Does More Than Just Shorten Links
October 25, 2019

Does More Than Just Shorten Links

Ayo Bamgbose, Assoc CIPD, MSc | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Bitly

Bitly is known by many as a web tool to help shorten long and very unattractive URLs. For us, we use Bitly for that and so much more as it's a very unrated tool with a lot of special features. Some of the other features I love about using Bitly is the ability to customize the URL so that it's easier for clients to remember as well as being able to track click rates and gather insights and analytics.

Pros

  • Shorten and link branding: Bitly helps to turn long URLs into short ones that can also be customized to suit any business name.
  • Tracking and analytics: A great thing to be able to see the social media channels that visitors are clicking from and where they are in the world.
  • Integrations: Bitly integrates well with third-party tools to help improve workflow and tech tools.
  • Free plan: There are some great features on the paid plan but for those not yet ready to invest Bitly provides a great free option.

Cons

  • Restrictions: There are a few social platforms that do not accept Bitly links.
  • Limited integrations: Although it was a pro the lack of third-party integrations does have it's limitations.
  • Insights and Analytics: Only provides 30 days of reports which can be frustrating.
  • Unable to change: After customising the URL it is not possible to change the links.
  • Professionalism: We used to stick very long and unattractive URLs on our social media post but after discovering Bitly it has simply made us look more professional and made people take us more seriously online.
  • Longevity: If you think of the longevity of the links it can be frustrating to know that you're unable to delete them permanently resulting in your audience being able to always access your content using the Bitly link unless you permanently delete or change the original URL.
  • Market research: Being able to recognize the most popular links through Bitly analytics I am able to focus my efforts on creating similar types of content.
Since recognizing that Bitly is not accepted on all social media sites I tried to look for an alternative, specifically just for those platforms and was only able to find a tool called Pretty links that offered similar features that worked for what I needed.

Both Pretty Links and Bitly help with tracking and shortening URLs. The great thing about Pretty Links is that you are able to customize your links using your very own business domain via a WordPress website.

One of the key reasons I continue to use Bitly a lot more than Pretty Links is due to Bitly having a mobile app version. This way I am able to work on the go and not be restricted to only being able to shorten links via my laptop or desktop.
Over the last 4 years of using Bitly, I have only ever had to contact support once. That experience was positive as I was able to get a response in a decent amount of time.

On the flip side, I really do wish that Bitly did a lot more email communication, in general, to keep in touch with their users. I've signed up for their newsletter and hardly ever receive emails or hear any new updates. This is my reason for giving them the ratings as it would just be nice to be kept in the loop in what Bitly has planned for the future.

Do you think Bitly delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Bitly's feature set?

Yes

Did Bitly live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Bitly go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Bitly again?

Yes

Bitly is a great tool for small businesses looking to build their online presence and wanting to look as professional as possible and gather a few insights into where their main traffic is coming from.

For online businesses that primarily use social media platforms such as Pinterest, I would not recommend using Bitly as the links are seen as spam and therefore are not accepted.

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