How to Convince Your CMO to Care About Deep Links
This is the second post from our CPO Matt Thompson as part of our three-part series educating marketers about the importance of deep linking. Read our first post about the right questions marketers should ask developers about deep links here.
Last time, I gave some details about how marketers can start to talk about deep links with developers. I started there because I wanted to give forward-leaning, mobile-hungry marketers a quick place to start discussing it with their organizations on an execution level.
For this post, I want to take a step back and give marketers the leverage to make deep links a priority with their management. So without further ado, let’s get into the three reasons that CMOs should get behind a deep linking initiative.
Apps > Mobile Web
Since at least 2009, there has been some question as to whether or not marketers should place their emphasis driving users to mobile versions of their websites or whether they should drive customers to download and engage with their apps. Now, it’s clear that apps deserve the lion’s share of attention. As early as last April, Flurry was declaring that apps had won the war over mobile web for customers’ affections. Flurry found that the average person spends a whopping 86% in apps and a paltry 14% in their mobile browser of choice.
Now, I’m not saying that responsive design overhauls of your websites were a total waste. But if you want your customers to engage with your content or spend money with you, I am saying that finding the right place for them to go inside your app via deep linking is six times more important than driving them to the same content on your mobile website.
Higher Brand Loyalty via Improved Customer Experience
Since so many more customers are engaging with your apps, it comes as no surprise that improving their experience with your apps will increase their brand loyalty. Reducing the need for your customers to poke around for content once they get to your app is a no-brainer - would you send a consumer to your homepage on the web if you knew you could send them to the right article they were interested in?
Recently, I was speaking with a marketer whose goal was to reduce the clicks needed to get to in-app content from six clicks to two clicks. By removing that friction, he expected engagement to increase 10x. The plan was to employ deep linking to reduce the number of clicks.
Increased brand loyalty is especially prevalent among the “promote or punish” attitude of the much-sought after millennial population. In fact, bettering your customer experience will gain you not only loyalty but advocacy as well. According to a study by Netbiscuits, 90% of 25-34 year-olds will recommend a brand based purely on the mobile experience.
Leading CMOs understand this imperative to get users to places in their apps more quickly with deep links. In fact, they see this as their number 2 overall investment when it comes to marketing technology. Ashu Garg from Foundation Capital just released an incredibly comprehensive study on MarTech. In it, Customer Experience is cited as the second-most important success metric, with 58% of CMOs claiming it is a priority success metric. If you’re keeping track at home, Marketing ROI was #1 with 63% of CMOs claiming it.
Higher LTVs
The accepted belief now is that customers who are engaged with a brand’s apps have higher LTVs (lifetime value). I’ve yet to see a statistically-accepted study that shows customers spend more if they also interact with your app but there is a tidal wave of evidence above that suggests apps are where most customers are spending their time. Don’t forget - customer spending always follows customer eyeballs.
That said, trends in the ecommerce world give us a good idea that these higher LTVs are indeed a reality. According to Internet Retailer: “the 2015 Mobile 500 estimates 70% of the web-only flash-sale merchant’s total 2014 mobile sales will stem from apps.” Users feel more comfortable buying from within apps than they do buying from the mobile web. Drops mic.
In a world where apps are now used six times more than the mobile versions of your websites, it’s incumbent on CMOs to think about how they get their customers to the right content in their apps - be it a slick video or a pair of silk pajamas for purchase. And if you want that content to be shared again and again, you put effort to get your customers to the right place via deep links.
The Evolution of a Brand: Bitly’s Next Step
This post was written for the Bitly blog by Lauren Giansante, our visual designer.
Bitly began as a tool to shorten URLs on Twitter when users had to obey the strict 140 character limit. Today we are an essential tool for marketers everywhere, reaching millions of users all over the world, on all types of devices.
Over the past year, we’ve grown up a lot; we redesigned our website, made our product responsive, took a large step into mobile deep links, and even reached profitability. Our brand exists on an ever-growing array of screen sizes and devices and has to remain strong and recognizable no matter where or how it is viewed.
Our goal for a brand refresh was clear: enhance legibility across our assets while maintaining the essence of what is familiar and recognizable about Bitly. And let’s be real, when you love something this much, you want it to be at it’s best. With that being said, we rolled up our sleeves, packed our bags and left for bezier land. We analyzed every curve, every counter and every inch of negative space—kerning is king!
What exactly has changed?
Refined logo:
It was important that we keep the approachable, friendly spirit of our original more free-form logo. However, we carefully updated and adjusted the letterforms for an overall more polished, flexible mark. For those design nerds out there (hi friends!), you’ll see why we made these subtle but important changes. We created more consistent line weight and aligned all of letterforms to the baseline. Also, we adjusted the spacing between letterforms to create even, rhythmic negative space. This makes for a tight, iconic mark that scales well and renders legibly even on monitors with poor resolution.
