Bite Size Analytics with Bitly


Google Analytics is certainly considered one of the most popular web metrics tools available especially with the cost being free.  Not many web metric companies can compete with this price tag, however, a few that can are useful in their own ways.  For the purpose of this blog I am going to focus on Bitly.

What is Bitly?

Bitly is a web metric service that monitors traffic analytics through bitlinks.  As stated by the Bitly website, bitlinks are
“When you shorten a link with Bitly, you are redirecting a click from Bitly to the destination URL. We issue a "301 redirect": a technique for making a webpage available under many URLs. A 301 redirect is the most efficient and search engine-friendly method for webpage redirection. Because Bitly doesn’t re-use or modify links, we consider our redirects to be permanent.” (Bitly, 2017)

What does Bitly offer?

Bitly offers browser extensions to share Bitlinks straight from your browser as well as a downloadable app for your phone that allows you to share and track Bitlinks data.  Google Analytics offers a comprehensive app for your phone to monitor your website.  While Bitly doesn’t have nearly the traffic analytic tracking options, the few options it does offer can be helpful in determining your audience and how your information is being received.

Bitlinks do not offer the macro experience Google Analytics offers, however, it is good for monitoring traffic to certain links such as a specific blog post that you want to see the unique clicks and demographics for.  The Bitly website states the top 10 metrics offered in the Bitly dashboard are: total clicks across all Bitlinks, Bitlinks created, total unique visitors, clicks per unique visitor, Bitly network clicks, Bitly network links, top Bitlinks, Bitly network top content, Top referrers, and top locations. (2016) Being able to track this data gives you a quick overview of the data you could use to determine the performance of blog posts, landing pages, social media campaigns, newsletters, and products in ecommerce stores.




Using Bitly to Track Social Media Campaigns

Tracking social media campaigns can be done through the social media platform, however, the analytics are sometimes lacking.  The only demographics offered by Facebook ad manager are the age and gender of the audience who viewed the ad.  By creating a Bitlink to insert into the ad, you would be able to track the clicks, geographical data, unique visitors, referrers, and the number of times your link has been shared.  Bitly doesn’t track age and gender, however, this information is offered by the ad manager, so they do work hand in hand.  Bitlinks work great with Twitter due to the 140 character limit.




Bitlinks can also be used in conjunction with Google Analytics by adding UTM parameters to your link using Google link builder and then shortening the link with Bitly.  Some users find discrepancies in the data reported by Bitly and GA, however, Vogt says that

“Bitly records click data, Google Analytics reports on Page views and sessions. Google also samples data, while Bitly does not. In other words, Google will take a sample of your data and extrapolate that to estimate what it would be at 100%. With Bitly, you’ll see every click that occurs.” (2016)

Personally, I have used Bitlinks to track how many clicks I am receiving on links inserted in social media posts.  This allows me to see how many people are seeing my content and where they are coming from.  With the decline in organic views of posts on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, this allows me to see how many people are engaging with my content in a real time basis.  I can also use the same link in newsletters and other media posts.  Doing this will allow me to see the referrers on these posts so I can analyze the best networks to post these links.  I have also used bitlinks to monitor how many people have clicked on the link to my store to pay a retainer for mini sessions.  I can then track to see how many conversions I have had from the overall clicks on the link.  I can add the link to my store in my newsletters and see how many people have been referred from there.

Bitly vs. Google Analytics (Goo.gl)

As stated by Bitly on their blog,

“Bitly works as a layer on top of Google Analytics. We offer a quick way for businesses and individuals of all analytical skill levels to pull real-time data. Google Analytics offers more customizable dashboards for those looking to take a deeper dive into their analytics. The two offer different views that work together to give you a better understanding of the traffic and conversions that drive your business.” (Vogt, 2016)

Google Analytics offers a more macro experience for analyzing data on websites, blogs, and even social media platforms.  Bitly cannot compare with the number of fields GA can monitor in depth that are important to an analyst to determine a course of action to take with website pages or blogs to help improve the flow of traffic.  What Bitly offers is a user-friendly platform that benefits users who aren’t capable or interested in the macro details that are offered by GA.  The limited number of analytics in Bitly can help a small business owner determine which campaigns are doing better than others, this information can determine the type of future ads the business should run. 

Google also offers a link shortener like Bitly called Goo.gl which has a more comprehensive breakdown of the link clicks.  The downside to Goo.gl is that all the links you shorten are public which means the analytics to these links are also public.  Goo.gl also does not offer customized short links unlike Bitly.  Another downside to Goo.gl is the fact you cannot delete links, you can only hide links. 


Works cited:
Bitly. (2016).  10 METRICS YOU CAN SEE IN YOUR BITLY DASHBOARD. Retrieved from https://bitly.com/blog/bitly-dashboard/.
Bitly. (2017). What is Bitly? Retrieved from https://support.bitly.com/hc/en-us/articles/230895688-What-is-Bitly-.
S. Vogt. (2016). BITLY VS. GOOGLE ANALYTICS. Retrieved from https://bitly.com/blog/bitly-vs-google-analytics/.


Comments

  1. Erin HigginsFebruary 7, 2018 at 3:36 PM

    Hi Amy,

    I frequently use Bitly to manage my social media campaigns and traffic to specific blog articles we publish. While GA does offer data into Facebook and Twitter as referrers, I like the user-friendly views that Bitly offers.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UnknownFebruary 13, 2018 at 1:22 PM

      Hi Erin! I absolutely agree. The Bitly dashboard is better for giving a user friendly overall view. In addition to being user friendly, it is also more convenient for making decisions quickly. An example of this being useful is determining if you should continue boosting a campaign on social media or cut it short. This would allow the business to allot more money towards an ad that is performing better or try something different with the current ad and then reboost.

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