Sunday, September 26, 2010

Short URLs for tracking clinks, analytics

URL shortening is one of those ideas that is finally beginning to come of age.  It isn't just for getting a longer post to fit into a tweet or mobile SMS txt or other places where a short URL just makes things work smoother (e.g. broken link in a wrapped, long URL in an email) and look professional and associated with your brand, i.e. short URLs are the modern equivalent of 1-800-MyBrand.   Another couple reasons why short URLs matter for marketing/advertisements can be found in the following blog posting  http://www.clixmarketing.com/blog/2010/09/21/warning-variable-adwords-line-lengths-can-render-ads-meaningless/ ... Use a Short URL in your Google ads!!!

URL shortening is not exactly new -- TinyURL.com or bit.ly, for example,are older, more familiar URL shorteners that you probably recognize.  Many of the early businesses that were created as free services to make posting long URLs easier for anyone were driven out of business by spammers -- obviously, the ones who are still in that business aggressively defend against spammers.

What is beginning to be more widely recognized is the value of using branded, custom shortened URLs (e.g. NYT.ms for NY Times) as a key part of a marketing campaign to establish and build a brand.   The REALLY BIG use for shortened URLs is all about tracking clicks as the content of those shortened URLs gets spread across the web.  You will want to check into several different services:
  • bit.ly PRO ... still in BETA, but launched December, 2009; now arguably the benchmark for branded, custom URL tracking [this does not mean there are not others that might not be trying harder ...]; it is worth checking out the bit.ly API and even the bit.ly hackabit
  • awe.sm A custom URL shortener with API. detailed analytics, uptime guarantee and SLAs. 
  • Peashoot allows you to manage social media campaigns with your own short URLs.
  • Tinyarro.ws  use a custom domain with Tinyarro.ws' tiny links service  The tinyarro service uses the ➡.ws domain; you should also be able to use Internationalized Domain Names(IDNs).  IDNs can contain one or more characters from non-Latin alphabets such as Arabic, Chinese, Korean or Japanese, an advantage in setting up an online presence in a non-English speaking market.
  • Google Short Links  ... beyond goo.gl, Google also offers a URL shortener as part of Google Apps for a domain that you might host on Google Apps ... for example go.1bd.bz/blog or go.1bd.bz/Facebook ... hopefully, the shortened 1bd.bz domain is somewhat memorable, reminding people to go to "#1 bid biz"  or the #1 auction service for businesses ... it could also be used for other shortened URLs a.1bd.bz, i.1bd.bz or q.1bd.bz
  • YOURLS is a small set of PHP scripts that will allow you to run your own URL shortening service (a la TinyURL). You can make it private or public, you can pick custom keyword URLs, it comes with its own API. 
  • Argyle Social is a software-as-a-service platform that helps marketers link social media efforts to business outcomes; part of its service includes branded, custom short URLs
  • cli.gs was one of the earlier, more broadly used URL shorteners that now has added analytics, social media monitoring and geotargeting; cli.gs was written in PHP hosted on Amazon's EC2 and SimpleDB, demonstrating the scalability of this sort of tool. Although cli.gs had tens of thousands of registered user accounts, and did tens of millions of forwards a month, but it was a one-man show and produced no revenue, making it impossible to turn cli.gs into more than a one man show and was shut down on 10/9/2009 -- it was acquired by Mister Wong on 12/1/2009
  • Finally, you will definitely want to take a look at BudURL Pro and the BudURL Pro API.




There are other URL shorteners services out there that are especially worth looking into if you are interested in marketing and analytics ...but if you want to grow your audience, generate leads and understand your customers better, you really should be looking into developing a strategy for your own brand's custom short URL service.