"Track who joined through what invite" is one of the oldest requests on Discord's feedback board, and it is still open. Discord counts how often each invite was used but never tells you which member used which. This guide explains what the usual workarounds get right and wrong, and how to attribute members exactly when the invite comes from an ad.
Every invite link in a server has a use counter, visible under Server Settings → Invites and readable by a bot through the API. Larger community servers also get Server Insights, with joins over time and where members came from in broad groups. What Discord does not provide, in the app or in the API, is the invite behind a particular member: when someone joins, the server learns that a member arrived, not through which link.
So "which invite link did this member use?" cannot be answered from Discord's data directly. Everything below is a way around that gap.
Invite-tracker bots keep a copy of every invite's use count. When a member joins, the bot fetches the counts again and looks for the one that went up by one; that invite is credited with the join. It works most of the time and it is the basis of every "invite leaderboard" bot.
For organic growth, a leaderboard is fine. For paid growth, where each member has a price, guessing from counters and a dead end at the ad platform are the two problems to solve.
The exact method does not rely on invite links at all. Discord lets a server owner's own application add a person to the server once that person has authorised the application. The authorisation happens on Discord's own screen, and the request that leads to it can carry a signed value, so the person who comes back is tied to one click.
A visitor who presses Cancel on the authorise screen is still let into the server through a plain invite; that join is simply unattributed, and the counters show it as any other invite use.
| Question | Invite-tracker bot | Authorised join link |
|---|---|---|
| Credits a member to a link | Inferred from use counters | Exact, one click per member |
| Works for organic shares between members | Yes, that is its purpose | Only for links you control (ads, posts, partners) |
| Simultaneous joins | Guessed | Not affected |
| Tells the ad platform | No | Yes, to Meta, TikTok, Snapchat, Reddit, Spotify and X |
| Needs a bot process running | Yes, with member intents | No; the app's bot user holds one permission |
| Extra step for the visitor | None | One authorise screen, once per app |
Many servers use both: a tracker bot for member-to-member invites and leaderboards, and authorised join links behind every ad, partner placement and social post where the member's source matters.
Create an application in the Discord Developer Portal, paste its Application ID, client secret and bot token on Connections, add the bot to your server with the Create Instant Invite permission, pick the channel new members land in, and create a tracking link per ad or post. Test a join from your phone with an account that is not in the server yet. Every screen is in Discord ads tracking setup.
No. Discord shows use counts per invite and, on larger servers, joins over time in Server Insights, but never the invite behind a specific member. Tracker bots infer it from counters; an authorised join link records it exactly.
No bot process and no privileged intents. Your application's bot user sits in the server with one permission so the app can add people; Tellmetric calls Discord's API when someone authorises.
Not on its own: those are plain invites, and only a counter bot can credit them. The authorised join is for links you place yourself.
Only what the ad click carried: the click id, browser id, IP address, user agent and campaign parameters. Discord's developer policy forbids sending Discord data to ad networks, and none is sent.
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