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Bitly has proven to be an invaluable tool for users across various industries and roles. By shrinking and customizing long URLs, Bitly …
Starting at $35 per month
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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.
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$35
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- No setup fee
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- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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bitly project demo
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Bitly Video Demo
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CMPE281 Bitly Demo
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CMPE281 Bitly Project Demo
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READ DESCRIPTION! -- Review & Demo Of Switchy.io Tutorial -- Bitly And Clickmagick Alternative
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What is Bitly?
Bitly Video
Creating and managing powerful branded links is easy. Check out our tips for using popular Bitly features, including custom domains, redirects and Campaigns.
Learn more at: bitly.is/resources
Check out the Bitly blog: bitly.is/blog
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
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.
Reviewers rate Usability highest, with a score of 9.5.
The most common users of Bitly are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).
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(130)
Community Insights
TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!
- Business Problems Solved
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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
(1-11 of 11)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
March 29, 2022
Bitly gets the job done
We use a single branded domain and custom back halves to manage our tracking links. This allows us to manage our UTM campaigns across a number of distinct links. With the combination of branded domain and back halves, we can promote our links in a human-legible way across social, email, SMS, and printed materials.
We use their reporting tools to view traffic to short links, which is a more digestible interface for business users than our analytics platform. We also make heavy use of link redirects for managing time-bound campaigns.
We are on the basic plan, which has been more than accommodating of our use case and a more reasonable price point than the upgrade options.
We use their reporting tools to view traffic to short links, which is a more digestible interface for business users than our analytics platform. We also make heavy use of link redirects for managing time-bound campaigns.
We are on the basic plan, which has been more than accommodating of our use case and a more reasonable price point than the upgrade options.
- Custom branding
- UTM parameter management
- Redirects
- Reporting
- QR Codes
- More expensive than alternatives
- Can get flagged as email spam
- Slow customer service
- More filtering options
March 27, 2022
The go-to URL shortner
Not only super useful URL shortening - but the additional features like the ability to integrate webhooks or QR codes with the shortened URL's are incredibly useful. The best usecase we have is shortening incredibly long URL's to short ones for our digital brochures for our events - then placing the QR codes around the event, so visitors have access to maps, timetables etc on their own devices.
- URL Shortening
- Custom Domains
- QR Codes
- Adhoc Pricing
- Accuracy
- Campaign grouping tracking
Bitly is one of the early URL shortener programs. I like being able to track all clicks over a limitless timeframe. I can always go to my Bitly dashboard and see the results of my shared URLs from AD campaigns, FB posts, and other content streams I push to.
Bitly is easy to use. The URL for seeing the metrics over time is also simply adding /# to the bit.ly link and there is your data.
I have created so many bit.ly links over time that I occasionally run into "unique" URL names conflicting with links I had already created.
Bitly is fast, complete, and provides excellent back-end reporting.
Bitly is easy to use. The URL for seeing the metrics over time is also simply adding /# to the bit.ly link and there is your data.
I have created so many bit.ly links over time that I occasionally run into "unique" URL names conflicting with links I had already created.
Bitly is fast, complete, and provides excellent back-end reporting.
- Builds unique and readable URLS: bit.ly/MYCONTENT.
- Reporting is robust and very easy to access.
- Using Bitly as a default shortener for Twitter or Tweetdeck provides an additional layer of accountability and reporting.
- Shortening apps have gotten a bad rap and are blocked on some sharing platforms.
- Increase the level of security to eliminate some of the objections to Bitly inclusion.
November 13, 2019
Makes sense if you feel like you're in the dark with link tracking
At my current organization, we use Bitly to shorten links so we can drill down on the success of our marketing and advertising efforts to see which is the best and most successful. We include shortened links in our communications with customers so we can determine if they are clicking through to the proposal/file/etc. This program allows us to track the success of our efforts whereas before it was just a guess.
- Link shortening with custom endings.
- Geography and device specific data.
- Detailed info on dates of link clicks.
- Ease of use/setup.
- Expanded info on link clicks such as duration of time spent on site.
- Link sorting on the dashboard.
- Expanded list of endings.
April 22, 2019
DO NOT USE Bitly before you read this.
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Bitly shortened links are being used on our product labels. It allows customers to view product information related to their purchase.
