6 Creative Ways To Use Branded Redirect Links With Bitly

6 Creative Ways To Use Branded Redirect Links With Bitly

Two smartphones showcasing how link redirects work.
Two smartphones showcasing how link redirects work.

When you usually think of redirecting a link, you’re probably thinking about correcting the URL or migrating a web page from one place to another.

However, many businesses are starting to use redirects for more, especially as part of their marketing strategies.

Links are a powerful marketing asset, and redirecting links can help create a dynamic digital marketing strategy across different customer touchpoints. Add in Bitly’s ability to create branded redirects, and you get powerful results.

We’ve seen customers use branded link redirects for all sorts of cool things. We’ll share those with you in today’s post, but first, let’s talk about what branded redirect links are and why you should add them to your marketing strategy (if you’re not using them already).

Traditional redirects fix problems for website owners, like what to do if a page gets deleted, moved, or renamed. Chances are, the original URL to that damaged or old page is already out there on the internet somewhere. When people click on it, you don’t want them to land on something that’s broken (or just not there at all). 

So, a redirect pushes people from the old URL (the damaged page) to a different URL (the new page); however you specify. And with the right partner, you can pull this off without any web development skills.

Technically, there are different types of redirects: temporary redirects and permanent redirects. The two work slightly differently, but the functional difference isn’t hard to guess. For our purposes today, though, we don’t need to go any deeper into 301 redirects, 302 redirects, or other technical jargon.

Back to branded redirects: In recent years, redirects have gained popularity as a marketing tool, not just a fix for broken stuff. This new generation of redirects leverages URL shortening, a powerful, user-friendly technique that makes interacting with your brand easier without punishing SEO. Combining a rather utilitarian function (redirects) with an already-powerful marketing tool (short URLs).

You’ve probably seen short links as you navigate through digital spaces, including ones from us: those bit.ly/ followed by a few letters and numbers? Yeah, we do those. They give businesses a short, reliable URL to redirect to whatever content or landing page they want.

A branded redirect link does the same thing, but it looks different: It looks like a part of your brand (because it is a part of your brand). It’s essentially a custom vanity URL that ties into your brand, but that you’re using as a redirect.

So with a branded redirect link, your audience could see [yourdomain].co/ instead of bit.ly. The letters and numbers at the end will still be there, but your audience will instantly recognize that the link is tied to your brand.

Ready to take your links to the next level?

Maximize your online impact with the powerful Bitly URL shortener.

Get started

Branded redirect links have all sorts of uses and deliver all kinds of benefits to your brand:

Increases brand awareness

Building brand awareness is a huge deal, especially if you’re a smaller, newer, or disruptive business within your market. If people have never heard of you prior to the ad they’re currently viewing, they’re bound to be skeptical.

Seeing a jumbled mess of a link doesn’t exactly help that skepticism. But seeing a polished branded redirect? It makes you look more official, legit, and organized.

Improves click-through rates

Most internet users are aware enough to be nervous about clicking unfamiliar links. That’s a good thing for internet security, but it’s not so good for businesses that want viewers to click on legitimate, but unfamiliar, links.

When your redirecting link looks like a part of your brand, you cut through this skittishness—and improve your click-through rate.

Provides better tracking and analytics

A branded redirect short link gives you powerful ways to track analytics over time. For example, you can A/B test in a way you never could before: Switch the redirect link on an ad between two landing pages and measure the conversion rate of both, helping you focus your marketing message so it converts better and more consistently.

Learn more about how Bitly provides tracking and analytics data.

Offers a consistent brand experience

Last, branded links create a consistent brand experience: every time your audience sees a link, it looks like you. And by using those links carefully as redirects, you can keep better control of the user experience provided by your various landing pages and destinations.

We hope that, at this point, you’re convinced that using branded redirect links is a strategic move. But how do you actually use them effectively?

Check out these six creative methods for using branded redirecting links—all possible with Bitly.

1. Social media profiles

One of our favorite link redirecting link strategies is on Instagram. Mashable uses the same Bitly link to drive people to the content that corresponds with the latest post. On the back end, Mashable can just redirect this link every time a new post is posted.

The link stays the same, and the team can check which content drives the most engagement over time.

You can use redirects on Facebook, Twitter, and all your social media profiles.

That way, you can make sure that people are sent to the freshest content, but you don’t have to actually go into each social profile to change the URL to something new.

