Links bring your brand’s entire digital experience together, connecting marketing campaigns, ecommerce platforms, internal communications, and more. While they’re not flashy, they’re essential for moving your audience from place to place online.
Think of links like connective tissue or the framework of a building. They’re key to maintaining the structure of your digital marketing strategy, and without them, the whole thing falls apart.
As your brand grows, you’ll need a way to keep your links organized and track engagement levels. That’s where link management tools come in. These platforms help you generate links that are professional, consistent, and brand-aligned, and they also give you visibility into your link engagement via real-time click tracking and analytics.
Here’s how link management tools work, why your brand needs them as you scale, and how to make the most of their functionality.
Note: The brands and examples discussed below were found during our online research for this article
Key takeaways
- Link management tools help teams create, organize, update, and measure links and QR Codes across channels from one centralized platform.
- The value of link management increases as teams scale campaigns, stakeholders, and customer touchpoints.
- Link analytics show how audiences engage before they convert, complementing broader analytics platforms.
- Branded links and consistent destinations improve trust, clarity, and attribution across journeys.
- Choosing the right tool depends on workflow needs, scale, and how the platform fits into an existing analytics stack.
What a link management tool actually is
A link management tool is a digital platform for managing the entire lifecycle of links and QR Codes, from creation and organization to tracking and maintenance. It provides a centralized system for your links, so you don’t have to juggle them across multiple apps or complex spreadsheets.
With link management tools, you can create a library of organized links for new marketing campaigns and product launches. When everything is visible and all in one place, it’s easier to identify and fix broken links, supporting a positive user experience.
Within your link management platform, you can establish formatting and branding standards, so every short link looks professional. These tools also include tracking and analytics features that reveal how your audience is interacting with your links.
How link management differs from basic link shorteners
You might already be familiar with standard URL shorteners. These tools take long, complex URLs and shorten them for convenience and flexibility. This is helpful for fitting links into social media posts, text messages, and other spaces with a limited character count.
But these tools don’t usually have the customization and tracking features that fast-growing brands need. When you’re running multiple marketing campaigns or initiatives simultaneously, it’s easy for your links to get disorganized.
Link management tools, on the other hand, offer advanced features to support long-term brand growth. Unlike URL shorteners, link management tools typically provide customization and bulk generation capabilities, plus you can easily edit or reorganize links after creating them.
Many link management tools also have detailed analytics and governance features, which give you much-needed visibility and control.
Why link management is more than link tracking
Link tracking is one of many features that link management tools offer. Basic link tracking platforms focus on just counting link clicks or QR Code scans, but comprehensive link management platforms go deeper with real-time insights.
For example, Bitly’s link tracking features integrate with larger marketing and operations workflows. Instead of just tracking clicks, you can create and organize links and QR Codes by campaign. Short link tracking analytics show you click timing trends, locations (city/country), and referral sources to help you better understand your audience’s behavior and identify patterns.
Link management also provides helpful maintenance and governance features. Within your link management tool, you can:
- Identify and correct technical problems to keep links active.
- Edit shortened links and set up redirects as your campaigns evolve.
- Implement branding and governance standards for your team.
These guardrails ensure that every link is compliant with security standards and reflects your brand’s identity.
How link management tools work at a technical level
Link management tools start by taking your long URLs and shortening them into a concise, branded short URL. The link management tool stores both the short URL and the original destination URL internally in a database. When someone clicks on the short link, they are automatically redirected to the original destination URL.
With Bitly, you can generate a corresponding QR Code for each short link to use on print or in-person marketing materials. Additionally, you can upload a CSV file with your long URLs and generate short links in bulk, speeding up campaigns, website updates, and more.
You can also use tags to sort links into specific campaigns or other categories. Update your short links anytime as campaigns change, and Bitly will redirect users to the same final destination.
What happens when someone clicks or scans a managed link
When someone clicks on your short links or scans your QR Codes, Bitly logs that action in your database before redirecting the user to their final destination. Users are sent to their destination within seconds, but link management platforms capture plenty of valuable data in that short window.
With every click or scan, Bitly captures an engagement date, referral source, device type, and approximate location. Your team can then review this information with built-in short URL click tracking analytics. Every form of engagement is recorded, so you never miss a click or scan.
What link-level analytics can and cannot measure
Short links and QR Codes streamline your brand’s digital experience for customers, and they also provide helpful tracking features for your marketing team. Bitly Analytics helps you track real-time engagement metrics like click and scan volume, timing, and referral sources.
However, link management tools do not track advanced analytics. For things like conversion rates, ROI calculations, in-person activity, or form submissions, you’ll need to use other analytics tools or manual assessments.
