Do you guys use any url shortener tool? Other than shortening, do you use it for anythign else?

Christopher Sam K
9 replies
I'm doing some research for a product that I'm building (Ctiny). Basically I need answers for any of the following - Do you use it only to shorten links? - If you use it extensively, what other feature you make use of other than shortening - Which one do you opt when it comes to shortening? bitly or re-brandly? Or anything else? - If given a chance, what feature would you ask for that is missing across all the products currently available.

Replies

Fabian Maume
I'm using shortening tool manly for tracking purpose. If I'm running a campaign driving traffic to a webpage without analytics (for example a Facebook group), I'm using bit.ly yo track the CTR.
Christopher Sam K
@fabian_maume Thanks for your feedback :) Couple of things I wanted to shine light on. - Would it be helpful to know if a person has opened a mail or not? What if I say you can track this using Ctiny ? - What if I say, you can do A/B testing using a short link? - What if I say you can do re-targeting in multiple platform using a single short url? There are number of things I've tried to implement with Ctiny keeping Digital marketing in mind. Basically trying to give more power to a short link. If you get a chance, please give Ctiny a try. I'll be more than happy to answer your questions.
Fabian Maume
@chrissam How does the "opened tracking" work? Would you be able to track views on linkedin messages? How do you handle gdpr with re-targeting?
Kira Leigh
Right now, I'm not really in the freelance game, but I'll answer. I basically only use it for link shortening, and use a custom domain URL via some open source stuff. EX: https://constelisvoss.ml/yourls/yareyaredaze. I think link shortening is good, but attribution is better. The solution I use doesn't have attribution, and it has to be done manual, which means making umpteen billion links. Which is OK, but if you're juggling a lot, naw. I don't know if this is feasible, since the user clicking would have to send data to the URL about where they came from automagically; basically I don't know if it's possible. But that would be rad. As said, I use my own. If I have to for a client, rebrandly. As for a feature...some sorta...paste a link and it makes trackable links for all platforms in a snap, something like this. I'm not sure how to word it; hope I'm explaining this alright. Maybe even folders. Sometimes we just make so many and it gets...really annoying for marketing campaigns.
Christopher Sam K
Hi @kiraieigh, thanks for your feedback. Regarding your question on attribution, yes that is possible. We can get enough details that would be useful for us. Details like (country and city they have accessed it from, browser they are using, referrer details etc ). If you get a chance, you can probably try my product (Ctiny ) which offers all these for free. There are several other features that Ctiny offers which you can explore and might be of interest to you. Also, one other really useful feature is re-targeting. You can actually embed re-targeting pixels from different social networks ( Facebook, Twitter, etc ) in your short links. I would really appreciate if you can give feedback of my product ( I can give you all premium features for free for 2 months, no card details needed ). Thanks again!
Ruben Wolff
Bitly isn't available in Europe (or not everywhere) so here I use tinyurl, but not intensively enough to think of other features I'd like to see, other than shortening links. Maybe a direct share button on social media platforms could be interesting to save like 30 seconds of my time, but that's all that comes to my mind right now
Christopher Sam K
@rubenwolff Really appreciate your feedback. Having a share option to social media is a good one to have. Do you think the features Ctiny offers is convincing to you? Basically I've tried to offer more features than what the leading brands are offering. Let me know if you are interested in trying the premium features Ctiny offers. I'll be more than happy to give you 2 months of free trial (No card needed), in return expecting your valuable feedback.
ian hardy
Top URL Shortener Tools are :- Bitly. Goo.gl. TinyURL.com. Ow.ly. Is.gd. Buff.ly. AdF.ly. Bit.do.
Godrik
I can advise you a service that I myself have been using for several months. So far I like this service very much. You can link cut, track traffic from these links, see if this link has been registered, etc. More importantly, the service is very convenient. You can create a huge number of links and track all the traffic through built-in analytics.