- Ease of Use
- Unethical Company. They are holding an issue of ours hostage to get us to upgrade to enterprise level.
- Horrible Customer Service - They do not care about their customers. No help was given to solve our problems.
- Very Expensive - Compared to other solutions you are paying much more for Bitly. Also they only offer a complete solution at the highest paid tiers. We had an issue where we need to redirect a link and they would not allow us unless we upgraded to Enterprise level (Over $15,000 USD a year...)
- Bad features - They've taken basic level features and hid them from standard paid tiers, forcing you to upgrade to fix your problems.
December 02, 2018
Super easy and straightforward to use
The marketing team has been using Bitly as a link shortener for use within social media posts for years. We did switch for a time to Google Shortener for awhile but with Google Shortener being discontinued, we've moved back to Bitly. Originally we probably used it to get around Twitter's character limit, although that's no longer relevant. However, being able to also track clicks and measure campaign performance later became more important. Also, there are a number of times when you need to share a link "offline" and being able to shorten a long link into a customized Bitly link that someone could remember is helpful.
- 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.
- The free version doesn't allow for branding so you may have some customer confusion
- I sometimes suspect that it doesn't actually capture correct clicks; sometimes it feels like the data may be incorrect or missing.
November 21, 2018
Bitly - the easy way to shorten URL's
We use Bitly to quickly shrink and customize long URL's, as well as to get data on clicks to these links. This is used primarily by the social media team to accompany posts on specific social media platforms but is also used when sending internal email messages in addition to this.
- The ability to quickly shorten long URL's.
- The ability to customize shortened URL's.
- Providing data on URL clicks.
- It is somewhat complicated to connect with DNS to custom URLs.
- Would be great if the Bitly suite were integrated directly into social platforms.
- The Bitly pro version is fairly expensive when compared to the competition.
November 14, 2018
Quick and Easy Short Link Maker
The Marketing Department using Bitly for shortening links on social media. Bitly is also used for tracking those shortening links. Since Google got rid of their URL shortener, Bitly filled the gap. Bitly is easy to and manage for tracking all links the department distributes on social media. Bitly also allows you to see where conversions take place by process of elimination.
- Shorten web links
- Track web links
- Manage web links
- Better UI
- Add UTM within App
- Better Share Features
June 01, 2016
bit.ly -- short on links, BIG on ROI
Currently I use bit.ly to track clicks and in-bound marketing leads for a few freelance jobs I'm leading. One is to track clicks to a website that is selling books (directly from author) - another is my wife's business (small clothing company, Etsy store), and for a music streaming company that hasn't launched yet -- to generate more names for our email listserv. I used it to show click trends over time and to review referrers.
- Ease of use. It's so simple it needs almost no explanation as to what info it delivers or how to use it.
- Accessible information. I love that you can see the info about any link by simply including a "+" at the end of the link.
- Personalized/custom links. Creation of these makes it super easy to remember the most important links -- and doubles as branding as well!
- It used to be that the app was not as user friendly as the desktop version, but that was remedied last year. It's great now.
- Although fully transparent info for all links is good, it might be nice if you could make a link's info private. Note: this may be accessible at the enterprise level of service, which I am not currently subscribed to.
April 04, 2016
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
March 23, 2016
When it comes to social media - Bitly saves the day!
In a social media capacity we use Bitly to shorten links so that we don't take up character space in our posts. Especially on Twitter, characters are at a premium, so being able to use Bitly to make our URLs the smallest number of characters possible allows us to deliver better messaging to our audience. Our entire marketing team also uses Bitly to shorten links for email blasts and other marketing materials. Bitly allows us to create more aesthetically pleasing content by eliminating long, cumbersome URLs. We also have opted to use a branded Bitly link, which further ties in our brand to everything we're doing.
- First, the obvious - it shortens links. Not only that, but you can customize the links so that each one is easy to manage and identify. The customization aspect is definitely a huge plus since it's easy to start drowning in lots of indistinguishable URLs.
- The analytics portion of Bitly is also great. You can garner insights for each link you create like how many clicks the URL has, where the visitors are coming from, and identify trends in traffic behavior.
- Searchability - Bitly saves each link you create and you can easily search for them using key words. If you need to pull up a link you used months ago, all you have to do is search for it in Bitly and it will come up.
- 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.