In some cases, you can use integrations to incorporate link data with the rest of your marketing strategy. But it’s important to be realistic about what your link management solution can do and when you need to use an external platform.
Bitly integrates with popular CRMs and social media management tools, making it easier to connect link data with broader campaign performance. You can also use Bitly and Google Analytics together by adding UTM parameters to your short links. When you review your web traffic in Google Analytics, you’ll see where that traffic is coming from, so you can attribute it to the correct source.
Core link management features most teams need
Your specific needs will depend on your digital marketing strategy and goals, but there are some link management features that every team can benefit from. But when evaluating possible tools, don’t look at these features in a vacuum. Consider how they’ll fit into your existing workflows and if there are any conflicts with your current approach.
Branded links and domain customization
Top link management tools allow you to create custom URLs that align with your brand voice, rather than limiting you to generic domains and extensions. Ideally, you should be able to create a custom domain and edit the back-half of every link.
Generic domains can be a turn-off for your audience, as it’s not always clear where the link is going. Using a custom domain like yrbrnd.co rather than bit.ly builds trust with brand recognition.
Customizing the back half of each link gives users even more information about where the link is taking them. A URL like yrbrnd.co/summer-sale makes it clear to users that a click will take them to a promotional page with your brand’s sale items.
Scams are everywhere, and 75% of consumers are concerned for their own safety online, making them hesitant to click on links if they don’t recognize the domain. So this level of customization is necessary for building trust.
But be aware that link management tools (including Bitly) typically limit branded links to paid plans, so make sure you’re signing up for the correct tier to take advantage of this feature.
Centralized link analytics and reporting
Top link management tools serve as a centralized hub for your organization’s links, with detailed analytics to help you identify engagement trends. Over time, this data can help you identify which marketing strategies are generating the most engagement.
You’ll also learn more about your audience’s behavior and preferences. For example, you might find that your target audience is most likely to click on social media links at night, or that a lot of your engagement is coming from a specific region. With this information, you can optimize future campaigns to cater to your audience’s preferences and spark more engagement.
Centralized analytics also make reporting easier. You can pull data directly from your link management tool to highlight marketing wins and justify your budget for future campaigns.
Editable destinations and link maintenance
Your products, website, and marketing strategy will change as your brand grows, and your links will need to evolve too. So look for link management tools that allow you to edit short URLs after they’ve been published.
This will give you the flexibility you need to maintain a good user experience as you launch new campaigns. Error messages are a huge turnoff for consumers, so it’s important to keep your links active, even after campaigns have ended. In fact, 61% of people say that a single “off” moment on a website could cause them to lose trust in your brand.
There are plenty of use cases for editable links. If you make a mistake during the initial link building process, you can correct it quickly—no need to build new landing pages from scratch or redistribute your marketing assets.
With editable links, you can also reuse existing links for new marketing campaigns, or redirect users from outdated promotional offers to new ones. When you’re hosting a seasonal sale, you can edit the links from that campaign so they redirect to your home page after the sale ends.
Campaign organization and naming structure
As your online presence grows, it’s easy to end up with dozens or even hundreds of links scattered across platforms and accounts. Effective link management tools help you keep everything organized so links don’t get lost. This is particularly important when you have several departments working with the same platforms.
Folders and tags help you sort links by campaign, making it easy for teams to find the exact links they need. It’s a huge time-saver during busy workdays, and it also reduces the risk of creating multiple links for the same purpose, which can hurt attribution and ROI tracking.
With a link management tool, it’s easier to establish consistent naming conventions for your entire organization to use as well. Maybe you prefer to use a dash between words in your link back-halves, as it makes them easier to read. With pre-set naming conventions, you’ll keep link structure consistent across your entire organization, no matter who is generating the links.
QR Codes for offline-to-online engagement
QR Codes are an easy way to share digital content in offline settings. So look for link management tools that incorporate QR Code generation and management too.
When building your marketing campaigns, you can create corresponding QR Codes for each short link, then use these QR Codes on in-person marketing assets (like store signage, menus, billboards, or product packaging) to send viewers to your website. QR Codes have the same tracking and analytics features as short links, so you can see how your audience is interacting with them.
Advanced capabilities for larger or more complex teams
Some organizations will need more advanced features for link management, such as high-volume link management for global campaigns. If you’re in a highly-regulated industry, you might need specific features to meet compliance standards. These capabilities won’t be necessary for every organization, but can be very helpful as you scale your operations.
User permissions and governance controls
For large organizations, role-based user permissions support transparency and accountability. This feature limits who can edit and create new links based on their role, plus you can see who generated each link.
User permissions help prevent errors and duplicate links by limiting access to a few specific people in your organization. These users can collaborate directly in the link management platform to develop new campaigns and keep links updated.
