Reaching your audience across multiple platforms takes more than just great content—it takes the right tools to connect, engage, and measure success. Bitly provides an all-in-one solution to help you do just that.
With features like branded short links and QR Codes, customizable landing pages, and engagement analytics, Bitly helps you create seamless customer experiences and build meaningful connections. Plus, you can track every click, scan, and interaction to optimize your campaigns in real time.
Ready to unlock the full potential of your digital marketing strategy? Let’s get started!
Note: The brands and examples discussed below were found during our online research for this article.
Why Bitly is a must-have for digital marketing
As the internet has changed, digital marketing strategies have evolved to keep up. For many brands, this means launching campaigns across a wide range of social media platforms and paid advertising channels, as well as direct marketing through email, SMS, and more.
The benefits of digital marketing for small businesses are undeniable, helping brands connect with new audiences and expand their reach. However, managing a comprehensive campaign can quickly become complicated. To succeed, you need tools that are straightforward, adaptable, and designed to integrate seamlessly across all your marketing channels.
The Bitly Connections Platform offers a variety of tools for streamlining your digital marketing efforts, including:
- Short links: Convert long URLs into professional branded short links with the Bitly URL shortener.
- QR Codes: Connect offline ads with online content using these engaging, scannable codes with Bitly Codes.
- Landing pages: Share information directly with your audience through custom, no-code Bitly Pages.
- Analytics: Track your engagement metrics to see which marketing assets are having the most impact in Bitly Analytics.
Bitly provides insight into how your audience interacts with content and moves through the sales funnel. Over time, you can use Bitly to chart the customer journey from discovery to purchase and identify which marketing strategies generate the strongest ROI.
How to use Bitly short links for digital marketing
Bitly makes it easy to shorten long, clunky URLs in just a few clicks. Here’s how to use short links in your digital marketing strategy and why they’re so effective.
Simplify and optimize links for sharing
Turning social media engagement into website traffic is challenging for many digital marketers. Most social media platforms have character limits for text posts, image captions, and user bios, so there’s not always room to share a full URL.
You can use the Bitly URL shortener to create links that fit neatly into social media posts. This way, you can encourage users to visit your website or check out other relevant links without detracting from the post.
Shortened links are valuable beyond social media. They’re also effective in email marketing and SMS campaigns, where space and formatting constraints are common. By shortening your links, you leave more room for engaging copy in your marketing emails and SMS messages.
Short links are also much easier to remember than long URLs, so you can use them in your offline marketing materials as well. Consumers aren’t likely to remember a long URL on a poster or billboard, but they might recall a short link and take the time to look it up later.
Strengthen brand identity with branded links
Bitly Links are customizable, allowing you to create links that align with your brand identity. Using branded links helps create a sense of cohesion and professionalism across your marketing campaigns.
All Bitly users can create links with custom back halves, regardless of which plan they sign up for. By customizing the back half of the link, you can create a descriptive indicator so your audience understands exactly which page they’re visiting. For example, if you’re linking a holiday sale page, your link might read “bit.ly/holiday-sale.”
Some paid plans also allow users to personalize short links with custom domains. Instead of the “bit.ly” domain, you can use your brand’s domain, so the link above might look like “your.brand/holiday-sale.”
This approach makes your link instantly recognizable to your audience, which helps strengthen your brand identity and encourages users to click and start their shopping experience.
Track link performance in real time
Bitly’s link management solutions help you keep all of your URLs organized and track their performance in real time.
From the Bitly homepage, navigate to Links to see all of your active links in one place. You’ll also be able to identify your top-performing links. You can dive into this information further with Bitly Analytics, which shows you how many clicks each link has received, helping you determine which marketing assets are generating the most traffic.
In addition to monitoring clicks, you can also see the geolocation and referral sources for each engagement, so you know where to target your efforts for maximum results.
Leveraging Bitly QR Codes in your strategy
QR Codes are an effective way to bridge the gap between different marketing efforts and share information with ease. Here’s how to use Bitly QR Codes for omnichannel marketing.
Connect offline and online experiences
The popularity of digital advertising has skyrocketed as consumers spend more and more time online. However, offline marketing hasn’t disappeared. Tools like billboards, flyers, and print ads are still very effective ways to reach your audience. A 2024 study found that 76% of consumers had recently taken action after seeing a digital billboard or other out-of-home ads.
QR Codes are one of the easiest ways to connect these two types of marketing strategies. Your audience can scan a QR Code on your offline ads with their smartphone cameras, directing them to more information online.
A simple scan could result in a new social media follower or even a new customer. It’s also a great way of providing your customers with more information than you can reasonably fit on your print marketing materials or product packaging.
There are many ways to pair QR Codes and offline marketing materials. A restaurant might place QR Codes on menus that link to a loyalty program sign-up page. A brand hosting an event could place QR Codes on flyers linking to an RSVP page. QR Codes on product packaging might link to a page with detailed ingredient lists or manufacturing information. The possibilities for QR Code integration are endless.
