Link Tracking: What the Heck it is and Why Should Firms Care About It

Marketers are always on their toes, looking for more creative and meaningful ways to engage audiences and deliver immersive brand experiences.

Link Tracking is one of the underused and often misunderstood aspects that have great untapped potential to help businesses and customers both when used prudently. 

By embedding URLs in SMS, you can make Salesforce text messages more valuable for customers and redirect them to a specific destination, reducing navigation for them. 

This could be one way to build on good experiences with a brand. Further, you can use different aspects of link tracking for different purposes depending on your requirement.

What makes a Link Tracking service complete?

1. Link Tracking Service providing a Native URL Shortener

URL shortening is a dime-a-dozen capability that users usually get with link tracking. But something more is needed to make the best out of URLs.

When it comes to link shortening, public URL shorteners such as bit.ly are used, which are also used by spammers for malicious activity and flagged by text carriers.

In the US and many other countries, such URL shorteners are prohibited. 

So, it would be good if your app supports a native URL shortener for link tracking. You can send and make the best use of URLs without landing in spam folders.

2. Clickthrough Tracking

You would obviously like to know how people engage with a URL when you send URLs. 

So you should be able to track clickthroughs conveniently. 

This would help you know the number of clicks on a URL without investing much effort.

3. Custom URL

Brands are rightly concerned about their brand perception and trust.

It’s why they prefer to use a custom-branded URL that contains their brand name. 

So, when you choose a link-tracking service, you should be able to use a shortened domain URL customized to your brand name.  This is an effective way to use Link tracking for marketing.

This will help you drive higher clickthroughs with more trust in your brand messages.

4. Date and Time Stamp

When you send any URL, you would love to know when people actually start engaging with a URL and when they stop. 

This would help you understand the duration during which audiences actively engage with a URL. 

Hence, you should be able to track when the first and last click is made on a URL, along with the date and time.

What Problems does URL Tracking Service Solve

1. Untraceable Text Performance

You cannot track when a recipient reads each text, but you can track when someone clicks on a URL. 

With link tracking, you can get drill-down reports concerning Salesforce text messages. 

Recipients only click on a URL when they find the context in the text relevant. 

This can help you gauge the performance of your texts and tweak them if required to improve text performance.

2. Increased SMS Length and Cost

While dealing with customers, sometimes customers need a detailed message, which is impossible to wrap up in 160 characters. 

As a result, the text splits into multiple SMS segments, which increases the SMS bill, aside from making it look suspicious.

With the help of a URL, you can send detailed information without increasing your SMS length and usage. 

You can embed an auto-shortened URL redirecting customers to a knowledge base article to provide detailed information. This way, you can send desired information using a single SMS.

3. Poor Brand Recall

When thousands of brands compete in the same market, it is tough to embed your brand in the minds of potential customers. 

So you have to make repeated attempts to etch your brand recall. And this is where you can count on a custom-branded URL. 

By sending a custom branded URL, you can remind potential customers of your brand every time you send a URL, as the URL holds your brand name. 

This is an effective way to improve your brand recall.

Make Informed Decisions and Ditch High SMS Bills with URLs

You can redirect potential customers to the desired page for a specific action by sending URLs in SMSes using the Link Tracking service in Salesforce. It provides the most effective way to get drill-down reports and attributes. 

Based on that, you can make more informed decisions in business and improve returns. The best part is Link Tracking in Salesforce helps you get around the crucial business concern that matters to you. 

You can decrease the usage of Salesforce SMS segments without compromising business communication quality. Besides, you can improve brand recognition without much effort, as you can remind your customers of your brand whenever you communicate using URLs.

To dive deeper into the usage of Link tracking for your business vertical, turn to our experts at care@360smsapp.com or click here to contact us.