In some cases, advanced user permissions are necessary for regulatory compliance. For example, if your organization complies with GDPR standards, you’ll need to keep audit trails and use time-limited links when sharing sensitive data internally. Built-in governance features help teams comply with these standards.
Reliability, scale, and performance expectations
Global organizations need the capacity to handle high volumes of web traffic from around the world. In this scenario, you’ll need a link management tool that can guarantee fast redirect speeds and high uptime rates, even when traffic peaks. Bitly consistently maintains 99.9% uptime, so you won’t have to worry about outages during crucial moments.
Even if your organization doesn’t currently run high-volume campaigns, it’s important to consider how you plan to grow in the future. Ideally, your link management tool should have the capacity to support you as you scale.
Integrations and API access
Most large businesses have complex tech stacks with many different software platforms working together. If that’s the case for your organization, you’ll need a link management tool with a variety of integration options. These integrations help you create short links while working in other platforms, or combine link data with other marketing data.
APIs are also helpful for connecting your link management platform with the rest of your operations. Use them to build custom integrations when a pre-made integration isn’t available, or even set up automations. Just be aware that integrations and APIs often require support from IT experts or web developers to implement.
Link management vs. link tracking vs. analytics platforms
When searching for a link management platform, you’ll see brands using a variety of terms. “Link management” and “link tracking” may seem like the same thing, but these two platforms usually have very different features.
Link tracking platforms show you how many clicks each link gets, but don’t offer management and creation options or insights. Link management tools offer a wide range of features to manage the entire link lifecycle, including creation, editing, and maintenance.
That said, link management platforms are often confused with general analytics platforms too. Link management tools typically have some built-in analytics features to track click activity, referral sources, and locations, but they don’t provide more advanced marketing data.
If you want to calculate conversion rates, ROI, and other post-click marketing metrics, you’ll need to use a more advanced analytics platform.
How teams use link management in real workflows
Link management tools help your entire company stay organized and work more efficiently. Here are some ways that teams can use link management in day-to-day operations.
Marketing and growth teams
Marketers use links to drive campaign traffic to their websites. You’ll often find short links in email newsletters, social media posts, SMS outreach, paid ads, and influencer partnerships, and link management tools are key to keeping them all organized.
With the right link management tools, marketers can organize links using dedicated campaign tags, then track engagement at both the link level and the campaign level. Link management also streamlines the reporting process, as you’ll have all your link data in one convenient place.
Ecommerce and retail teams
Ecommerce and retail teams use short links and QR Codes to drive web traffic to online stores and encourage purchases. For example, many brands use Shopify link tracking to see where their shoppers are coming from.
Short links are an easy way to share exclusive promotional offers, seasonal sales, and new product announcements. If your brand has brick-and-mortar stores, you can also use QR Codes on in-person signage to drive traffic to your website.
Link management tools help ecommerce teams keep all their links and QR Codes updated and organized. After limited-time promotions end, it’s easy to redirect both links and QR Codes so visitors always see relevant content.
Social media and content teams
Branded short links are the perfect fit for social media teams, who often deal with strict character limits in captions and profile descriptions. Since they’re much shorter than a standard URL, you can fit short links into your social media posts without compromising on copy.
Link management tools help busy social teams stay organized, which is especially important for managing link-in-bio strategies. When all your links are in one place, it’s easy to swap out your link-in-bio in seconds or create a flexible link-in-bio hub page.
Additionally, social media teams often juggle four or more social networks, with two to five posts per week on each network. All these posts add up quickly, and you’ll need a link management tool to make sure each post gets the correct short tracking link.
Link management platforms also help social teams track clicks from their social campaigns to their websites. This is a quick and easy way to identify which posts are generating the most engagement.
Events, field marketing, and offline teams
Hosting in-person events is a way to build authentic connections with your audience that go beyond the screen—77% of consumers report that their trust in brands increased after interactions at in-person events. Event management teams can use link management tools to generate QR Codes that support these offline marketing strategies.
Including QR Codes on your signage, print ads, packaging, and other in-person marketing materials is an easy way to share digital resources with event attendees. Leading link management tools make it easy to create QR Codes that send users to your existing links. You can even customize your QR Codes by adding your logo, changing the colors, or altering the pattern to align with your brand’s visual identity.
When selecting a link management tool, make sure you can update the QR Code destination after it’s been generated. This way, you won’t have to reprint your marketing materials when you want to redirect visitors to a new landing page.
Managing links across multiple channels and campaigns
Individual marketing campaigns usually last just a few weeks or months at a time. But with the help of link management tools, you can reuse links across multiple marketing campaigns.
