Brand Marketing 2022: 11 Smart (& Free) URL Shortener Tools
Brand
Marketing
2022:
11
Smart
(&
Free)
URL
Shortener
Tools
Trying to get people to click on your jumbled links is similar to a door-to-door salesman trying to sell his goods. That’s why it’s essential to display branded links with better tracking ability and can achieve a higher CTR. Other than providing better data analytics, and CTR, branded links make your business more recognizable which can be great for your brand marketing. According to research, when a user searches for a brand after seeing a display ad or a social media post, they are more likely to convert by 59%.
A URL shortener is the best way to make your links attractive and efficient since 55% of customers start their research of a new brand from posts on social platforms.
11 Best Smart & Free URL Shortener Tools
Bitly
If you are looking for a URL shortener then Bitly should be your top choice which boasts of 10 billion clicks per month. This shortener can come in handy if you want to do more than just shorten your URL. It helps you track every clickthrough and gives you real-time analytics. The best part is that you don’t have to buy premium packages to shorten URLs and get their metrics.
You also get an auto branding feature with this URL shortener. This feature helps all URLs to have your custom domain. This implies that even if someone else is doing your link shortening you will still maintain your brand name.
Pixelfy
Pixelfy is not just any link shortener tool; it allows you to create branded links that build better relationships. It helps you install a retargeting pixel into your link, perhaps shortened. Besides being a short link generator that boosts your CTR, Pixelfy allows you many more options.
With this URL shortener, you can instantly change the direction of your link to a new URL without changing the original shortened version of the URL. It also allows you to build QR codes specific to a particular link with just a click. In addition, Pixelfy enables you to hide the referring site’s URL so that your landing page metrics remain hidden. Additionally, in case you get stuck, the team is always there to answer numerous doubts with a lesser response time than its competitors.
Tiny URL
Tiny URL is a perfect tool for users that want things simple and uncomplicated. It can help shorten URLs without creating a separate account or buying a premium package.
The software is anonymous, but it doesn’t offer the same advanced features as many other URL shorteners on the market. So, it may not be the right option for your business if you are looking to track your link analytics. Tiny URL offers various other advantages: the links created through this tool will never expire, and users can shorten links, customize them, or avail of the entire link history instantly with just a click of a button.
Blink
Blink provides your brand with an enterprise level of excellence. Although there is a limit to how much you can use this shortener in the free version, the free plan is quite generous.
With the BLINK free plan, you get a thousand URLs to shorten, redirect, brand, and get browser extensions. This URL shortener can track the people who clicked on your link by location, the device used, the number of clicks, and referrers. So, BLINK can act as the best budget-friendly URL shortener that helps you stay within budget and track their links.
Rebrandly
If you want a link shortener to help you create short links and then distribute them with a custom domain, then Rebrandly can be the URL shortener that you have been looking for. Branded links make it easy for your customers to find you and remember where they can reach you.
There is much you can do with Rebrandly, along with shortening URLs. It also can be used to track your URLs and contact your teammates through organized workspaces and account management. This tool comes both as a free tool and a paid one.
T2M
Creating links one by one can seem too much of a hassle, then your perfect companion will be T2M. This URL shortener helps create branded links in bulk to save time and effort. These links you make with T2M don’t have an expiry date. Moreover, you get to share the links with just one click.
You get plenty of other options with T2M. You get the possibility of password protection and update using CSV imported tools. If some links do break down, this URL shortener helps to redirect that link to your present 404 redirects.
JotURL
JotURL is a complete package if you look for more than just a URL shortener. This URL shortener is a feature-packed marketing tool that fits your social campaigns. It boasts about 100 features that help you optimize every little interaction with your audience.
It comes with a social opt-in feature that can enhance your branded link by adding call-to-action messages to your links. Brands can then post this message on their social media profiles.
Short.io
This URL shortener is made exclusively for custom branded links. You can use your domain to create short URLs personalized just for you.
You can use Short.io to track and analyze your links efficiently; their track on the system follows country, time, social network, etc., with every click. If you think tracking branded links is not easy, then you can see the many tutorials this URL shortener has.
Tiny.cc
Trust this URL shortener to do an excellent job of helping you shorten links for branding efforts, and it will not fail you. You can track your links and get the statistics like returning clicks, browsers-used, unique visitors, etc., using this URL shortener.
The best part is you don’t need to create an account for that with Tiny.cc. It allows you to create and delete any URL quickly, view your whole history, and manage the URLs. There is no need to scroll through every URL you have made, and you can use the search option to find the URL you are looking for.
Polr
A great thing about Polr is that this URL shortener can help you create or host your URL and vice versa. But this feature is only for people with technical knowledge of PHP, Lumen, and SQL.
This URL shortener comes with a limited amount of traffic analyzing tools, and this link shortener’s dashboard is slick and modern. It also gives you a neat demo page so that you can decide whether you want to use this shortener or not.
Yourls
This URL shortener is a free, open-source URL shortener that is self-hosted. It is different as users don’t just get to track links and create URLs; they can download the plugin to run YOURLS into other applications, create custom interfaces, and more.
You can track your links, create sequential or custom-created links, or sample files for making your public interface. Additionally, since the interface comprises a small set of PHP scripts, the tool is highly lightweight and can run smoothly on your devices.
7 Best Practices to Keep in Mind While Using URL Shorteners
- UTM codes are a necessity if you are shortening your URLs. These codes will help you to direct your traffic.
- These short URLs become a good point when you are dealing with influencers. It will also help you to know what influencer will give you the expected ROI.
- Refrain from using random slashtags or even random slugs to your URL. This can bring your sharing rate down as people forget common words.
- There is a necessity to use the right domain name for your website for your short URL. Branded domains can be a lot better than your generic domains. They tend to boost your SEO.
- Shortening the length of your URL too much is not good and it makes it unappealing. A brand name Park and Sons can have a URL parkanadsons.yab not p&s.yab.
- Keep in mind not to shorten links that are already shortened. You may have gone through this a lot, clicked on a URL, and that took forever to load. That’s because short URLs redirect to the target page, not another short URL.
- Don’t forget to report on metrics by your Bot traffic. Bot traffic is when you share a post to 600 followers and get 60 website visitors.
Conclusion
With the help of simple, and customized links, brands can drive more traffic, get the most out of their content, and boost brand loyalty and customer engagement without a hefty investment. According to a survey, 46% of people are willing to pay more to buy from a brand they trust. So, along with giving your brand a plethora of other benefits, URL shorteners establish trust in your brand marketing strategy. It’s high time that you charge your marketing efforts using an industry-level link-management tool that does more than just shrink your link, and maximizes your return on investment.