers will see the Smart Link
ℹ️ To enable the Smart Links page on the Partner Platform, go to Organization → Settings → Partner Platform tab and enable the Smart Links section. Only Smart Links with Shared with Publishers checked will be visible, showing the name, description, and link.
ℹ️ Publishers can be set as Smartlink Publisher type. Such publishers will not have access to the Offers section or Conversion Report on the Partner Platform. In Custom Reports, only Smart Link ID will be available as a dimension for them.
More about Publisher setting here.
Step 2 - Traffic
Define which traffic should be captured by this Smart Link.
Select Publishers, Advertisers, or Offers to include or exclude
Narrow your selection using Offer Tags
Select any Unwanted Failed Rules to exclude traffic discarded by a specific optimization rule
If all fields are left empty, all discarded traffic will be considered
ℹ️ If you select a Publisher AND an Advertiser, the Smart Link uses AND logic - it will only capture discarded traffic from that publisher on that advertiser's offers specifically. Traffic from that publisher on other advertisers' offers will not be included.
Step 3 - Offers
Define which offers from your inventory should be recommended to the redirected traffic.
+Add Targeting - direct traffic to this offer group based on specific criteria (AND/OR logic). Use this when you have multiple offer groups and want to control which traffic goes to which group. For example: direct US traffic to a group of US offers and DE traffic to a group of DE offers.
Whitelist specific offers to always include them
Blacklist specific offers to never include them
Add Filters to narrow the recommended inventory: Advertisers, Countries, Platform, Offer Tags, Tracker
💡 If you select the Filter Platform and include all options (iOS, Android, Web), all offers in your inventory will be considered.
Select an Associated Publisher - if set, all redirected traffic will be forwarded under that publisher. This is required if the offers in your inventory are not public.
ℹ️ Only offers approved for the publishers included in Step 2 will be considered.
ℹ️ Skip this step if you only want to redirect traffic to an external URL - configure that in Step 4 (Fallbacks) instead.
Step 4 - Fallbacks
Fallbacks define where traffic is sent if no suitable offer is found in Step 3. If no fallback is configured, traffic is redirected to a blank page.
Add a Name for the fallback
Set the Ratio - percentage of traffic sent to this fallback (set to 100% unless using multiple fallbacks)
Optionally add Targeting to restrict which traffic is sent to this fallback
Set the fallback destination:
Another Smart Link - use this to chain to a Global Smart Link as a catch-all
Tracking URL / Impression URL - use this to redirect traffic to an external partner
💡 You can split traffic between multiple fallbacks by adding several landing pages and assigning a ratio to each. For example: External Partner 1 gets 20%, External Partner 2 gets 80%.
ℹ️ When traffic is redirected to an external partner it leaves Swaarm. For reporting you will need to rely on data from your external partner.
Step 5 - Managing Smart Links
After saving, the Smart Link appears in the list with the following columns:
✏️ Edit - edit or update the Smart Link
🎁 Offers - view traffic distribution and weight across offers
🗑️ Delete - delete the Smart Link
Name and Description
URL - the link to share with partners to send traffic to this Smart Link
Four status indicators showing whether Shared with publishers, Redirection Rules, Inventories, and Fallbacks (Landing pages) are configured (✅ / ❌)
Traffic Distribution
Clicking the 🎁 Offers button opens the traffic distribution view, showing which offers are currently active ✅ in the inventory and which are no longer included ❌.
Why would an offer show ❌?
The offer is inactive
The publisher was removed from the offer
The offer was removed from the inventory
💡 Machine-Trained Ratio vs Custom Ratio
By default, traffic distribution is controlled by the Machine-Trained Ratio - calculated based on each offer's revenue over the last 7 days relative to all active offers - the higher the revenue, the more traffic the offer receives.
If you want to prioritize a specific offer, you can override this with a Custom Ratio. For example, if the machine-trained ratio assigns 68.7% to an offer but you want more equal distribution, you can manually set a custom ratio of 20%.
Postback Firing
Postbacks are only fired when there is no redirection rule configured (i.e. direct traffic). If a publisher's rejected traffic converts after being redirected via a Smart Link, the publisher will not receive a postback. If the traffic is direct, the postback will be sent as normal.
Examples
1. Global Smart Link
Goal: Redirect all discarded traffic across your inventory to all available offers, with specific offers excluded.
Go to Traffic → Smart Links and click + Create
Step 1: Name it (e.g. "Global Smart Link") and add a description
Step 2 - Traffic: click on +Add Redirection Rule and leave all fields empty to capture all discarded traffic from all publishers and offers
Step 3 - Offers:
Click on +Add Filter: Platform → iOS, Android, Web to include all offers
Blacklist any offers you want to exclude
Set an Associated Publisher - all Smart Link activity will be recorded under this publisher.