Enhance customer engagement
Using QR Codes strategically improves the customer experience and builds online engagement with your brand. Instead of typing a URL into a browser, your audience can scan a QR Code with their smartphone to access online content in seconds.
Using QR Codes to offer exclusive experiences is a powerful way to set your brand apart. By linking to special online content or unique discounts, QR Codes can generate excitement and engagement among your audience.
For example, retailers might consider adding QR Codes to product packaging that lead to exclusive how-to videos or influencer-created content, creating a memorable and interactive customer experience.
To boost engagement, pair your QR Codes with a clear call to action (CTA) like “Scan for exclusive deals!” This straightforward approach encourages interaction and instantly communicates the QR Code’s purpose. While a recent poll found that 68% of consumers used QR Codes in the past year, a compelling CTA can help capture the attention of the remaining 32% who may not be as familiar with them.
Use Dynamic QR Codes for flexibility
All Bitly QR Codes are dynamic, meaning you can edit their target URL after publishing. This allows you to update your online marketing materials without having to create new QR Codes or reprint content.
For example, a local boutique could use flyers to promote an upcoming product launch event. Each flyer contains a QR Code that links to the event sign-up page online. After the event is over, you can update the QR Code to link to another page on your website, such as a product page or a page for another event.
This way, if someone finds the flyer and is interested in the brand, they’ll be redirected to an active page instead of a broken link.
Building custom landing pages with Bitly Pages
With Bitly Pages, you can create mobile-friendly landing pages for each marketing campaign—no web design or coding experience required. Bitly Pages offers a variety of templates, all of which are fully optimized for mobile devices, and you can add your brand logo, colors, images, and copy to make it your own.
Creating landing pages for each campaign improves the user experience by delivering a focused brand experience. By linking to a landing page rather than your brand’s homepage, you can prevent confusion and streamline the customer experience. Your customers get the exact information they’re looking for without needing to navigate your website to find it.
Here are some ways you can use Bitly Pages in digital marketing campaigns:
- Product launches: When launching a new product, you could create a custom webpage, linking to it directly from corresponding digital ads, emails, and social media posts.
- Events: When hosting an event, you could create a landing page with the date, time, and location, as well as a form to RSVP.
- Sales: When launching a seasonal sale, create a landing page featuring all discounted products, so customers know exactly which items are included.
- Promotions: If you offer a free trial for your product or service, create a landing page where customers can sign up quickly and easily.
Customize for specific campaigns
A major benefit of Bitly Pages is that they’re easy to customize. You can adjust the layout, colors, and features of each page to match your campaign objectives and branding.
It’s easy to create new landing pages each time you launch a campaign instead of editing existing web pages. To maximize engagement and results, take the time to tailor each page to the product, service, or event you are promoting.
For example, if you’re launching a holiday campaign, you can customize your landing pages with a bold holiday color scheme, and add fun fonts, images, and web copy that reflect the fun energy of the season.
Drive measurable results
Bitly Analytics allows you to track the performance of each landing page as part of your data-driven marketing strategy.
Specifically, you’ll see how many visitors engage with your Bitly Links or QR Codes, when, where they come from, and what type of devices they use. This helps you map how traffic flows to your landing pages.
Over time, you’ll see which of your landing pages are driving the most engagement and conversions. With this information, you can optimize your landing pages for future campaigns by using formats that have proven effective in the past.
Analyzing performance with Bitly Analytics
Tracking and refining your campaigns is an essential step in the modern digital marketing process. With Bitly Analytics, you can monitor your links, QR Codes, and landing pages from one convenient place. Here’s how to use Bitly Analytics to track and improve your ongoing marketing campaigns.
Measure what matters
Bitly Analytics gives you a wealth of marketing data at your fingertips. The platform provides actionable insights to help you identify behavioral trends among your audience and determine which marketing assets are most effective.
Metrics you can measure with Bitly Analytics include:
- Clicks, scans, and views over time: Measure engagement with your custom links, QR Codes, and landing pages as it happens.
- Top performing clicks and scans: Identify which marketing assets resonate most with your audience.
- Clicks, scans, and views by location: Discover the countries and cities where your audience is located.
- Clicks by referrer: See which websites your clicks are coming from to visualize the sales funnel.
- Clicks by device: See which devices your audience uses to interact with your links and codes.
- Scans by browser and operating system: Learn which types of technology your audience uses when interacting with your QR Codes.
- Link activity within Bitly Pages: Every link in Bitly Pages is trackable, so you can see how visitors interact with the page.
Refine strategies with data-driven decisions
Using Bitly Analytics can help you pinpoint which marketing strategies resonate most with your audience, helping you improve future campaigns for increased engagement.
You might create unique short links for various components of your marketing campaign, like social media posts, email newsletters, or PPC ads. You can then track the number of clicks for each medium in real time to see what’s generating the most engagement.
