By default WCT captures the Sub-ID into your own stats and does not touch the destination URL. The visitor is redirected to your clean destination with only wct_click_id appended. That default keeps every existing link behaving exactly as it always has.
Why You Might Need Forwarding:
Some affiliate networks expect the Sub-ID in their own URL format, for example https://network.com/offer/your-sub-id/ or https://network.com/offer?sub_id=your-value. If the network never sees the value, it cannot credit the source on its side. Forwarding solves that without changing anything about how WCT records the click.
Where To Turn It On:
Open the Create Link form or the Edit Link form, expand the ⚙️ Advanced Options panel, and set the 🔀 Forward Sub-ID to Destination URL dropdown. It is a per link setting, so you only enable it on the links that need it.
The Three Modes:
- Off. The default. The destination URL is untouched and only wct_click_id is appended. This is what every link did before the feature existed.
- Path-append. The Sub-ID is added as a path segment, producing something like https://dest.com/path/your-sub-id/?wct_click_id=123. Use this for networks that route on slugs, including CPS style networks and custom landing pages with slug based routing.
- Query-param. The Sub-ID is added as a query parameter, producing something like https://dest.com/path?sub_id=your-sub-id&wct_click_id=123. Use this for most CPA and pay per lead networks, for Google Analytics passthrough, and whenever the Sub-ID may contain spaces or unusual characters.
A Worked Example:
- Create a link with the slug cpps-offer and a destination of https://llpgpro.com/cppslandnew, and set forwarding to Path-append.
- Share yoursite.com/cpps-offer/good as your tracking URL.
- A visitor clicks. WCT captures good as the Sub-ID, records the click, and redirects to https://llpgpro.com/cppslandnew/good/?wct_click_id=123.
- The network sees good in its own URL and credits the click correctly.
- Your own Sub ID Breakdown also shows the click against good, so both sides agree.
Safety Behaviour:
Forwarding defaults to Off on every link, so nothing changes until you choose it. URL fragments, existing query strings and special characters are all handled. If a destination URL is malformed for any reason, the redirect falls back to the unmodified URL rather than failing.