New icon:
This logomark makes total sense! I know, we thought so too. We pay tribute to the @ symbol, the root of conversation on twitter—conversations of which Bitly is so often a core part. This mark will be used as the icon and avatar for Bitly going forward, from our social profiles to our favicon.
New tagline lockup:
Well of course, The Power of The Link—this is the foundation of our brand. All of the data we collect and the stories we help tell stem from Bitlinks. They are the core of our business, our bread and butter. Here, our new refined logo is accompanied by our beloved brand font, Brandon Grotesque. We chose this font because it is strong and contemporary while still having a friendly touch.
What’s Next?
Along with the logotype and logomark, our entire creative direction has matured to match our vision; shifting from our traditional roots in the social world, to our focus on leveraging the link as an omni-channel marketing asset, with a particular focus on mobile. We are confident that these visual changes will help optimize these efforts.
Although not visually changing, our beloved pal Chauncey McPufferson will be used more sparingly and strategically as a part of a push to focus on our paid product, Bitly Brand Tools. Don’t worry, he is still a core element to our culture. We are just maturing as a business and want him to be there for you when you need him most!
Get excited to see these elements roll out across all of our channels—starting today. We are so incredibly excited for this new chapter in Bitly’s life, thanks for being a part of the journey.
Introducing a new way to organize your Bitlinks: tags!
Let’s walk through how to get started using tags:
First, pick any Bitlink from the Your Bitlinks list. You’ll see four buttons on the right side of the action panel. The tags button is the third one in:
Here’s a look at how we use tags - our marketing team organizes our Bitlinks by the different channels we create them for, whether that be direct campaigns, email, social or through our blog.
After clicking the tags button, create a new tag or pick an existing tag and hit Apply. Remember to think before you tag: tags are case sensitive!
Once you’ve started tagging in your Bitly account, you can filter your Bitlinks by those tags. Click on the blue Filter button next to the Search bar on the right side of the action panel. Pick what you want to filter your links by and hit Apply.
Your Bitlinks list will automatically update to show only the links you’ve tagged. You can tell if you’re checking out your Bitlinks in a filtered view by the flag at the top of the list.
Tagged something by mistake? No worries! Just hit the X on any tag to delete it from your link.
You might have noticed that some of you Bitlinks are already tagged when you logged in today. As we mentioned last week, we’ve migrated all bundles data into tags so you don’t have to worry about reorganizing your links.
Have any questions about tags or interested in sharing feedback? We’d love to hear from you! Feel free to reach out to us at support@bitly.com.
Welcome Andrew Dumont, Our New VP of Marketing
Today we’re excited to announce that tech industry leader Andrew Dumont has joined as Vice President of Marketing. Dumont comes to Bitly after working for a year as an Entrepreneur in Residence at Betaworks, the startup studio that spawned Bitly back in 2008.
The move follows another big addition to the Bitly executive team, Matthew Thomson, Chief Product Officer, and an announcement that Bitly has reached profitability.
Named one of the 2014 Forbes 30 under 30, Dumont brings a wealth of experience to the company – having previously helped build and grow startups like Moz and Seesmic. His experience is heavy in software as a service, positioning the hire as a continued statement to Bitly’s focus on Bitly Brand Tools, its paid enterprise offering. In the role, he will oversee and manage the Marketing department at Bitly.
“Andrew has a special talent for driving growth in SaaS companies and a track record of success,” said Mark Josephson, CEO of Bitly. “Bitly has shifted from our traditional roots in the social world, to our focus on leveraging the link as an omni-channel marketing asset, with a particular focus on mobile. Andrew has the background and knowledge to help us capitalize on Bitly’s value in this market.”
With several successes in technology and entrepreneurship, Dumont has been building and growing startup companies since the age of 18, including Moz, the industry’s most popular provider of search engine and social optimization software that has reached more than $30 million in revenue; and leading Seesmic and Stride to acquisitions by Hootsuite and ProsperWorks, respectively.
“Bitly is one of the great brands in social technology, a brand that I’ve known and loved for years. Although their success has been clear as a consumer product, the opportunity as a software and mobile business is vast,” said Dumont. “I’m excited to be a part of the continued rise and evolution of Bitly. It’s an exciting time.”
Please join us in welcoming Andrew Dumont, the newest member of the Bitly executive team!
3 Ways to Supercharge Your Bitlinks
As a Bitly Brand Tools user, you already know how valuable Bitly is for all of your marketing efforts. But do you know how to get the most out of your Bitlinks? (Hey - not a Bitly Brand Tool user yet? Click here to learn more about how Bitly can help drive your marketing strategy.)
