What is the value of short URLs?

Short URLs are smaller representations of longer URLs. They're used when character counts is limited, like in social media and SMS messaging. A link management platform, like BL.INK Enterprise, enables marketers to build long URLs with unlimited UTMs to capture perfectly structured data. This data can be used to accurately measure detailed marketing attribution, deliver dynamic, rule-based final destinations based on characteristics, enable deeper customer engagement, and mitigate digital marketing waste. 

How do short URLs deliver perfectly structured data?

BL.INK Enterprise features a URL builder where you can capture any type of data, using drop-downs your whole team can use, for a level of data and UTMs that are always consistent. You can create link variants, which can be used to identify different ad sizes in a single campaign, for example, which speeds up the link creation process, but still gives you optimal, detailed data. 

How do short links improve marketing attribution reporting? 

When everyone who creates links uses the same structure—and different teams may have different use cases and templates, easily doable with BL.INK—attribution data that comes back is clean and easily analyzed and interpreted. 

With its detailed analytics, you can gain insights into how your links are performing and make informed decisions on your marketing strategies. You can see which platforms or channels are driving the most traffic. Are most of your clicks from phones or desktops? In your city or outside of it? This information is invaluable when it comes to evaluating the success of your campaigns and making adjustments for future ones.

For example, furniture retailer Room & Board had a mission to capture every single touchpoint for their digital campaigns, as well as from their in-store shoppers. They put QR codes on in-store signage and on each of their products and swatches in the stores. The QR codes and digital campaigns are attached to short URLs they created using BL.INK. Because they can capture unlimited data via BL.INK Enterprise, they were able to easily and accurately build unique links for every touchpoint. 

Room & Board also employs Observepoint to audit every link on their site, ensuring every customer has the positive experience when they click a link. 

This structured data gave them exacting data they used to prove the marketing team's direct impact on revenues. Read the full case study here. Room & Board also employs Observepoint to audit every link on their site, ensuring every customer has the positive experience when they click a link. 

Can short links deliver different experiences based on rules? 

Rules-based routing enables short links to deliver dynamic, customized customer experiences. BL.INK Enterprise enables rules-based routing from its short links, proving invaluable to companies that put QR codes on their products and manage them using a BL.INK link. 

For example, if a consumer scans a QR code on a soda can in Spain and their phone uses Spanish as its preferred language, the user will automatically end up at a page in Spanish that includes product details relevant to that country or region.

If a beer drinker in Germany scans a QR code on a beer bottle, BL.INK knows the scanner is in Germany, where the drinker must be at least 16 years old, so it will validate the scanner's age before moving them forward to digital content.

In real time, you can see exactly where scans and clicks happen, so you can see that your links are working.

Are short URLs easily editable?

Every aspect of the data "behind" a short URL from BL.INK link is editable. You can change the Campaign ID, destination page, rules, data captured—anything you can imagine. Want to deliver different destination links based on the time of day, six months into your campaign? Go for it. 

If you are promoting a sale on your website and want to update the link with a new discount code, you can do so easily. Or if you have a QR code on expensive signage or other printed material, you can change the destination of the code without reprinting any branded materials.

This is critical especially if you're creating a digital product passport for each of your products to share supply chain information such as country of origin, shipping and packaging details, and sustainability. When you decide you want to add more data to your QR codes and links, it's easy with BL.INK.

The most stunning example is from our friends at Room & Board. Two weeks before Christmas, the data told them that their gift card campaign wasn't converting as well as it should. Customers would go to the main landing page, but it required another click to make the purchase, and they weren't finishing transactions. In a half-hour meeting, the marketing team decided to send people directly to the purchase page, requiring a change to all ad campaigns, emails, signage, and more.

But because they used a branded, short URL from BL.INK, it only took minutes to make the switch. They didn't have to pause a campaign in any channel, and they did not lose any data. Conversions immediately started to trend up. You can read more about it here. 

Short links can transform your marketing attribution and campaign processes for the better. Start a free trial of BL.INK today, or request a quote and let's meet to discuss how BL.INK links can make your life better.