While URL shorteners have had some incredible usage tied to the growth (and constraints) of Twitter, I question their sustainability as a business. Example: Nissan uses nssn.co Use initials: This tip works for personal or organization URL shorteners.
Notice we added our own custom tracking text to the parameter so we could tell this link was the “Services Brochure”. Go to Admin > Edit Posts, hover over the post link, look at the status bar, the number at the end of the URL is the post ID. That limits your ability to do roll-up and drill-down reporting. Some websites allow other websites to create links. Aside from the custom domains that you can use with the premium option, you can also view campaign comparison charts, download the data as an excel file, filter clicks data, and much more. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better.
It's also worth considering leaving the most recognizable part of your name spelled out. When we shorten a link, it appears like so: Our URLs are shortened and we can still use the tracking features in Bit.ly, but instead of our readers seeing Bit.ly in the shortened links, they see our custom domain.
Shortened links allow you to share long URLs in a Tweet while maintaining the maximum number of characters for your message. Typically, data: and javascript: URLs are not supported for security reasons. AdFly: Another interesting shortener is AdFly, because it allows you to monetize on your URL shortener. When you are using HootSuite, you can shorten any URL to an ow.ly or ht.ly link. To enable outbound link tracking, you need to add a little javascript to your website, and add a little code with each outgoing link that you want to track.
You can also log into your Buffer account on the web or by downloading the mobile app to track your analytics and see how many clicks that your links have gotten. Just save the tag and then test before publishing. Create one tracker for each platform, and create the multi-platform tracker like so: Any clicks from iPhones, iPads and so on will be sent to the iTunes App Store, and those clicks will be counted and shown toward your iOS tracker. Use the following value for the External Filters list to identify it as an external URL: ‘yahoo.com’ Add the following value to the Link Track Events field: event1,event2 Add the following value to the Link track vars field: eVar1,eVar2 On the page that is associated with the framework, add a Text component. Adding tracking directly to your site If you have added the Analytics tracking code directly to your site, you can copy and paste the script below into your own pages to set up Event tracking for outbound links. As a result, many have been removed from online registries or shut down by web hosts or internet service providers. The need for this came about when one of our Healthcare Marketing clients needed to track the actual impact their PDFs were having on their organic search volume, and traffic in general. Notice we added our own custom tracking text to the parameter so we could tell this link was the “Services Brochure”. Before you send your campaign, make a note of these unique IDs so you'll know which Google Analytics title goes with which combination of your campaign.