As a digital marketer there are hundreds of small changes that can make a huge impact on the efficiency, the effectiveness and the ultimate outcome of their marketing efforts. Everything from centralizing all their marketing links to one location to having advanced redirect tools funnel traffic to various locations through one marketing link.  Having the ability to alter, edit or update an existing link can change a time consuming and tedious task into one that takes minutes.

Most marketing teams have multiple channels with several channels all running at once. This means there could be thousands of marketing links live at one time; some links in multiple channels and platforms.  No matter the reason if a traditional marketing link needs to be updated, changed or edited this will require a digital marketer to take the link down from where it has been posted (this can be across multiple platforms in several channels). The link will be edited or completely replaced only to have been distributed throughout the marketing portfolio of channels and platforms.

An easy alternative to this monotonous style of updating marketing links. With ClickMeter, digital marketers have access to many tools some of which can overshadow the importance of having editing capabilities of their marketing links. With ClickMeter, the marketer can replace the destination URL with a tracking link. The tracking link is a short link or a dedicated domain tracking link that is used in place of the destination URL. When a visitor clicks the tracking link, ClickMeter records the data and the visitor is immediately redirected to the destination URL.

With the ClickMeter dashboard, users have the ability to change the destination URL from the dashboard without having to reconcile all the different links across multiple channels and platforms.  The processes of changing or editing a destination URL is now as simple as making one change within the dashboard and having each link no matter its location update as well.

Updating & editing a tracking link is not just limited to the destination URL. From the dashboard, a digital marketer can redirect the tracking link based on geography, device, first, click etc… All the tools available through the ClickMeter dashboard can be used to update and edit existing links.

The power of editing provides digital marketers the advantage to update or change the link when needed, at any time, within minutes. This is a distinct and real competitive advantage for digital marketers.

Bit.ly, Goo.gl, and other popular URL shorteners

Most famous URL shorteners including Bitly and Goo.gl do not allow you to change the destination URL (landing page) once your short link has been created. You will eventually have to create a new link and use it in your ad or marketing message, that is not always possible since you not always have access to sent messages (eg.: emails).

Some cases why is useful to change a destination URL

• You send an email to several people and then realize that the link in the call to action is wrong or inexact
• You have an AdWords campaign in place and want to update the landing page of one or more ads. If you do it from your AdWords control panel, Google will delete all the stats for that ad and will take time to re-approve the ad (it may take long especially for video and banner ads). If you update it from ClickMeter dashboard you don’t lose the stats and don’t have to wait for approval.
• You have several links online from past messages or ads and some or all of that links are not pointing visitors to the right page(s), is useful to have a centralized console where to monitor and update all the links that are producing traffic.
• A/B test redirect
• Redirect by device (Tablet, Phone or PC)

I’m sure there are many other ways to benefit from editing your marketing links after they have been created and published online. Share your ideas in the comments section…

Further Reading:

• What is a URL shortener?
• How to edit or delete a tracking link
• Real-Time Reporting: Agile Optimization

This blog post is about:

• Editing marketing links
• Custom URL
• Optimize marketing campaigns
• Marketing optimization

Originally published: July 3rd, 2015.
Updated: January 30th, 2019.