If your brand runs seasonal promotions each quarter, you can recycle existing links for each promotion, rather than creating new ones every time. This way, your audience is always redirected to the current promotion, no matter which version of the link they click on.
By reusing links, you’re also preserving historical engagement data. You’ll be able to see campaign clicks over a long period of time, rather than just a few months. This ongoing tracking helps you identify trends you might otherwise have missed.
When you do create new links, you can use campaign tags or channel tags to keep them organized. If your team needs to find a specific link, these tags make it easy to find without manual searching.
Common link management problems and how teams avoid them
Even when you’re using powerful link management tools, you need a reliable process to keep things running smoothly. Here are some of the most common link management challenges and how to avoid them in your operations.
Link sprawl and duplication
If your team starts creating links without any tracking or guidelines in place, you’ll quickly end up with link sprawl. A library of duplicate links creates confusion for both your customers and your internal team.
To prevent this, limit link creation to a few members of your team, using ownership rules or user permissions. This makes collaboration easier and reduces the risk of conflicting or erroneous links.
Organization-wide naming and formatting conventions also help you keep links consistent. Naming conventions should be straightforward to prevent confusion. Ideally, your team members should be able to look at your link library and identify which links lead where.
Inconsistent tracking and missing data
Your links are a valuable source of engagement data. If you don’t track them, you could miss important trends or behavior patterns from your audience.
To help you capture as much engagement data as possible, make sure all links are created and stored in your link management platform for easy tracking. If you want to track web traffic in Google Analytics, add consistent UTM parameters to each link as well.
Instead of creating new links for every single campaign or promotion, edit and reuse your links when possible. This helps you track engagement data over a longer period of time and identify seasonal trends.
Outdated or broken destinations
Broken links are an easy way to lose your audience’s trust. When links break, it’s difficult for them to find the information they’re looking for, and it can make your brand look unprofessional.
To avoid any setbacks, choose a link management tool that allows you to redirect links to new destinations after they’ve been published. Conduct regular audits to find links that have broken or gone stale, and correct them as soon as possible to maintain a good customer experience.
How to evaluate and choose the right link management tool
There are plenty of link management tools on the market, but not all of them will fit into your workflows. Here’s what to look for when evaluating options for your organization:
- Customization options: Custom domains, back-halves, and QR Code designs give you more control over your link management strategy.
- Analytics depth: Consider which metrics each link management tool can track and how that aligns with your marketing strategy.
- Governance options: If you manage a large global organization or have strict compliance standards to meet, look for a link management tool with robust user permissions and privacy features.
- Ease of use: Busy marketing teams don’t have time to learn how to use a complex new tool. Look for a link management platform that’s easy to onboard with minimal training.
- Integrations: Look for link management tools that will integrate smoothly with your current tech stack, either through pre-built integrations or API options.
- Pricing transparency: Budget is a key consideration, so think about how each platform’s pricing options will fit into your current budget.
Make link management part of how your team works
Link management is a foundational part of any digital marketing strategy. Links send your audience from marketing assets to your website to move them through the sales funnel. The right link management tools help you keep your links organized, clear, and functional for a great customer experience.
Bitly offers comprehensive link and QR Code management to support your marketing strategies. With advanced customization options, campaign tracking, and real-time analytics available with paid plans, you’ll get total visibility into your organization’s links.
Get started with Bitly today to take control of your link management strategy.
FAQs
What is the difference between a link shortener and a link management tool?
A link shortener focuses on creating shorter URLs, usually for convenience or character limits. A link management tool goes further by supporting branded links, centralized organization, editable destinations, and link-level analytics across campaigns and teams. As link volume grows or multiple stakeholders are involved, link management tools help maintain consistency, reduce duplication, and preserve long-term visibility into link performance.
Do link management tools track conversions or revenue?
Most link management tools track engagement events such as clicks or scans, showing how audiences reach a destination. They do not track what happens after someone lands on a page, such as purchases, form submissions, or revenue. Teams typically pair link-level data with analytics or CRM platforms to understand downstream outcomes, using link management to identify which touchpoints drive traffic in the first place.
Are branded links necessary for every team?
Branded links are most valuable when trust, recognition, and scale matter, such as in external campaigns, partnerships, or customer-facing communications. Smaller teams or early-stage programs may start with unbranded links and adopt branding later as volume increases. Over time, branded links help create more consistent experiences and make it easier to identify campaigns at a glance.
How do QR Codes fit into link management?
QR Codes are scannable links that extend link management into offline environments such as packaging, signage, events, and print materials. Like short links, they direct users to a destination URL and generate engagement data when scanned. Managing QR Codes within a link management platform is especially important because printed materials cannot be easily updated, making editable destinations and centralized tracking critical.
