You share a link in a newsletter, on a poster and in a social post. A week later, traffic is up, but which one worked? Here are two simple tools that answer that question: short links that count clicks, and UTM parameters that tell your website analytics where visitors came from.
Short links count every click
When a link goes through a link service, the service sees each visit before redirecting it. That means it can record the click even if the destination is someone else’s website, where you have no analytics of your own.
In Bikto, every short link and trackable QR code records:
- the time of the visit;
- the approximate location: country, region and city;
- the device type, operating system, browser and language;
- the referring website or app, when the browser shares it.
You can view these by date range, compare links, see a weekly heatmap and follow new visits in realtime. Bikto never stores visitors’ IP addresses with visit records; unique visitors are counted with a one-way hash. Read more on the link analytics page.
UTM parameters tell your website where visitors came from
If the destination is your own website, your website analytics can attribute visits too, as long as the link says where it was shared. That is what UTM parameters do. They are tags added to the end of a URL:
https://example.com/spring?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=spring-sale
- utm_source: where the link was placed, such as
newsletter,instagramorposter. - utm_medium: the type of channel, such as
email,socialorprint. - utm_campaign: the campaign name, such as
spring-sale. - utm_term and utm_content (optional): a keyword, or which variant of an ad or link was clicked.
Most website analytics tools read these automatically and group visits by them.
Use both together
UTM parameters make URLs long and messy, which is a problem in print and in places that show the full address. A short link solves that: put the long UTM-tagged URL behind a short one.
In Bikto, open a link, expand UTM parameters, fill in the fields and apply them to the destination. The short link stays the same, and both Bikto and your website analytics now know where the visit came from.
Give each placement its own link or QR code
The most reliable way to compare channels is to give each one its own link. For printed material, create a separate trackable QR code for each poster, flyer or package, even when they all lead to the same page. Bikto counts each QR code separately, so you can see which placement brings visits.
A few naming habits that help
- Use lowercase and hyphens:
spring-sale, notSpring Sale. - Decide on your source and medium names once and reuse them.
- Tag links in Bikto by campaign so you can find them later.
Ready to try it? Create a short link or a trackable QR code for free.