That’s why we asked Jean Louise Manalo, senior customer success manager at Bitly, for the three ways customers can use Bitly Brand Tools to power their social marketing. As a member of the Customer Success team, Jean Louise is committed to helping all Bitly Brand Tools customers get the most out of their Bitly Brand Tools accounts. Here are Jean Louise’s best practices:
Update your URL list for auto-branding
Anytime anyone copies and pastes your URL into Bitly to shorten, it will automatically be branded with your Branded Short Domain. This is how we’re able to track the organic activity behind your Bitlinks, like what articles are most popular with your audience or what platforms outside of your organization are driving the most traffic to your site.
To gain the most valuable organic insights from your Bitly Brand Tools account, regularly update your URL list for auto-branding! By adding all your owned web URLs to your URL list, you ensure all links shortened and shared to your properties - whether that’s your company blog, landing pages created through marketing automation, or any other subdomains - are branded and tracked. You can view your list of URLs in your “Settings” and send new URLs to your customer success manager. You can also add owned URLs that you simply wish to track and not brand to this list.
Customize your Bitlinks AND redirect them
Custom Bitlinks are a great way to make a link into a creative asset. Custom Bitlinks help you form a relationship with the audience that’s clicking on your links and consuming your content. We also see solid increase in CTRs whenever Bitlinks are branded and customized.
So you’re already customizing your Bitlinks - that’s great! But did you know that these Custom Bitlinks are also redirectable? Now, you don’t have to wait days or weeks for your URLs to be redirected if a page crashes or errors out - you can remedy this through your Bitly Brand Tools dashboard.
I’ve seen really creative brands put Custom Bitlinks to use in other spaces, like in offline content (print ads, billboards), SMS campaigns, and even new social media platforms like Instagram and Snapchat. You can learn how brands use the redirect capability to capitalize on their Instagram bios in this blog post or use it on Snapchat here.
These are only a handful of the creative ways our customers are using Custom Bitlinks but don’t forget - the possibilities are endless!
Integrate the Bitly API into your social sharing buttons and third party publishers
You’re already branding your links every time you post on your social media platforms - make sure your social media buttons and publishing platforms are doing the same! Bitly integrates with more than 80 platforms so you can make sure all your links are being branded and you’re capturing the data behind it. And when you integrate Bitly into your social sharing buttons, you ensure that any content shared organically by your audience is also branded and tracked.
These are just a few of the many features Bitly Brand Tools provides to take your social marketing to the next level. Interested in learning more about implementing these or any other features in your own Bitly Brand Tools account? Reach out to your customer success manager or customersuccess@bitly.com.
Four Things to Consider When Creating Content
As a smart marketer, you know how important it is to generate leads and keep those leads fully engaged as they flow down the sales funnel. That’s why we started a four part series on optimizing your lead generation strategy. Part one focuses on creating content for your marketing initiatives.
As marketers, we know how important it is to collect contact information from potential leads to pass along to your sales team - and website forms serve as a prime resource to do that. But when a visitor comes upon your site for the first time, they’re rarely ready to commit and buy your product.
In order to convert more leads, you should provide visitors with relevant content that they are more willing to exchange contact information for on your website.
Here are four things to consider when creating content :
1) Value: You want to create content that is valuable to your prospects. A good way to provide value is by creating content that alleviates a painpoint for your target audience: content should solve the problem that brought your site visitors to your resources.
2) Relevance: Create unique offers that are relevant to the different segments of your audience. When you are building your content strategy, identify the different audience personas that are interested in your product then follow up with a tailored piece of content.
3) Timeliness: You want to have specific content for your site visitors based on where they are in the sales funnel. If someone is at the top of the sales funnel, they will be interested in educational content like guides, checklists and ebooks. If someone is further along, they will be more interested in content that explains how your company can help them solve a problem. You can target this group with a detailed product demo and case study.
4) Uniqueness: Don’t offer the same exact content as your competitors. Always strive to create content that your site visitors can’t find anywhere else. Don’t be afraid to get creative! Your prospects will be more enticed to exchange their contact information for resources that only your company offers.
This is just part one of our four part series on optimizing your lead generation strategy. Stay tuned for part two, where we talk about optimizing landing pages to drive form fills.
Why We’re Sunsetting Bundles
UPDATE: We’ve released our replacement of bundles, Tags!
It’s finally come time to cut ties with our bundles feature. Starting April 7, we will be migrating bundles into read-only mode. You’ll be able to visit your bundles in read-only mode until May 7, when we will be formally sunsetting this feature.
WAIT, BUT I LOVE BUNDLES!
So do we! But bundles (and Bitly) have changed a lot since in the past few years.