2. Sales specials

Do you host different sales each week? What about every single day? Are you promoting them across digital, mobile, search engines like Google, and offline channels? It might seem difficult to do this effectively, given that the content on your website is constantly changing to reflect the new sales.

A branded redirect link lets you use the same link for every sale: you can just redirect it to the new URL rather than updating the creative on a static sales page.

For example, imagine you had taken out a magazine ad, a subway ad, and had an ongoing digital campaign to promote new sales. Some of those ads will live for quite a while, even if you need to change the content, end the sale, start a new one, and so forth.

Using Bitly branded links, you could use [yourdomain].is/sales as an evergreen link that always leads to the latest sales page. It doesn’t matter which month (or even year) someone reads that magazine ad and types in the link: it keeps working, redirecting to whatever you select.

Using an evergreen link like this also allows you to gather analytics and optimize the page for the best possible customer experience—and conversions.

3. Recurring content

You can redirect links to content that changes regularly. For example, this can help if you have regular training webinars or product webinars with different landing pages each time.

At Bitly, we use bitly.is/enterprisedemo as the main link to the latest landing page to sign up for a Bitly Enterprise demo. Whenever we add a new demo, we redirect the link to the new landing page. If we don’t have one scheduled, we redirect the link to a recording of the demo.

We do have to make sure we keep on top of this redirect link. But it’s a powerful tactic that saves us tons of headaches we’d encounter if we distributed every demo using unique links.

4. Company resources

If you’re promoting a careers page, working on training materials, or sharing the latest benefits to employees, you know that things change. And when they change, updating all of the material can be a pain.

By using one link that you redirect each time, you can share updated benefits packages, training processes, job listings, and more without having to go to the company intranet, LinkedIn, or partner pages to change the details in each individual place.

Whenever someone wants to share a job posting or look up company benefits, they can just click the same link each time to get the most up-to-date information.

5. Press

If you want to showcase the latest press releases, interviews, or placements in publications, you can use a redirecting link to have one static destination for all your PR materials. This keeps everyone coming back to the right location—and focused on the current news.

For example, bitly.is/press links to our press room. We can share that link as our PR link whenever someone wants to see the latest press about our company.

The cool thing is we can do whatever we want with that link on the back end: If we decide we want to start showing off a new product launch, press release, interview, or customer testimonial video, we can redirect the link there.

6. Sales collateral

Many companies have a problem keeping sales and marketing aligned. Sales agents might be using dated materials or pointing to sales you’re no longer running, creating headaches for everyone.

Branded redirects are a novel solution. If you have one link that sales team members can use that always redirects to the most recent sales deck, testimonial video, or promotions page, you can help keep things streamlined.

This can help especially well if the team is pushing one certain product or feature or has just launched new branding, and you want to make sure that it’s easy for sales to keep getting the most recent files and information.

Redirects with Bitly: silent, but effective

If you’re a Bitly Enterprise user, our handy redirect link generator makes it easy for you to create a forwarding link and change its destination later on. All you have to do to redirect a link is click the “Redirect” button.

We’ve talked a bit about how the marketing team here at Bitly uses Bitly Enterprise in our day-to-day. Since we spend so much time in the product, we redirect links a lot. The best part about a redirecting link is that it’s completely seamless.

An orange arrow pointing out the redirect feature in the Bitly app.

Sometimes, we’ve even shared the wrong thing or an update has gone live that points to the wrong destination. No need to panic, though: All we have to do in this case is redirect the link to the right place. Link redirects happen instantly, which opens opportunities to experiment and continually personalize the customer experience based on the latest A/B tests, brand positioning, or product packaging.

Link redirects don’t just help with marketing assets; they help your customer’s browser get to the right place—even if that place changes on a daily basis.

Crafting branded redirect links is a powerful addition to your marketing strategy. But you’ll need a partner to execute any of these tactics at scale.

Bitly provides a powerful backend for managing your short links. There you can convert any short link to a redirect link with a single click. When you need to change the destination, you can do so in Bitly—no coding or advanced web design knowledge required. 

We offer four self-serve plans for brands of all sizes. Find the package that’s right for your business here! But if you want to do even more, Bitly Enterprise offers an API that gives you the power to create links at scale and transform your marketing efforts with killer redirect links.

Explore what Bitly Enterprise can do for you.