Detailed Full Review of Bitly: All you need to know (2024)

What is Bitly?

Bitly is a link management marketing tool that has a secure and reliable solution for individuals, businesses, and brands.

It allows you to shorten your web page links, share them, and track their performance.

Each click generated provides you with valuable and relevant data.

The Bitly service is ideal for monitoring the effectiveness of your advertising activities, landing pages, or affiliate links.

In addition to these basic types of features, Bitly has:

• Creation of custom website or brand URLs
• Creating URLs for smartphones
• Management and statistics for link management
• QR code creation platform

The main advantage of Bitly is its usefulness in controlling the links we use in digital marketing, especially on social networks such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

In addition, the Bitly software facilitates relationships with customer service, marketing managers, the daily life of the community manager and optimizes the programming process through shortened links.

(2023 update)

Features

Bitly is more than just a tool for shortening a URL.

Bitly offers a range of marketing features designed to improve your online communication.

1. URL shortening

Bitly's flagship marketing summary feature is the shortening of links using the Https protocol.

Here's why the marketing feature in the free version of Bitly is essential:

Complex URL conversion

The Bitly software shortens a long and complex URL into a URL that is short and easier to share.

Enhanced customer engagement

Links can increase audience engagement by over 30%.

Ease of use for its customers

Pasting your long URL into Bitly automatically results in a shortened URL.

2. Personalization

Bitly allows you to give a touch of personalizing to the URL shortened by the Bitly software to reflect your brand in order to use your own domain for your links.

3. Marketing reporting and analytics

Link analysis is another important marketing feature of the Bitly software.

LBitly software provides analytics such as web page click rates, social interactions, and audience demographics.

4. Retargeting

Retargeting links helps you get the most out of your marketing campaigns to track customers who haven't completed a specific action, retarget, and increase marketing campaign results.

5. Branding

Branding by the Bitly software is in charge of adding your personal touch:

• Create shortened URLs that reflect your business.
• URLs are often perceived as more reliable

6. Short SMS links

The offer of short links by SMS (message) of the Bitly software is in charge of:

• Adapted to mobile
• Ideal for teams, community managers and administrators
• Use Bitly's API to integrate short link creation

7. Creating QR Codes

Creating QR Codes is another powerful tool supported by the Bitly software:

• QR codes are perfect for businesses that need constant content updates offline or via email.
• Add custom logos and colors to your QR Codes.

8. Bitly Developer API

In its free version, the Bitly marketing software offers a robust API to integrate its functionalities into other applications or systems.

9. Tools

The Bitly software offers for the management and research of Bitlinks:

• Browser extension: Add links from your browser without an interface
• Bookmarklet: tool to create links without leaving your current page.
• WordPress plugin: Integrate Bitly into your website
• Mobile application: Manage your links from your iOS smartphone app or other

10. Marketing Campaigns Management

Bitly offers marketing campaign management tools to optimize your online marketing:

• Bitlink grouping : Group similar Bitlinks together for easy tracking.
• Comparison of campaigns : Compare the performance of different marketing campaigns to better plan your future actions.

11. Link-In-Bio

Link-In-Bio by Bitly is an ideal and summary feature to optimize your presence on social networks even in its free version:

• The Bitly software allows you to create a customizable page containing all the important links.
• With Link-In-Bio, all your links are grouped in one place, making it easy for your followers to navigate.
• Ideal for social networks like Instagram that only allow one link in the bio.
• Follow each link on your Link-In-Bio page, so you can understand which ones generate the most engagement.

Bitly is a comprehensive platform offering a wide range of features to improve your online communication.

Creating Bitlinks with Bitly

1. Move your cursor to the orange button Create located in the bar at the top right of your Bitly software dashboard.
2. Select Bitlink from the dropdown menu.
3. A field will appear on the right side of the screen in Bitly
4. This is where you can paste the URL you want to shorten.
5. After pasting the URL, your link will automatically be converted to a Bitlink.
6. You can customize the last characters of your Bitlink by entering the text of your choice in the field under “Customize your link.”
7. When you are happy with your Bitlink, you can either copy it by clicking on the button Copy, or share it directly on Twitter or Facebook using the button Share.

Customer Support

Bitly has a variety of customer support methods for their platform.

Here's how you can access Bitly's customer service:

1. On the Bitly website, you will find an extensive knowledge base with support articles on various topics about using the Bitly software.
2. Live chat: Bitly is a quick way to solve small problems or get answers to simple questions without an appointment.
3. You can email Bitly software support if you require a more detailed response.
4. Social networks: The Bitly software is active on social networks, you can contact them through these platforms for support.

The Bitly software offers webinars and online training to understand all the functionalities of the tool and to maximize their use of the platform.

These various channels make Bitly's customer service easily accessible regardless of your problem.

Pricing

Bitly has 4 types of plans available for the needs of your business and your links per month.

• Gratuit
• Basic ($29-35/month)
• Premium ($199-300/month)
• Business (variable price)

Alternatives to Bitly

1. Rebrandly.

Rebrandly is not just a simple URL shortener, it also offers complete customization to improve your web presence with also a QR code creation function.

• With Rebrandly, you can customize the entire URL, not just the last half. This provides improved visibility and makes your links more memorable.
• Mobile application and iPad devices
• The free plan includes up to five custom domains, allowing you to create consistency across all of your links.
• Rebrandly has detailed tracking for up to 5,000 clicks per month, with a maximum of 500 links.

Pricing

• Free: Rebrandly offers a free plan that includes all the basic features.
• Starter: For larger needs - starting at $24/month - includes up to 5,000 links and a follow-up for up to 25,000 clicks per month.

If you want more than just shorten your brand links, Rebrandly is a great choice.

2. TinyUrl.

It is a shortener, offering a fast service without the need to create an account.

• Allows you to shorten without having to create an account.
• By creating an account, you have access to a history of all of your shortened links, which can be useful for tracking your previous links.
• Paid: you benefit from additional functionalities - monitoring and analysis, the use of domains and the ability to modify them after they are created.

Pricing

• Free: free to use for basic features.
• Personal: For those who want more features, a plan is available starting at $9.99/month

It is a solid choice for those looking for a shortener that is simple and straightforward.

3. BL.INK.

BL.INK is distinguished by its advanced traffic tracking features in order to understand user engagement.

• Dashboard: interface with an overview of trends and general statistics for each link
• Detailed analysis: Detailed overview of traffic based on the device used, country and referrers.
• Time tracking: Analyze engagement according to the time of day to plan your marketing campaigns.
• Custom tags: Add tags to further personalize traffic visualization, a key asset for tracking marketing campaigns.

Pricing

• Free: Generate up to 1,000 active links and track up to 1,000 clicks per link for free.
• Expert+: Starting at $48/month, take advantage of 10,000 active links, track 7,500 clicks per link and allow access for up to 3 users.

The BL.INK service is more than just a URL shortener.

It's an engagement tracking tool that can help small and large businesses optimize digital marketing.

Final Verdict

The Bitly software stands out as a robust shortener, with valuable analytics features to optimize your marketing efforts.

However, don't overlook alternatives like TinyURL, Rebrandly, and BL.INK, which also offer impressive capabilities.

Having a good shortener is essential in today's digital marketing strategy, to facilitate the management of URLs and to obtain multiple data.

In the end, it is an investment that can boost the engagement and conversion of your audience.