Case: trimming a redirect chain lifted measured CR by 9%

Case: trimming a redirect chain lifted measured CR by 9%

Symptom: mobile pop campaign, the network reported 12% more clicks than the tracker logged. Lost clicks = lost conversions on the same traffic.

Diagnosis steps:
1. Ran the click URL through a redirect tracer
2. Found a 4-hop chain: network → safe-page → tracker → prelander → offer
3. Timed each hop with curl: total time-to-offer was 2.4s, the safe-page alone added 900ms via an external script
4. Confirmed with tracker logs that bounce rate climbed sharply past the 2s mark

What we changed:
— Cut the safe-page out of the live chain (kept it only for review traffic via a rule)
— Moved the tracker to a redirect-less direct integration where the network supported it
— Self-hosted the one font the prelander pulled from a CDN

Result: time-to-offer dropped from 2.4s to 1.1s. Tracker-logged clicks rose to within 2% of network clicks. Measured CR rose 9% on identical spend — those were conversions we were already paying for and losing in the chain.

Every hop is a tax you pay in lost clicks. Count them, time them, cut them.

Save this SOP. Run this before every launch.