You can also measure offline marketing with Bitly Analytics by placing QR Codes on your offline marketing campaigns. You could place unique QR Codes on billboards, flyers, or print ads and track scans to measure engagement for each campaign asset.
If your brand runs global marketing campaigns, you can also track QR Code scans by location to identify the regions where your campaign is seeing the most engagement.
Tracking your engagement levels will help you refine your marketing strategies in the future. For example, you might find that your Bitly Links get the most engagement from your email newsletters, prompting you to invest more in your email marketing moving forward for a strong ROI.
Visualize ROI and customer engagement
Monitoring Bitly Analytics can tell you a lot about your marketing campaigns’ performance and inform future spending decisions. You can also integrate Bitly with other marketing tools like Google Analytics to collect more granular data and calculate conversion rates. Developers can even create their own integrations with the Bitly API for a holistic look at marketing data across different channels.
Say you create a landing page for a new product launch. You can track link clicks within the landing page via Bitly Analytics, then use Google Analytics to determine how many of those visitors convert into customers. These metrics can help justify spending decisions to company leadership and other key stakeholders.
A step-by-step guide to using Bitly for digital marketing
Ready to incorporate Bitly into your digital marketing campaigns? Here’s a step-by-step guide to get you started.
Step 1: Create an account and explore features
Getting started with Bitly is easy—you can create an account in just a few minutes with your email address or log in with your existing Google account. Bitly offers a variety of free marketing tools, so you can create your first short links, QR Codes, and landing pages at no cost.
To access more advanced features, you can upgrade to one of Bitly’s paid plans. These are ideal for growing businesses that need advanced analytics and complex customization options. With a paid plan, you can also generate more links, QR Codes, and landing pages each month. Enterprise-level organizations can also request a quote for a custom plan.
Once you’ve selected a plan, log in to the Bitly home page to explore available features. This is your home base for creating and managing your links, QR Codes, and landing pages.
Step 2: Start with short links
Now that you’ve created an account, it’s time to create your first short link. The process is straightforward—just copy the URL you want to shorten and paste it into the URL shortening box. Bitly will automatically generate the short link, which you can use in your marketing campaigns right away.
You can also personalize your link by adding a custom back half. Growth and Premium users can add a custom domain as well, rather than using the bit.ly domain.
In the Links section, you’ll see all your short links in one place. You can redirect these URLs at any time and even add UTM parameters for detailed tracking. When launching a new marketing campaign, you can shorten links in bulk to save time.
Step 3: Generate QR Codes
Bitly offers QR Codes for marketers that can be used on physical and digital assets. With your Bitly account, you can generate custom QR Codes for everything from store signage to product packaging to magazine ads.
To create a QR Code with Bitly, start by pasting your target URL into the generator. Then, you’ll be able to customize your QR Code’s appearance by changing the patterns, colors, frame, and CTA. Paid plans offer advanced customization options and even allow you to add your logo to the QR Code.
Once you’ve finalized your QR Code, you can copy and paste it directly into your marketing assets or download it in PNG, SVG, or JPEG file formats. All Bitly Codes are dynamic, so you’ll be able to redirect the linked URLs at any time.
Step 4: Build landing pages
Fast-loading, mobile-friendly landing pages play an essential role in the sales funnel. A well-crafted landing page encourages interested visitors to take action, whether that’s making a purchase, signing up for an event, or following your brand on social media.
It’s crucial to optimize your landing pages for smartphones and tablets, as mobile browsing has become a daily habit for many consumers. A study found that 75% of consumers browse the web on mobile devices at least twice daily.
Creating landing pages from scratch can be time-consuming, but Bitly Pages makes it easy. To create a Bitly Page, simply select a template from the extensive library or create your own from scratch. Then, customize the colors, fonts, and copy to align with your branding.
You can also add visual assets like your logo, photos, and graphics, as well as links to other website pages. The final page is automatically optimized for mobile devices, with fast loading times across browsers and operating systems.
Step 5: Track and optimize performance
Once you’ve created your marketing campaign, it’s time to start tracking performance. Tracking key marketing metrics helps prevent your campaigns from stagnating.
Monitor engagement levels through Bitly Analytics, adjusting your strategy as needed to reach your customers. You can also redirect your short links or QR Codes at any time.
Additionally, consider tapping into Bitly’s extensive marketplace of integrations for even more insights. Bitly integrates with popular CRM software, social media schedulers, email newsletter platforms, and more for ongoing campaign optimization.
Empower the future of your digital marketing strategies with Bitly
With Bitly in your toolkit, you can create engaging, seamless campaigns that connect with your audience across platforms. Short links, QR Codes, and customizable landing pages work together to unify your marketing efforts and deliver measurable results.
Gain deeper insights with Bitly’s detailed analytics to optimize campaigns and capture your audience’s attention wherever they are. Whether you’re looking to boost engagement, track performance, or simplify your strategy, Bitly gives you the tools to take your digital marketing to the next level.
Sign up for Bitly today to supercharge your digital marketing campaigns.
