Why you need a URL shortener

You're sharing links, but you have no idea when people are actually clicking them, and that's costing you. Every link you share, whether through an email campaign or social media posts, tells a story. When did people click? How many times did they click? And from where did they click? Apart from keeping your links clean and attractive, a URL shortener also gives you valuable data to help you optimize your marketing efforts.

Let's say you send out an email campaign every evening and include a short link. The next day you can see how many people actually clicked that call to action link in your email. With Ke.pe as your URL shortener you can even see a breakdown by the hour. You find out that your audience mostly clicked your CTA in the evening, their peak activity time, just before you sent out your campaign. Unfortunately, your email got buried under an entire day of emails. But with that new insight, you send your next email campaign just before your audience's peak activity time. The result? Your email gets to the top of their inbox when they're actually checking. And you get a nice boost to your conversion rate.

Not only do URL shorteners like Ke.pe give data to fine tune your media delivery times, but they also give you geographical and referral data. If you're not popular in one region, the wise move would be to cut spending for ads there and double down where you've got fans. And referral data helps you figure out where clicks are coming from. Did someone embed your link to their website or share it on a social media platform? With URL shortener analytics you can know.

Not only that, but if you combine a URL shortener with a tool like Google Analytics, you can even follow the entire customer journey on your website. Add UTM parameters to your destination URL that is using Google Analytics (which can make for a long and ugly looking URL), then shorten it using Ke.pe. You can then combine your link data with Google Analytics data to get an amazingly sharp picture of your user journey.

In short, a URL shortener is an essential tool that will help you optimize your marketing spend and efforts by shedding some light on your audience's needs and behavior.

Try Ke.pe for free to start enhancing your marketing efforts today!

Key Terms

URL Shortener: A tool that takes a long, unwieldy URL and turns it into a short, clean link that's easy to share. The best ones also track who's clicking and when.

CTA (Call to Action): The part of your email, ad, or post that asks the reader to do something — click a link, sign up, buy now. It's the moment where interest turns into action.

Conversion Rate: The percentage of people who actually do the thing you wanted them to do after clicking your link. More clicks don't mean much if nobody follows through.

UTM Parameters: Extra bits of text you add to the end of a URL that tell Google Analytics exactly where your traffic came from. They look messy, which is why you shorten the link afterward.

Referral Data: Information that shows you where your clicks originated — whether someone found your link on social media, in an email, or embedded on another website.

Google Analytics: A free tool from Google that tracks what visitors do on your website. Pair it with a URL shortener and UTM parameters, and you can follow the full journey from click to customer.

Peak Activity Time: The window of time when your audience is most active and engaged online. Knowing this lets you stop guessing and start posting when people are actually paying attention.