Bitly vs Google Analytics

• Very easy to use. Anyone with even limited tech knowledge would be able to begin using the service from day one.
• Managing and tracking links is very straightforward and offers you exactly what you need.
• Can use for free and even without signing in, so it's very open and available to everyone.
• Has been around long enough for it to be a trusted brand, so people feel secure in clicking on it.

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• Google Analytics does the obvious thing really well: tracks user behavior around our website. But more specifically, it allows us to do some very complicated attribution to behavior, traffic sources and even specific campaigns or devices. Depending on the volume of traffic we are trying to analyze and the purpose, we can narrow things down EXTREMELY well and get a great story to use for data mining.
• The eCommerce tracking with GA (Google Analytics) is hands down the best. Specifically, its attribution to traffic sources and matching with user behavior that is the best. I have yet to find another tool that can let me track traffic sources, split campaigns down to devices and track which inventory was purchased specifically from that campaign--especially if I am looking back at inventory purchased from a campaign (or in our case, people who signed up for Classes) I can tell all of that from GA.
• You can use GA to track specific user accounts within a product, and differentiate user behavior within the product based on account roles. A lot of people don't know about this, but with the help of a developer you can leverage a TON of data including creating lookalike audiences that you can sync into AdWords and make your display campaigns highly targeted. Most people think this kind of feature is only available on Facebook ads--nope! :)

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• One thing I've noticed is that if you're shortening a link that you didn't create - for example shortening the link to a news article that you then want to share on Twitter - the analytics will continue to pull data from the original URL as a whole, and not just your unique Bitlink. It would be nice to be able to pull out the traffic that just my efforts are pulling to the site, and not every single source of traffic that site is getting.

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• I was bummed that they moved some of the functions (keyword data, etc.) over to Google Webmaster tools. (On the bright side, this has prompted me to become more familiar with Google Search Console.)
• A lot of functions are right there. But it's hard to tell which functions are most important or what they offer.
• Perhaps this is related to number 2, but the UX is fairly intimidating. All of these tools and subsets of tools are right in front of you, and it's difficult to understand what ones are the most important. A simpler, streamlined format might be a better approach.

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• Bitly has had a major negative financial impact on our business due to them not allowing us to redirect our link. Our product labels have broken links on them, which is affecting sales.
• Bitly has had a negative impact on our customer satisfaction.
• Bitly has wasted our time and efforts and has not been straightforward with their features.

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• While very little in this world is truly free, the only real cost to using Google Analytics is time, from your PM's, your web admins, your engineers, your email admins, and QA analysts--but it is without a doubt time well spent.
• Because you run the risk of paralysis by analysis, one must pick their battles with Google Analytics. If you go in with a clear, concise set of objectives, and a competent technical supporting cast, you will succeed.
• On the reverse side of the same coin, if you come in without a purpose, you run the risk of getting bogged down in all of the information without immediate relevance, and you may just leave behind this treasure trove of invaluable analytics in search of said relevance.

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