Overview
What is Bitly?
Bitly (Bit.ly) is one of the most popular link shortening tools. The vendor says it shortens 1 billion links per month. The company is privately held, based in New York City, and was founded in 2008.
Came for URL shortener, stayed for the Analytics Features
TrustRadius Insights
Use Bitly for Reliable Linking!
Bitly gets the job done
Bitly is a great product to "shorten" my workload
The go-to URL shortner
Bitly: Please try an amazing link shortener!
Fantastic service, excellent interface, valuable insight!
Great easy-to-use link shortening tool
Using Bitly as a Software Marketer
Bitly solves it all and you don't need any other shortener
Bitly helps with the shortening of URLs
Bitly makes easy to generate custom and short links
Bitly Is Efficient and Cost-Effective URL shortener and tracking service.
A great tool for custom domain linking in social media posts.
Awards
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Reviewer Pros & Cons
Pricing
Basic
$35
Free
Free
Customized
Contact sales team
Entry-level set up fee?
- No setup fee
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Product Demos
bitly project demo
Bitly Video Demo
bitly demo
CMPE281 Bitly Demo
CMPE281 Bitly Project Demo
READ DESCRIPTION! -- Review & Demo Of Switchy.io Tutorial -- Bitly And Clickmagick Alternative
Product Details
- About
- Integrations
- Tech Details
- FAQs
What is Bitly?
Bitly Video
Bitly Integrations
Bitly Technical Details
Deployment Types | Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
---|---|
Operating Systems | Unspecified |
Mobile Application | No |
Frequently Asked Questions
Comparisons
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Reviews and Ratings
(130)Community Insights
- Business Problems Solved
- Pros
- Cons
- Recommendations
Bitly has proven to be an invaluable tool for users across various industries and roles. By shrinking and customizing long URLs, Bitly makes it easier for users to remember and share links. Marketing and communications departments have found Bitly particularly useful in shortening lengthy URLs for social media posts, helping them meet character limits and build trust in their posts. The analytics provided by Bitly have enabled users to track outbound clicks and gather data on how their content is performing beyond social media platforms. In addition, Bitly has been used in email marketing campaigns to implement shortened links required for XML product data coding. Users have also found Bitly helpful in shortening URLs on product labels, allowing customers to easily access product information. Overall, Bitly's ease of use, ability to create user-friendly URLs, and comprehensive analytics have made it a preferred choice for managing tracking links, creating UTM codes for marketing campaigns, and tracking click rates on social media posts. With features like webhooks and QR codes, Bitly has further enhanced its usefulness in shortening long URLs for digital brochures, event materials, and even offline sharing.
- Customizable links: Many users have praised the ability to customize links in Bitly, as it allows them to easily manage and identify each link. This feature prevents their URLs from getting lost in a sea of indistinguishable links.
- Analytics insights: The analytics feature in Bitly is highly valued by users, as it provides valuable insights for each link created. Users appreciate being able to see the number of clicks, the source of visitors, and trends in traffic behavior, which helps them make data-driven decisions.
- Searchability: Users find Bitly's searchability feature beneficial, as it allows them to easily find links by using keywords. This saves users time and effort when retrieving links that were used months ago.
Confusing User Interface: Numerous users have reported encountering difficulties with the user interface of Bitly, stating that it is confusing and in need of improvement. This confusion hampers their ability to perform tasks effectively and diminishes their overall experience with the platform.
Limited Analytics: Many reviewers have expressed dissatisfaction with the analytics provided by Bitly, as they are limited in scope. Specifically, Bitly only offers 30 days of reports and does not track specific sources of traffic. As a result, users feel constrained in their ability to gather comprehensive data and make informed decisions based on it.
Lack of Customization Options: A significant number of users have highlighted the lack of customization options for Bitly links, particularly in the free version. The absence of robust customization features restricts users' ability to personalize and tailor their shortened URLs according to their preferences, limiting its usefulness for branding purposes.
Users commonly recommend the following when using Bitly:
- Prioritize starting with the free version of Bitly before subscribing to assess its suitability and benefits.
- Consider upgrading to a custom domain for a superior experience and a more professional appearance in social media posts and other online content.
- Utilize Bitly for effective URL shortening, comprehensive analytics tracking, and valuable insights into external website links. This allows users to enhance their marketing efforts and effectively monitor link performance.
Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(1-1 of 1)Review - HP
Currently, I'm the marketplace manager for a startup called Growth Geeks. I just came on board a couple of months ago, and we aren't using Bitly as of right now. However, I plan on speaking with the team to begin implementing it for when we post links to our Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook accounts (we post links almost daily to articles) - I also plan on seeing if they would like the enterprise level, but at the very least hoping they will be on board with the regular professional version.
Previous to this position, I was a freelance marketing and communications specialist for over a year. I managed roughly 4-8 clients at a time and was working full time hours - many of these clients were tech startups, some were retail sales, and some were actually advertising agencies themselves. For all of my clients, I was managing their social media accounts and/or consulting with their internal marketing teams to guide them on best social practices for their specific industry and business. When I was managing social media accounts for clients, I always used Bitly's services (sometimes the free version if their exec team didn't want to spend money on the professional version). Using Bitly helped me greatly provide analytics and demonstrate my ROI in their social media efforts (which is extremely important as a freelancer).
Apart from social media, I would use Bitly to post links to the client's website or blog on various forums. This helped me learn which forums were helpful to provide clicks on these links for a particular client, as well as which forums were not worth my time posting on. I also used Bitly in email marketing campaigns and on WordPress blog articles. Having solid data from Bitly analytics helped me provide value to my services, speak with management in very tangible ways they could understand, and helped secure future work with clients.
Also, I worked at a company called CJ Pony Parts as their Social Media Specialist. Twice a month I had a meeting with top management to go over my overall social media strategy, as well as particular campaigns. Using Bitly's analytics and link tracking, I was able to enter this meeting with clarity and hard data for my supervisors to understand ROI on social media. I was also the primary author for the CJ Pony Parts blog, so promoting my articles was particularly important to me and I used Bitly to tweet links and post on Facebook, and I was able to see exactly how many people were checking out my articles via social posts.
- Love how it links back to my original page
- Gives me statistics on my clicks
- Provide emails of those who only click once for follow ups
- I have a better understanding of who looked at our customers' links
- Social media posts
- Blog article distribution
- SEO
- SEO
- More social media
- Business cards
- Via email distribution
- Price
- Product Usability
- Product Reputation
- Analyst Reports
- Implemented in-house
- None that I'm aware of
- Online training
- Self-taught
- Link building
- Link tracking
- Analytics
- Upgraded user interface
- Bug fixes
- New features
- New features
- Bug fixes/glitch fixes