How to track lead conversion events with Clerk and Dub

Conversion tracking require a Business plan subscription or higher.

When it comes to conversion tracking, a lead event happens when a user performs an action that indicates interest in your product or service. This could be anything from:

Signing up for an account
Adding a product to cart
Joining a mailing list

A diagram showing how lead events are tracked in the conversion funnel

In this guide, we will be focusing on tracking new user sign-ups for a SaaS application that uses Clerk for user authentication.

Prerequisites

Before you get started, make sure you follow the Dub Conversions quickstart guide to get Dub Conversions set up for your links:

Configure Clerk

Next, configure Clerk to track lead conversion events when a new user signs up. Here’s a quick video showing how to do this:

Here’s a quick summary of the steps:

Add environment variables

Add the following environment variables to your app:

# get it here: https://dashboard.clerk.com/apps/new
NEXT_PUBLIC_CLERK_PUBLISHABLE_KEY=your_publishable_key
CLERK_SECRET_KEY=your_secret_key

# get it here: https://d.to/tokens
DUB_API_KEY=your_api_key

Add a custom claim to your Clerk session token

Add the following JSON as a custom claim to your Clerk session token:

Clerk Session Token

{
  "metadata": "{{user.public_metadata}}"
}

Extend the `@dub/analytics` package with Clerk's `useUser` hook

Extend the @dub/analytics package to include a trackLead server action.

components/dub-analytics.tsx

"use client";

import { trackLead } from "@/actions/track-lead";
import { useUser } from "@clerk/nextjs";
import { Analytics, AnalyticsProps } from "@dub/analytics/react";
import { useEffect } from "react";

export function DubAnalytics(props: AnalyticsProps) {
  const { user } = useUser();

  useEffect(() => {
    if (!user || user.publicMetadata.dubClickId) return;

    // if the user is loaded but hasn't been persisted to Dub yet, track the lead event
    trackLead({
      id: user.id,
      name: user.fullName!,
      email: user.primaryEmailAddress?.emailAddress,
      avatar: user.imageUrl,
    }).then(async (res) => {
      if (res.ok) await user.reload();
      else console.error(res.error);
    });

    // you can also use an API route instead of a server action
    /*
    fetch("/api/track-lead", {
      method: "POST",
      body: JSON.stringify({
        id: user.id,
        name: user.fullName,
        email: user.primaryEmailAddress?.emailAddress,
        avatar: user.imageUrl,
      }),
    }).then(res => {
      if (res.ok) await user.reload();
      else console.error(res.statusText);
    });
    */
  }, [user]);

  return <Analytics {...props} />;
}

Then, add the DubAnalytics component to your app’s root layout component:

app/layout.tsx

import { DubAnalytics } from "@/components/dub-analytics";

export default function RootLayout({ children }: { children: React.ReactNode }) {
  return (
    <html>
      <body>
        <DubAnalytics />
        {children}
      </body>
    </html>
  );
}

Implement the `trackLead` server action

On the server side, implement the trackLead server action. Alternatively, you can also create an API route instead:

// This is a server action
"use server";

import { dub } from "@/lib/dub";
import { clerkClient } from "@clerk/nextjs/server";
import { cookies } from "next/headers";

export async function trackLead({
  id,
  name,
  email,
  avatar,
}: {
  id: string;
  name?: string | null;
  email?: string | null;
  avatar?: string | null;
}) {
  try {
    const cookieStore = await cookies();
    const dubId = cookieStore.get("dub_id")?.value;

    if (dubId) {
      // Send lead event to Dub
      await dub.track.lead({
        clickId: dubId,
        eventName: "Sign Up",
        customerExternalId: id,
        customerName: name,
        customerEmail: email,
        customerAvatar: avatar,
      });

      // Delete the dub_id cookie
      cookieStore.set("dub_id", "", {
        expires: new Date(0),
      });
    }

    const clerk = await clerkClient();
    await clerk.users.updateUser(id, {
      publicMetadata: {
        dubClickId: dubId || "n/a",
      },
    });

    return { ok: true };
  } catch (error) {
    console.error("Error in trackLead:", error);
    return { ok: false, error: (error as Error).message };
  }
}

// This is an API route
import { NextRequest, NextResponse } from "next/server";

export async function POST(req: NextRequest) {
  // read dub_id from the request cookies
  const dubId = req.cookies.get("dub_id")?.value;
  if (dubId) {
    // Send lead event to Dub
    await dub.track.lead({
      clickId: dubId,
      eventName: "Sign Up",
      customerExternalId: id,
      customerName: name,
      customerEmail: email,
      customerAvatar: avatar,
    });
  }

  const clerk = await clerkClient();
  await clerk.users.updateUser(id, {
    publicMetadata: {
      dubClickId: dubId || "n/a",
    },
  });
  const res = NextResponse.json({ ok: true });
  // Delete the dub_id cookie
  res.cookies.set("dub_id", "", {
    expires: new Date(0),
  });
  return res;
}

Here’s the full list of attributes you can pass when sending a lead event:

Property	Required	Description
`clickId`	Yes	The unique `dub_id` parameter that the lead conversion event is attributed to.
`eventName`	Yes	The name of the event. Example: “Sign up”.
`customerExternalId`	Yes	The unique ID of the customer in your system. Will be used to identify and attribute all future events to this customer.
`customerEmail`	No	The email address of the customer. If not passed, a random email address will be generated.
`customerName`	No	The name of the customer. If not passed, a random name will be generated (e.g. “Big Red Caribou”).
`customerAvatar`	No	The avatar URL of the customer. If not passed, a random avatar URL will be generated.

Example App

To learn more about how to track leads with Clerk, check out the following example app:

Dub + Clerk Example App

See how to track new user sign-ups with Clerk and the Dub SDK.

View your conversions

Once you’ve completed the setup, all your tracked conversions will show up in Dub Analytics. We provide 3 different views to help you understand your conversions:

Time-series: A time-series view of the number clicks, leads and sales.

Funnel chart: A funnel chart view visualizing the conversion & dropoff rates across the different steps in the conversion funnel (clicks → leads → sales).

Funnel chart view showing the conversion & dropoff rates from clicks → leads → sales

Real-time events stream: A real-time events stream of every single conversion event that occurs across all your links in your workspace.

Getting Started

Links

Analytics

Conversion tracking

Dub Partners

Integrations

Open source

Clerk

Prerequisites

Configure Clerk

Example App

Dub + Clerk Example App

View your conversions

​Prerequisites

​Configure Clerk

​Example App

Dub + Clerk Example App

​View your conversions

Prerequisites

Configure Clerk

Example App

View your conversions