When marketing strategies are constantly evolving and companies find new ways to grab people's attention, it is crucial to select proven and effective ways of advertising. Such is the problem of both new and established brands.

What exactly are the effective forms of advertising? Which ones are appropriate for your brand? While there are hundreds (if not thousands) of options to choose from and explore, we have one that's powerful with short links.

It's been around for quite some time, yet it's still being used by the biggest brands today. It's familiar, simple, and practical. It's email marketing.

What Is Email Marketing?

As its name suggests, email marketing is advertising primarily through emails. If you have an email address, chances are you've already been exposed to email marketing.

Have you ever scrolled through your emails and found something that read "Enjoy 40% of this Christmas season" or "Make Mondays better with $30 off"? That's email marketing—exposing your target audience to anything that has to do with your brand through emails!

How Short.io Makes It Better

Email marketing, in itself, is a proven method of advertising. There's a reason why email marketing has been used by all sorts of companies, businesses, and brands. It has several advantages, some of which are integral to a company's growth.

But email marketing and short links? Well, that's a combo you're going to want. Here's why.

1.  Brand Awareness

The average person receives about 100-120 emails per day. Not many will want to read long texts about brands they aren't familiar with. This is why keeping your marketing emails brief, concise, and straight to the point is advised.

Short links can be customized to the length and characters you desire. So when you're trying to market through an email, pasting long URLs with characters that often make little sense can seem quite unprofessional.

If your goal is to be brief and straight to the point, there's not much opportunity to ensure your brand's name sticks. However, there is space for a logo, a motto, and a personalized short link.

When you're audience is repeatedly exposed to your brand (from the logo, motto, and links), they are bound to remember your brand's name. At the very least, they'll be familiar with it for future possibilities.

A word to the wise: limit sending too many emails to a potential client. Reading promotional emails from the same sender several times a week gets old fast; before you know it, your emails have made a home in the spam folder. Sending an email twice weekly (or even less) is acceptable.

If you already have a branded domain and want to create short links under it, here's our guide on adding your domain to your free Short.io account.

2. Link Retargeting

So if a customer only receives an email from you once weekly, how do we ensure they don't forget about your existence until the following email comes? Fortunately, short links have this nifty little feature called link retargeting.

When a user clicks on a link equipped with link retargeting, a target lock is placed on them. So even if they leave the site, they will continue to be exposed to advertisements of your choice, despite being on a totally different page.

It's an excellent way to make sure your audience remembers your brands. After all, email marketing has to compete with several flashier forms of advertisement. Short links help improve its memorability.

So, if you want to ensure that your brand follows your customers even if they only click on your link once, set up link retargeting with your Short.io account.

3. Track Your Email's Open Rate

When advertising emails become too bland, repetitive, or irrelevant to the user, they will often immediately be directed to spam folders. If you don't know your email's open rate, you could waste your time and efforts on email marketing only for it to end up being unopened and unread.

This is why email marketing needs short links.

Short links can provide a way to track your email open rate. Short.io tracks email open rates by using transparent pixel images. It wouldn't even affect the email's layout as it is placed at the bottom and is invisible. Neither you nor your audience will be able to see it.

If you're experiencing less than the targeted open rate, then you'd be able to respond accordingly. At the very least, your efforts won't be wasted on the dreaded spam folder.

4. Accurate Statistics

Knowing your email's open rate is only the tip of the iceberg. CTR (click-through rate), the feature mainly used to determine the email's open rate, is only one of the statistics a short link provides. When a person clicks on your email, much relevant information becomes available.

Their location, what browser they are using, referrers, times of clicks, their operating systems, and more become available. All this information is integral for expanding your brand. After all, for your product to be a hit with your target audience, you'd have to get to know your audience first.

Imagine the edge an online shop that sells phone cases and accessories would have if they knew which operating system their clients used. Or the advantage you'd have to tailor your brand to be inclusive and accommodating to the country that clicks on your links the most.

With Short.io, not only can you get useful statistics from your audience's email app, but with hundreds of other apps as well.

How to Track Your Email Open Rate

If you're worried tracking your email's open rate involves a long, complex process of setting up an advanced program, worry not. Although it could very well be a tiring process, Short.io makes it possible in eight steps.

How to Track Your Email Open Rate:

1. Log in to your Short.io account.
2. Shorten a link and copy the shortened link.
3. Go to your email or your brand's email provider.
4. Create a new message.
5. Click the photo icon to insert a photo.
6. Click Web-address (URL).
7. Paste your shortened link.
8. Click "Send".

And that's it. With eight simple steps, you've tracked your email open rate and have access to incredibly relevant statistics with Short.io.

Short.io Makes Your Emails More Powerful

Short.io is an online company specializing in links and all the features they can present. All the features mentioned above and more are within Short.io's feature list. To get the best of online marketing, head to Short.io and check out how they can be of service to you today.