Affiliate marketing helps individuals and small businesses generate income by promoting third-party products and services. Content creators use affiliate links to sponsor their affiliate programs.
If you’re an experienced affiliate marketer, you’re likely looking for efficient ways to handle long, unwieldy affiliate links, improve click-through rates, track clicks, and enhance your marketing strategies with minimal effort.
With an affiliate link shortener, you can conveniently manage your affiliate campaigns and boost your engagement rate. Here are some reasons why an affiliate link shortener may be best for you.
What is an affiliate link?
An affiliate link is a link that directs someone to buy an online product. An affiliate link looks just like any other link you would find online. The difference is these links are designed to track marketers’ performance.
If someone clicks on a link and makes a purchase, who gets credit for the sale? The concept of affiliate marketing is about revenue sharing, so being able to track affiliate transactions is what makes the program work.
All affiliate marketing links include the ordinary URL of the vendor plus a unique ID linked back to your website.
How do affiliate links work?
Affiliate links are created by affiliates or through affiliate marketing apps. They point back to a product or service the marketer is promoting.
You can spot an affiliate URL simply by hovering your mouse over it. It will contain the vendor URL followed by a seemingly unintelligible list of characters.
It’s these characters that pertain to a specific publisher participating in an affiliate marketing program.
The way it works is simple. Someone clicks on the link, and if they make a purchase, the vendor will see the unique ID. This tells them that they found their product or service through you.
When a sale gets credited back to you, you’ll receive a portion of that sale in line with that specific program.
Leveraging affiliate networks
Affiliate marketing networks connect content creators and companies or publishers and merchants, respectively. By joining an affiliate network, you open yourself up to opportunities to connect with thousands of different affiliate programs.
It’s the easiest way to get into affiliate marketing. Rather than searching for legitimate programs individually, you can simply pick and choose from a single portal.
This is the first step any aspiring affiliate marketer will take, but how do you make the most of it?
Figure out who your target audience is and decide which products they will like. Don’t automatically choose the programs offering the largest commissions: Think about what your readers would like to buy and ensure the product you’re helping to promote is something you would use yourself.
Using link tracking tools
It’s important for marketers to track the performance of affiliate links. In doing so, they can figure out which campaigns are productive and make timely adjustments for the campaigns that aren’t.
Fortunately, user-friendly linking tools like Bitly make it easy to determine the virality of affiliate links. With Bitly, you can track the performance of one or 100 different affiliate links from one central platform.
Maximizing click-through rates
Creating engaging content is half the battle in affiliate marketing. Marketers have to convince readers to actually click on their links. There are many ways to approach this goal:
- You should create informative content to build trust. When your readers trust you, they’re more likely to trust your product recommendations.
- Your affiliate links should be clear and compelling. Make sure you’re clear about what they are and why they should engage with them.
- Consider strategic link placements. Much like SEO keywords, affiliate links should be naturally included in your content and provide a helpful segue for the reader.
Use cases for affiliate link shorteners
URL shorteners aren’t just useful in affiliate marketing campaigns. Here are some more ways you can use this marketing tool:
Social media posts
Social media influencers and brands can use an affiliate link shortener to produce cleaner links in posts to improve user experience and track engagement effectively.
For example, let’s say that you want to add a website URL to your Instagram bio. Instead of using a long, awkward link in your bio, you can add a short branded link.
These concise links are easier to remember and provide convenient access to any of your marketing channels to boost conversions and referrals.
A/B testing
You can also use an affiliate link shortener to conduct an A/B test. If you’re split-testing two different website elements, you can track the results of your content and make adjustments.
For example, if you’re testing two different blogs that promote the same product, you can perform an A/B test to see which is better. If you use an affiliate link shortener, you can customize each link and see which one leads to better results.
Email marketing
One of the best use cases of an affiliate link shortener is for email marketing. These tools can contribute to cleaner, more professional-looking emails and the ability to track the success of different links and content.
With an affiliate link shortener, you can use branded links to promote your products and services. Say goodbye to long and random links that are difficult for your audience to trust.
Benefits of using an affiliate link shortener
Using an affiliate link shortener makes it convenient to share and manage affiliate links. Here are some of the benefits of using an affiliate link shortener:
Better link management
With an affiliate link shortener, you can keep track of your links and keep them organized for long campaigns. For example, if you’re creating a ton of sponsored content, an affiliate link shortener can help you keep track of every link you use and track their performance.
Improved branding
Affiliate link shorteners allow users to fully customize branded links. If you own your own domain name, you can add whatever back-half you want to them.
For example, you can use an affiliate link shortener to categorize your links according to the products you’re promoting. Ex: www.domain.com/Amazon-blender
Better analytics
What’s more, affiliate link shorteners provide a complete view of each link’s performance. With cutting-edge analytics, you can study user behavior and adjust your campaigns in real time.
Many affiliate link-shortening tools provide a wide range of metrics, such as engagements, visitor location, referring source, and device.
Increased security
Link shorteners can add a layer of security to protect against spam and fraud. Believe it or not, many malicious actors can take advantage of unsuspecting people by publishing fraudulent links and QR Codes.
If you create custom links, they’re more difficult to duplicate. On top of that, your audience is more likely to trust them and believe they came from you.
Higher engagement rates
Using short and branded links is essential for achieving higher engagement on your social media platforms.
The easier it is for your audience to recognize your custom URLs, the more likely they are to use them whenever they encounter your brand.
Using Bitly as your affiliate link shortener
Bitly is one of the top affiliate URL-shortening services on the market. With Bitly, you can easily create and customize your affiliate links, all from one platform. Here is how you can get started:
1. Create a Bitly account
Signing up for a Bitly account has never been easier. You can even register for a free account. Alternatively, you can choose from any of Bitly’s premium plans that suit your needs.
2. Shorten your affiliate link
Use Bitly’s easy link-shortening tools to customize your branded links. Note that you can only use the bit.ly domain with a free account.
With a premium account, you can use your custom domain. In either case, you can insert a long URL and generate a short link with a customized back-half:
www.domain.com/buy-a-free-mug
3. Customize your shortened link
With Bitly, you can shorten affiliate links any way you see fit. You can even add branded keywords in the back half.
Alternatively, you can insert hashtags and keywords to make your links viral and SEO-friendly. Advanced users can even use our API to create short links in bulk. However you want to customize your affiliate links, Bitly gives you the freedom and functionality to make it happen.
4. Track your link’s performance
Marketers can use Bitly’s analytics to monitor link engagement and effectiveness. You can ensure your links’ performance meets your campaign’s key performance indicators (KPIs).
5. Share your shortened link
Businesses and individuals alike can use shortened URLs in a variety of ways. For example, you can share short URL links on your social media profiles, email campaigns, and even printed marketing materials.
The shorter your links are, the more handy they are in traditional and digital marketing campaigns.
Improve your affiliate links with Bitly
Bitly provides a convenient, versatile, and easy-to-use link-shortening tool for content creators, bloggers, and marketers. With Bitly, users can take advantage of handy features, which include link customization, tracking, and easy sharing.
Our tool helps both beginners and advanced marketers achieve better link management and performance tracking in affiliate marketing.
Ready to try Bitly for yourself? Explore our pricing plans to find the solution best for you.
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