Digital advertising is now the primary way that companies market to their customers. It is a targeted method of reaching a customer base across several different channels. It’s also easy to measure, which makes it appealing to small businesses looking to boost their awareness in a local community. After all, you have a much better chance of improving your marketing efforts if you’re narrowed in on one central population than you do if you’re focused on everyone.
Tracking links and URLs are one common method of determining how effective your current marketing activities and campaigns are. Once you know where all of your website traffic is coming from, you can leverage this knowledge to improve your advertising campaigns and focus on the populations and demographics that matter to your pest control business.
In this blog, we’ll discuss what tracking links are and how you can use them to boost business. Let’s get started.
What is a tracking link or URL?
Tracking links report the effectiveness of different marketing activities. You can use different tracking links for website pages, blog posts, social media links, ads, emails, and telephone numbers. You’ll place a tracking link on a page or post when you launch it and then be able to view the data and analytics of who viewed those items. It helps companies gauge how their marketing efforts perform and which are the most effective overall.
What’s the point of a tracking link?
Tracking links are useful because they tell you which traffic is coming through your website normally and which are coming through your marketing activities. Without a way to differentiate this, you’ll have no idea if your website is driving traffic from social media sites or if your pay-per-click ads (PPC) are doing all the heavy lifting.
For example, if you run a promotion for a pest control service on a Facebook Ad, you’ll naturally want to see how that promotion did. Did it drive a lot of traffic? Is it worth doing again? Was it a complete waste of money? When you’re a small business, spending even a small portion of your marketing money can make a big difference. If it didn’t drive the traffic anticipated, it may be worth redirecting those funds to another department.
Although website analytics can give you some insight into the data behind the traffic, it won’t give you as much as a tracking code on this particular Facebook Ad. And – don’t worry – while that is a specific example of how you can use tracking links in advertising there are lots of other ways too. It goes well beyond social media!
Here are a few examples:
Use tracking links in emails to determine the click-through rate to your website or email promotions
Track blog posts you share on social media
Which social media site gives you the most traffic?
Track online advertisements to see which are the most successful
Is it worth it to pay for ads?
Partner with other websites for featured blogs or articles
Track these articles to see if your website gains traffic. If yes, continue to pursue this vehicle of exposure
How does link tracking work?
The process of link tracking is simple for both you and your customer. In fact, they won’t even know it’s happening. When a user clicks on a tracked link, their connection will first pass through whichever tracking service you’ve selected. The tracking service will log information about the click (location, device, time, etc.) and then redirect the user to their final destination. It’s quick and simple; the user doesn’t even know it’s happened.
When you do this, it’s best to use a vanity URL (also known as a vanity link). This is a shortened, customized, branded tracking link that redirects to another URL. It improves click-through rates because users can see where they’re going before they click and also improves brand awareness because users can see your brand (even if they don’t click). When you use a vanity URL, all the tracking links will stay on your domain.
How do I create a tracking link?
Okay, so there are plenty of benefits of using tracking links for your pest control website, but how do you actually create one?
For the most part, the easiest way to create a tracking URL is to work with a service that has this capability. Some examples are HubSpot, Linkly, and ThriveHive (these are just a few!). The benefit of using a service like Linkly is that it connects directly to Google Analytics because of Google Analytics’ featured called UTM tags. If you’re already using Google Analytics (which a lot of companies are) then this is a huge advantage. It makes it quick and easy to integrate link tracking into your existing process.
Is there ever a time when I shouldn’t use tracking links?
To be honest…no. Whenever you’re directing traffic on the internet, it’s in your best interest to use tracking links. It allows you to measure the performance of your marketing activity, and it doesn’t burden your customers. After all, they aren’t even aware of it because it just runs the link through the service you use to collect the data.
Final thoughts
Tracking links for your company can give you the marketing data you’ve been missing to take your advertising to the next level. Don’t be afraid to use this insight to alter your tactics to what’s been shown to work.
For all your marketing needs, LeaseMyMarketing is here to help. Reach out to us with any questions.