Sometimes the link to attractive content could be especially long and difficult to read. Particularly if you want to promote a page, for instance, on Twitter, you can tape a limited number of characters in one post. In this case, a link reducer can help since a long link will take up all the space.

Making your links shorter will not only save a few characters on a link. They give tremendous value in measuring the performance of your marketing campaign, especially on social media.

Besides, if you are a marketer, you will need to keep track of who clicked your links from any channel you use. It can help you develop strategies for the future, understand your current mishaps, and use the data for more creative drives. And again – the short link will be very supportive for your analysis and for users.

A short URL is not just perfect for social platforms like Twitter or Facebook, it is additionally simpler to remember or type in a browser. It assists you with giving a memorable, typable link on a business card, print advertisement, podcast meeting, or any other situation where somebody can't tap on a hyperlink.

Short links are popular inside affiliate programs, as they are essential for client support and frequently become extremely long because of the many parameters of the sections. Such links look scary to some people, especially during email promotion.

Also, short links are used when sharing photos. For example, a popular photo retouching service uses short link technology on its website. Users have quick access to their images and may not store them on their device.

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In addition, short URLs also store a slight size of data that can play an essential role, especially with QR codes or NFC tags. A short link near the QR code looks much clearer, it is simpler to scan, and can be read with a small size, while the same with a huge link could be only scanned with a big fingerprint.

And beyond social media, have you thought about using click-following short URLs for specific links on your site or blog to know more about what content is most attractive to your followers? Don’t you want to know what calls to action work better than the others? Did you think about what mentions of you are clicked on the most when cooperating with a backlinks management service?

With a decent link shortener, you can do it easily. However, as your reduced link is dependent on outside assistance, you should do this carefully.

There are numerous free URL-reducing services to choose from, and they all work quite in the same way – forwarding your links through the domain name of the service. For the briefest short links, Short.io is obviously difficult to beat. It makes short links (vanity URLs) on your own domain. For you, there are accessible:
• free signup;
• various analytics;
• API.

And they offer types of assistance that will be relevant for Chrome, Slack, Zapier, and so on.

With all these services, you can also implement clickstream analysis. It is a sequence of links that were recently clicked. The collected data of clicks play a crucial role for marketers, advertisers, and developers.

Each click contains broad information about a user. So, you track not only the general link statistics but also the detailed data about the click makers. It helps to find the target audience, the best time for sharing links, and to track the most successful links and domains.

In general, you can track the detailed data of each click, thanks to the clickstream feature. For example, there will be an IP address, Status Code, Method, User-Agent available for you.

There are many additional actions that you can perform with URL-shortening services:
• Insert your brand name into each short link to increase brand recognition and credibility
• Customize each short link to increase your CTR
• Integrate with social networks for shortened links’ automatically sharing
• Analyze the performance of short links by detailed statistics
• Add UTM parameters to get in-depth traffic data
• Create links with expiration dates for the offering of relevant content only

Also, feel free to use preview mode as it eliminates many of the risks associated with URL shortening.

Given how critical links are to your site's SEO, it's wise to have a reliable backlinks management service to control your link profile. Just as authoritative content helps you to rank for relevant keywords, backlinks also reassure the search engine of page authority. It comes as no surprise, then, how much focus some SEOs put into building and managing their external link portfolios.

In choosing a URL-shortening service that provides analytics, it may be that simple click counts are all you need. If you’re concerned about tracking the effectiveness of your social media efforts, however, or otherwise want to track with a marketing focus, you might want more detailed information. URL shorteners seem to be putting a push on in the area of analytics, and you do have more choices here than just a few short months ago.

Short links are suitable if you do not want to send long mysterious URLs by email, print them on sheets, or modify them into QR codes. As for social networks, they are generally indispensable as they increase brand awareness. Use a URL shortener when you need to track the efforts of a social post or campaign. This is worthwhile when a link is sending traffic to your site, but especially when it’s not.

Create cleaner, more user-friendly URLs. Track and analyze how those URLs perform. And provide some power to your marketing campaign.

Author's bio:
Marie Barnes is a journalist, freelance writer, and editor at Studyscroll. She has worked for many major publications, but she also ambitiously pursues challenging freelance projects. Her love for traveling motivates her to explore the world. Marie wants to inspire people to follow their dreams by sharing her experiences online.

The article is about:

  • short links in marketing
  • short URLs for advertisements
  • measure success of short links

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