Geo and device redirect links on your own domain
One link in your email, ad or bio, and each visitor lands on the page that fits them: the store for their country, the app store for their phone, the page in their language.
Updated
What a geo redirect link is
A geo redirect link is a single URL that a server answers differently depending on who asks. When someone clicks, the server looks at the request, decides which destination fits, and redirects there. The visitor never sees the decision; they just land on the right page.
The same idea works for devices: the server reads the browser and operating system and sends iPhone users one way and Android users another.
When to use one
- Country stores: shoppers in Germany go to the German store, everyone else to the international one.
- App installs: iPhone users go to the iOS app store, Android users to the Android one.
- Languages: Spanish speakers land on the Spanish page, based on their browser language.
- Markets you do not serve: visitors from countries you cannot ship to get a page that says so, instead of an order form.
- Desktop and mobile: a mobile-only offer, with desktop visitors sent to a page that works for them.
How the decision is made
A redirect service has a handful of signals in every click, and each has limits worth knowing:
- Country, from the IP address. Accurate at country level for most visitors, wrong for people on a VPN.
- Language, from the browser’s Accept-Language header. Reflects the visitor’s settings, not where they are.
- Timezone, from the browser. Useful when country is ambiguous.
- Device, operating system and browser, from the user agent.
- Query parameters on the link itself, for example a market code you add in your email tool.
Why run it on your own domain
A link on your own subdomain, such as go.yourbrand.com, tells people where it leads before they click. Spam filters are also warier of links on widely shared short-link domains, which spammers use too. Running the redirect on your own domain keeps the reputation of the link tied to yours.
Mistakes to avoid
- No fallback: every link needs a destination for visitors who match no rule.
- Redirecting your main website by IP: for your own site pages, let visitors choose their country. Geo redirects are for campaign and marketing links.
- Forgetting VPN users: someone on a VPN may appear to be in another country. Make the fallback page useful, not a dead end.
- Not checking the result: look at where real clicks went before you trust a rule.
Geo and device redirects in LumyFlow
A LumyFlow campaign is a tracking link on your own subdomain. Its filters allow or block clicks by country, language, timezone, device, OS, browser or a query parameter. Clicks that match go to destination A; the rest go to destination B. Each destination can redirect to a URL, serve an HTML page you upload, or show a form built in LumyFlow.
For two outcomes, such as iPhone users to the iOS app store and everyone else to the Android store, one campaign is enough. For several markets, create one campaign per market. Connecting the subdomain takes one CNAME record, and HTTPS is set up for you. The Traffic log shows every click with the destination it got and why.