Campaign planning is a tried and tested way to make businesses worldwide flourish. It combines informative statistics, marketing techniques, budget allocations, and so much more as a master plan to make sure your business is advertised in the most effective way towards the most suitable target audiences.  

You can google 'campaign planning,' and thousands of sites will pop up, offering both free and purchasable plans and templates to help guide you to success. But with so many resources dedicated to a successful campaign plan, there is one highly advantageous service that new business or brand owners seem to overlook—URL shortening services.  

But first, what exactly do link shortening services do? Link shortening services take lengthy URLs and customize them into whatever customer wants. However, further into that, a branded link holds an abundance of features that could help your campaign.  

UTM Tracking  

When it comes to campaign planning, a lot of effort goes into figuring out which platforms are best suited for digital marketing. As much as radio and television once dominated the marketing industry, the internet is now the best place for digital advertising. UTM tracking can tell you where best to deploy your ads.

UTM tracking answers one question: "Where did my users come from?" UTM trackers insert tags on the links you scatter around the internet, telling you how your users got to your site in a single click. For example, when you place a shortened link on Instagram, and a user clicks it, the UTM tracking feature will tell you they got to your website via Instagram.  

At the same time, it records the number of users that come in from every platform. This is essential information as it shows which platforms will bring in the most and least traffic to your site. Data on where your advertising thrives and struggles is vital to your campaign plans.  

Detailed Statistics  

When it comes to planning, the most informed decision tends to be the best decision. Making decisions and applying techniques when you lack data could not only lay waste to your efforts but could also backfire and cause harm to your business. This is precisely why detailed statistics—information on operating systems, users' locations, browsers, website's rush hour, and more—are essential.  

Knowing your website's rush hour is valuable information. You can decide when the best time is to publish important announcements, launch holiday sales, and introduce new services with this information. At the same time, knowing when a website has the least traffic informs website developers when they can fix bugs on your site with minimal service interference.  

Data on your users' operating systems are important too. Are your users accessing your site from an iPhone, Android, Mac, or Windows? This information could help you decide where to base your platforms on. For example, if your users are mostly smartphone users, perhaps advertising through mobile-friendly apps may be something to consider.    

Your user's location is another key statistic to your campaign plan. With this, you discover who your target audience is and their cultural preferences. For example, if you own a clothing business and figure out that 90% of your users come from tropical countries, perhaps you can focus on light, breezy materials over thick and warm clothes.  

With detailed statistics, every step and decision you make to your campaign plan is armed and backed up with accurate data.  

Teams With Roles  

Several campaign planners know the importance of having the right team and assigning specific tasks to the right people. It would be ill-advised for a single person to act on all the short link's statistics. One person may manage to be a business's budget planner, designing team, marketing team, etc., but would they really be effective in all of that?  

This is where the feature "Teams with Roles" comes to play. With this, every campaign member can have their own unique role. There are typically four roles where several people can be assigned. The four roles are owner, admin, user, and read-only.  

Every role has its own unique and limited privileges. For example, the owner may delete users from the team, the admin may assign roles for other team members, the user may adjust certain things within the link, and the read-only may look through the statistics and share. Each of the roles has specific functions that allow the team to concentrate on the tasks they excel in.  

With all the statistics, information, and people tasked with getting users into your site, what's to keep them from leaving and forgetting the services you offer? This is a mistake inexperienced brand owners usually make—failing to provide customers with the option to reconnect with your product. Link retargeting takes care of this problem.  

When a user clicks any one of your shortened links, he will continually be exposed to your ads of choice, even when he goes to another site. This feature makes sure your user remembers your services and gives you the advantage of making your brand familiar to your user. This familiarity increases the likelihood of them choosing your brand over your competitors.  

Short.io and Your Campaign  

When looking for a link shortening service, perhaps Short.io is something you may consider. Used and trusted by big brands, the mentioned features are only four of the many services Short.io offers. Make sure to get the best out of your links, as they may be the secret to your brand's success.    

There is so much more to short links than the features we discussed. They have been around for quite some time, helping brands grow and prosper. The usage of short links doesn't solely lie in campaign planning. Social media, YouTube, PowerPoint Presentations, etc., are all some of the many ways you can use the short link.  

Learning how to use these links and make the most of them can definitely help you and your brand.