💡 Best practice is to create a dedicated publisher specifically for Smart Link traffic (e.g. "Smart Link Publisher") to keep reporting clean and separate from regular publisher traffic.
ℹ️ Associated Publisher must be approved on the offer - otherwise the offer will not appear in the Smart Link inventory.
ℹ️ If no Associated Publisher is set and a conversion happens, it will be recorded under the original publisher, but the postback will not be sent to them.
Step 4 - Fallbacks: optionally add an external URL as a final fallback
Click Save
2. Split Direct Traffic Across Multiple Offers for One Publisher
Goal: Send a publisher's direct traffic across several offers simultaneously.
Go to Traffic → Smart Links and click + Create
Step 1: Name it (e.g. "[Publisher name] Direct Traffic to offers") and add a description
Step 2 - Traffic: leave all fields empty - no redirection rule is needed for direct traffic
Step 3 - Offers:
Whitelist the specific offers you want to include
Set the Associated Publisher to the publisher whose traffic you want to distribute
Step 4 - Fallbacks: optionally configure a fallback if none of the offers match
Click Save
Share the Smart Link URL with the publisher - they send their traffic directly to this link
3. Redirect Traffic From Offer A to Offer B Once Its Cap is Reached
Goal: When an offer's cap is hit, redirect discarded clicks to another offer instead of losing the traffic.
When a conversion or click cap is reached, Swaarm will automatically start discarding clicks on that offer. A Smart Link can capture those discarded clicks and redirect them to a particular offer.
Go to Traffic → Smart Links and click + Create
Step 1: Name it (e.g. "Cap overflow — [Offer name]") and add a description
Step 2 - Traffic:
Select the Offer whose discarded traffic you want to capture
Unwanted Failed Rules - select all, except for Click Budget Reached, Impression Budget Reached, Budget Reached
Step 3 - Offers:
Whitelist the offer(s) you want to redirect the traffic to
Set an Associated Publisher and connect them to whitelisted offer
Click Save
💡 You can also use a Global Smart Link as the fallback here instead of whitelisting specific offers - this way the cap overflow traffic is redistributed across your full inventory automatically.
Reporting & Monitoring
Smart Link activity can be reviewed directly in reports to understand traffic distribution, conversions, and performance across offers.
Where to check
You can analyse Smart Link traffic in the following reports:
Custom Reports
Explorer
What to look for
In reports, pay attention to the following dimensions:
Smart Link ID - identifies which Smart Link the traffic came from
Recommendation Link - available in Explorer under the Traffic dimension, shows Smart Link traffic and its distribution across offers
Publisher id/name - if an Associated Publisher is set on the Smart Link, you can filter reports by that publisher to review all Smart Link activity
💡 For a Global Smart Link, filtering by the Associated Publisher is often the easiest way to get a full performance overview - especially if you've created a dedicated Smart Link Publisher as recommended.
This allows you to understand:
how much traffic is being redirected through each Smart Link,
which offers are receiving the redirected traffic,
and how conversions are distributed across the inventory.
Example 1: Check where Smart Link traffic is going (offer level)
You want to understand which offers are receiving traffic from your Smart Link and how they're performing.
Go to Reports → Custom Reports (or Explorer):
Set your date range
Filter by Smart Link ID (Recommendation link Id in Explorer) or by Pub. ID/Name
Add dimensions: Offer ID/Offer Name
Add metrics: Clicks, Conversions (Act Conversions), Revenue (Act We Get)
This shows you a breakdown of traffic and conversions per offer coming from the Smart Link, helping you identify which offers are performing well and which are receiving traffic but not converting.
Custom Report:
Explorer:
💡 If one offer is receiving significantly more traffic than expected, check its Machine-Trained Ratio in the Smart Link's 🎁 Offers view and consider setting a Custom Ratio to rebalance distribution. More about Ratios here.
Example 2: Distinguish direct vs Smart Link traffic on an offer
You are reviewing an offer's performance per publisher and want to understand whether the conversions came from direct traffic or were redirected via a Smart Link.
Go to Reports → Custom Reports (or Explorer):
Set your date range
Filter by Offer = [offer name]
Add dimensions: Pub ID/Name, Smart Link ID (Recommendation Link ID)
Add metrics: Clicks, Conversions, Revenue
The Recommendation Link dimension will show you which conversions came via a Smart Link and which came from direct publisher traffic. Rows without a Recommendation Link value are direct traffic.