Hosted Files & Redirect Links

Both features answer the same question, which is who engaged with what. A hosted file is a file uploaded to Insightly with a tracking URL, so you know who downloaded it. A redirect link is a tracking link you place anywhere outside your site, so you know which channel drove the click.

On this page:

• Hosted files
• Redirect links
• Finish actions on both
• Spam protection
• Using them together

Hosted files

Upload a file and Insightly generates a custom URL. Replace the file’s original download link with that URL and downloads become trackable. All hosted files are publicly accessible through the custom URL once you distribute it.

⚠️ Tracking only works on your own site. Insightly tracks downloads for hosted files displayed on your own site, not elsewhere.

Once a known Prospect downloads the file, Insightly can read their record and run finish actions against it. The Prospects tab on the file record lists who downloaded it.

ℹ️ Replacing a file with a newer version keeps the same custom URL, so the link does not have to be updated everywhere it has been published. Edit the hosted file record and swap the file.

Creating a hosted file through Files

1. Go to Files and click New File.
2. Complete the Add New File popup.
3. Set visibility in the Permissions section.
4. Click Save, or Save & New to upload another.

⚠️ The custom URL cannot be edited once the file is saved. Getting it right at creation is the only chance.

Creating a hosted file through Folders

Open the folder in Folders and drag the file in from your file manager. Edit it afterwards through the three-dot menu, Edit This File.

⚠️ Files uploaded this way cannot have a custom URL. Name, folder and file can be edited later; a custom URL cannot be added retrospectively. Use the Files route if you want one.

Managing hosted files

Edit, change record owner and delete are reached from the three-dot menu in the list view or the Actions dropdown in an open record.

Accessing Record Options via Three-Dot Menu

Actions Button in Insightly CRM Interface

Redirect links

A redirect link is created in Marketing, then placed on a website, in an email, on a banner ad, or anywhere else. The record tracks total clicks, unique clicks, and which Prospects clicked, and every click appears in the Prospect’s Timeline.

Setup required first

⚠️ Set up your Web Tracking Domain and place the JavaScript tracker before creating redirect links. Insightly’s tracker script has to be hosted on the destination URL, or tracking does not work.

Creating a redirect link

1. Go to Files and click Redirect Links in the upper right.
2. Click New Redirect Link.
3. Complete the popup.
4. Add UTM information under Google Analytics Parameters if you use Google Analytics.
5. Set visibility in Permissions.
6. Click Save, or Save & New.

Files Section with Redirect Links Button Highlighted

Add New Redirect Link Dialog Box

The record tabs

Details shows total and unique clicks, and which URL Prospects reach. The Tracked URL is the destination URL plus any UTM parameters appended.

⚠️ Finish actions only fire if the Tracked URL is in the HTML of the destination page. Not the destination URL, the Tracked URL.

Finish Actions lists everything configured on the record.

Prospects lists who clicked.

ℹ️ Click activity counts toward the redirect link’s statistics whether or not the destination URL is tracked. Statistics and finish actions have different requirements here.

Related holds grid lists of linked records.

Redirect Link Detail View with Tracked URL

Managing redirect links

Same two routes as hosted files: the three-dot menu in the list view, or Actions in an open record.

ℹ️ Editing a redirect link never changes the tracked URL, so nothing needs updating on your site afterwards.

⚠️ Deleting a redirect link is unrecoverable, and the link keeps working. The tracked URL continues to function, but all past and future data for it is gone and cannot be restored. You end up with a live link you can no longer measure.

Finish actions on both

Finish actions automate updates from redirect links, hosted files, form submissions and list emails onto Prospect records, applied the moment the Prospect interacts rather than by hand afterwards.

The setup is the same for both asset types:

1. Open the record and select the Finish Actions tab.
2. Click Add Finish Action and select the action.
3. Complete the popup, adding conditional criteria if the action should only fire in some cases. For example: a Send Email action requiring employee count greater than ten.
4. Click Save Finish Action.

Reorder multiple actions through the three-dot menu on each, using Move Up in Order or Move Down in Order. Edit and delete are in the same menu.

Three behaviors worth knowing before relying on them:

⚠️ Finish actions cannot be scheduled. They run immediately on download or click. Conditional criteria are the only way to hold one back.

⚠️ Multiple finish actions all evaluate against the Prospect’s original field values, not the running result. The source’s example: a Prospect starts at score five, the first action raises it to ten, and a second action conditioned on score ten or more still does not fire, because the value it tests against is five. Chaining actions that depend on each other’s output does not work.

⚠️ Finish actions do not run at all for unidentified Prospects. Someone Insightly cannot match to a Prospect record downloads the file or clicks the link, and nothing fires.

Spam protection

⚠️ Five triggers in five minutes from the same IP and user stops the finish actions. Insightly reads that as spam and ceases executing the sequence for that Prospect. The window starts from the first click.

This applies to finish action sequences on hosted files, redirect links, forms and list emails alike.

Using them together

The best practices article frames both as ROI measurement: knowing which channels drive traffic, and how content performs once it arrives.

Hosted files for content

• Develop content in several forms, written, audio and video, mapped to stages of the buyer’s journey, plus evergreen content that does not date.
• Load it into Marketing and set finish actions adjusting Prospect Score on download. Score by stage: late-stage content higher, around +20; evergreen or early-stage lower, around +5.
• Gate high-value content behind a Form or Form Handler on a landing page, then either redirect to a download page or use Form Handler finish actions to email the content across.
• Promote through emails, social posts and ads, using redirect links to see which channel drives traffic.
• Monitor what is actually consumed and at what rate.

Redirect links for attribution

Several links pointing at the same destination is the core technique, because the destination is not what you are measuring.

Two examples. Promoting one webinar registration page, with a separate redirect link per team, to see which team drove the most registrations. Promoting one ebook across social, an email journey and paid ads, with a separate link per channel, to decide where to spend next.

Four further uses:

• Ads on third-party sites, to see how many people clicked through.
• Social sharing, to compare performance across networks.
• Links to files you do not host, where a custom redirect points at a third-party file and still counts access.
• Multiple placements of one call to action in an email, a button and a hyperlink both saying “download this ebook”, each with its own link, to learn which placement works.