More and more, advertisers are using Google Analytics to traffic the traffic that comes to them from a digital campaign. While Google Analytics is a great tool for analyzing what your website traffic does once they get to your website, it has its limitations. To read more on these issues, click here.
For example, you can’t tell exactly where traffic to your website came from, down to a specific advertising source (a click on a website ad, a view through from seeing an add and typing in your website URL directly, etc.), unless you use a UTM tracking code on your digital ads.
Ok then, advertisers should use UTM codes, right? Well, they have limitations as well – in fact, a lot of limitations. To read more on those issues, click here.
So what’s another option? Create a Bit.ly link to track clicks on your ad. All you have to do is take the website landing page URL of where you want people to land when they click an ad, and make it into a Bit.ly link and then you can track those clicks on your Bit.ly dashboard page and then compare those to your monthly digital campaign reports you receive and there you have an additional way to track clicks! And it’s all FREE.
Here’s how to do it:
1. Go to www.bit.ly and sign up for a free account.
2. It will take you to your own dashboard page (see below). Click CREATE BITLINK.
3. It will open up a dialogue box. Type in the URL of the webpage you want people to land on when they click, then click the orange CREATE box at the bottom.
4. Type in a TITLE for this bitlink like, “Digital Campaign”, then click the orange COPY button at the top, then click the orange SAVE button at the bottom.
Now you just give that link to us to use for the digital campaign. Simple!
To see how many clicks you are getting you just log-in to www.bit.ly and it will show you the bitlink and keep track of clicks, like this:
One thing to keep in mind is that this is only going to track clicks on an ad, it will not track traffic that the campaign sends from a view through. However, this is a great way to avoid UTM issues and for advertisers to track clicks in addition to the information they are getting from their digital campaign reports each month.
