- Link Management
- Redirects
- Tracking And Reporting
- Fraud Protection
1. Link Management
The platform’s link management tools are robust and all-inclusive. It allows users to do everything from shortening links to redirecting them and a whole lot in between. The software’s core functionality of link shortening is an easy feature to use. The only mandatory step is to paste in the destination URL where you want your links to go. Once done, the software generates a shortened link you can use in place of the one you provided.
Along with this, the app has several other link management features too. For one, you can add retargeting pixels to your links, so you can hit visitors with targeted ads even after they have left your site or have finished visiting your link. This widely used and profitable marketing tool is an excellent way for marketers to fine-tune their advertisements and cater to their target audience.
For another, Linkly allows you to change OG (Open Graph) tags for every link you share on social media. This flexibility means that you can manipulate everything from the title and description of your content to the image being displayed with your link on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. This linking makes your content more eye-catching, but it also lets consumers know what it is all about with one glance.
Besides, Linkly allows users to create branded links or vanity URLs that help associate the links they share with their brand. If you have one, you can add a custom domain to the system, and the software will generate a custom link. The branded link comes with a suffix that you can edit to your liking. Helpfully, the company’s reps will help you set up a domain if you don’t have one, for free. You will also find domain-specific instructions for providers such as GoDaddy and NameCheap that will help you faultlessly connect the two systems.
2. Redirects
There are plenty of link-redirecting options available with Linkly. First, the software allows you to redirect traffic based on the country. This is especially beneficial for businesses that already know their target audience and geographical market. You can also segregate traffic according to a user’s device. The software has options for iOS, Android, Windows, Linux, and Mac devices. Second, you can redirect a slice of the traffic to alternate link destinations. What’s great is that you can manipulate the traffic such that it is a 50/50, 60/40, or 70/20 split according to your liking. You can use this feature to run an A/B test on your links to see which one is generating more conversions.
Third, automatic link replacements are also possible with this platform. Here, the software will replace all the links on your site with system-generated ones. The process is a relatively simple one as it only requires you to list out the URLs you need replacing on your website. This feature not only helps you save time but is also a fail-safe mechanism in case of link rot or death. Link rot or death is when a link is unable to take visitors to its original destination due to the web page or server being taken down or relocated. Furthermore, the software can also automatically replace words or phrases on your website with links, another time-saving feature.
Fourth, if you want to hide your URL destination from your visitors, Linkly allows you to cloak or mask your link. Doing this will cause the landing page to be displayed in an iFrame, effectively hiding the URL. However, this feature should be used with caution as some websites prevent masking to block spammers and hackers. Helpfully, the software will alert you if your entered destination is one that disallows cloaked links. And finally, you can assign a referrer tag to your links, so you know which websites are sending traffic your way. Alternatively, if, for some reason, you want to hide your traffic source, the software allows you to do that too by wiping any HTTP referer headers from your links. Another time-saving tool is that most of these features can be set to default, so you do not have to configure them every time you add a new link.
3. Tracking And Reporting
The platform has two central reporting dashboards, namely the links and traffic dashboards. Both give you an overview of your marketing activities, allowing you to see how your links are performing with one glance. With the link tracking, there are close to 20 data columns available. These data columns range from metrics such as clicks over the last 30 days to conversions and Google Analytics data. You can add and delete columns according to what data is critical to you. However, you cannot rearrange the position of the columns. Helpfully, if you have opted to display a lot of data columns, the software has a slider at the bottom of the screen that lets you view them all easily. You can also copy columns with the click of a button.
Linkly’s traffic dashboard is a very visual one as the data is represented in graphical form. The software uses a combination of bar graphs and sparkline charts to display essential metrics. While total conversions are represented numerically and as a bar graph, a comparative look at past and present click traffic is shown as sparkline charts embossed over each other. Importantly, all the different metrics are color-coded so that there is a clear demarcation between them. This color-coding makes it both easy to understand and pleasing to the eye. Also, you can filter the view by showing unique clicks or choosing to include robot views. Below the graph, data is also represented in tabular form. The system also allows you to export these reports as an Excel sheet.
4. Fraud Protection
As mentioned above, the software can differentiate between genuine clicks and traffic coming from search bots and spiders. The traffic tab even displays all the known bots Linkly has tracked (the app can identify over 200 different bots). You can block the bots from accessing your links if you want to exclude these results from your data. Once blocked, the software shows search spiders that try to access your link a ‘Not Found’ or ‘404’ message. However, if you are posting links to social media, you are best served by not using this feature as the social media bots create helpful previews of your links and give you spam protection.
