This feature is only available in the Pro version of Independent Analytics.
When generating a campaign URL with the required UTM parameters, the URL can become very long. This can look ugly when you have to paste the full URL somewhere, like a social media post.
In order to make the link more appealing, you can use a link shortener. We would like to include a link shortener in IA Pro in a future update, but for now, we recommend Short.io, which has a very generous free plan.
An example
Here’s an example of what a full-length campaign URL might look like:
https://independentwp.com/?utm_source=Example.me&utm_medium=Example&utm_campaign=Example
Using a free link shortener like this one, you could turn it into a shortened URL like this:
https://shorturl.at/xVRcw
When a visitor clicks on this link, they will be redirected to the full-length URL, and your campaign data will still get recorded by Independent Analytics Pro.
While this does effectively shorten the URL, there are a couple of ways to make it look nicer. First, it helps if you can customize the slug to make it readable, and it’s even better if you can brand the domain too.
With Short.io, you can use a custom domain for your shortened links. For example, we use iawp.io as a short, branded URL for our own redirects. This allows us to create shortened links that look like this:
https://iawp.io/cool-campaign-here
Using a branded domain looks more professional, and you have full control over the URL slug this way.
It is extremely difficult to find a .com domain under five characters long, so we recommend checking other TLDs like .io and .org too.