Added Gift source attribution for gift-link signups

[kevinansfield]

no ref

Problem

Gift-link signups ({post_url}?gift={token}) don't show up as a distinct source in the Growth tab. When a reader of a gift-unlocked post signs up, they get attributed to whatever channel the link happened to be shared through — usually Direct when shared privately — so there's no way to see how many members a site gains via gift links.

Unlike gift subscriptions (a gifted paid subscription, which set member.status = 'gift'), gift links leave no server-side trace tying a signup to the gift: the gift-links service only validates tokens (no redemption — the redemption columns were dropped in 6.48), and the _gift token is surfaced to Tinybird for visit analytics only. So at signup the gift signal exists solely as the ?gift param on the unlocked post's URL in the browser — and the history recorder ignores it (it only reads ref/source/utm/attribution_id).

Change

Tag a validated ?gift visit with referrer source Gift (medium gift) in the frontend history recorder, so it flows through the existing referrer pipeline into members_created_events.referrer_source and shows up in the Growth sources breakdown. No new plumbing — it rides the same path every other channel (newsletter, Twitter, Ghost Explore) already uses.

• The real referrer URL is preserved — only source/medium are overridden, so you still see where the reader actually came from.
• An explicit ref/source/utm_source on the link still wins, so a site owner's own tagging isn't clobbered.
• It composes with the existing content attribution: the signup is still attributed to the gifted post and carries source Gift.
• Relies on a nice property of the existing gift flow: a valid token renders the post in place, while an invalid one is 301-stripped before render — so a ?gift param present when the recorder runs is always a genuine gift view.

Logic lives in a small, unit-tested helper (getGiftReferrer) in url-attribution.js; the IIFE in member-attribution.js just applies it.

Open for discussion 🧵

Opening as a draft to agree the details before polishing:

• Override vs. defer to UTM — currently an explicit ref/source/utm_source on the link wins over Gift. Should Gift instead always win, on the basis that the gift is the more meaningful acquisition signal?
• Canonical source — Gift is stored as a free-text source, so it shows in Growth but without first-class grouping/icon. Worth adding a canonical entry in @tryghost/referrer-parser's referrers.json?

Tests

• getGiftReferrer unit tests in url-attribution.test.js: gift link, no gift, defers to explicit ref, defers to explicit utm_source, malformed URL.

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☁️ Nx Cloud last updated this comment at 2026-06-25 12:32:22 UTC