When we introduced bundles back in 2010, we only had one use case in mind: helping our users share groups of links through one Bitlink. Our users quickly found their own creative uses for bundles; bundles became a way to collaborate on a list of favorite tunes, communicate internal updates at work, or even keep track of other great bundles (pretty meta, right?).
As we watched these creative use cases grow, we realized what our users were really looking for: a way to organize their Bitlinks. And while bundles served as a band-aid for this problem, they weren’t built with this specific solution in mind.
WHAT’S EVERYONE REALLY USING BUNDLES FOR?
Before we decided to sunset bundles, we took a deeper dive into what bundles were being used for. We learned that:
Bundles weren’t used as much as we thought:
- Less than 2% of Bitlinks were added to bundles
- Bundles received less than 3% of pageviews
- Approximately 25% of bundles were set to private
Bundles were being abused:
- More than 80% of Bundles contain spam content
- Bundles are often used as publicly accessible containers for questionable content
Bundles were introduced under a different vision for Bitly, and had limitations that stopped us from being able to introduce a new, large-scale solution that would truly help our users organize their links. That’s why while we’re sad to see bundles go, we’re excited for what we’re introducing next.
SO WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN TO MY BUNDLES?
As we mentioned before, bundles will be going into read-only mode on April 7. This means that you can still check out your bundles, but you will no longer be able to add, edit or curate bundles. Bundles will be in read-only mode for one month, before they are formally sunset on May 7.
Don’t worry though! We’ll be taking your existing bundles data and migrating it into our new solution: tags!
WHAT’S NEXT?
We’ve been working on a better way to organize your Bitlinks for a few months now and we’re excited to announce that this new solution will be live for all users on April 7. Tags is built with our current product in mind, meaning that this solution will be able to scale and grow as your marketing initiatives do.
Stay tuned for this change in your Bitly account and a walkthrough will make its way onto the Bitly blog in the near future.
Have any questions about bundles, tags or what this means for your Bitly account? Free users can reach out to support@bitly.com and Bitly Brand Tools users can reach out to their customer success manager for more information.
Introducing Mobile Deep Linking by Bitly
Bitly has always delivered users to the right web content regardless of where a link was clicked. The top brands in the world (20 out of Forbes’ top 25 brands, 17 out of the 25 top global brands and 37 out of the top 50 comScore web properties - but who’s counting?) rely on Bitly to deliver their users to the right location.
Now, we’re thrilled to extend this commitment to include what device a link is clicked on by introducing mobile deep linking as part of Bitly Brand Tools. Starting today, marketers can use the Bitlinks they create through Bitly Brand Tools as a tool to drive app installs and re-engagement.
It’s no secret that the majority of web engagement occurs on a mobile device - last year, Flurry found that mobile users spend 86% of their time on apps. By enabling deep linking as part of Bitly Brand Tools, we can continue to empower marketers to become mobile marketing superstars without any additional dev work or code required. And because of our scale, marketers can utilize this across their paid marketing efforts and across their audience’s organic sharing efforts as well. This means that through Bitly Brand Tools, your followers and fans are more than your brand ambassadors - they can be your mobile allies, driving app installs and re-engagement as well.
When you enable deep links, mobile users who click on your Bitlinks will be automatically taken to the same content, just in your app. If they don’t have your app installed, they’ll be invited to download your app or taken to the mobile web experience. These links will continue to work the same as they always have for desktop users, directing your fans and followers to the right content as they are shared across the web.
Bitly began as a link shortener. Links are the core of our business and are central to everything we do. And mobile deep linking is one more way we will continue to deliver on our promise to empower marketers.
Ready to get started deep linking with Bitly Brand Tools? Contact us to learn more about deep linking with Bitly or contact your customer success manager.
A #smarketer’s guide to SXSW
The annual Austin take-over is less than a week away – are you ready? We are!
It’s easy to get lost in the noise of SXSW – here are some pointers to get the most productivity and have the most fun during your time in Austin.
Have a plan – and be ready to not stick to it.
The most exciting part of SXSW is the organized chaos. There are hundreds of events happening at the same time, across the entire city. Going in without a plan can be overwhelming – and intimidating – so make a plan, fill up your calendar, RSVP to parties and events (even if you might not attend) and once you’re there, throw yourself into the crazy swing of things.
What’s the WiFi password?
Many venues will be offering free wifi hookup during the day, which is a great opportunity to get away from the circus of the streets, and recharge.
Get your App on
Big players from all industries attend SXSW. This is the best time to update your Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, Instagram and anything else to keep track of who is where doing what. You never know who you’ll meet and what that will do for your business.
Giddy up, partner
SXSW is known for its killer partnership opportunities. It’s a creative space where big brands invest their time and resources to make announcements, create awareness and drive alignment.
Here at Bitly, we’re very excited to be partnering with VigLink for our Bitly to the Future event at SXSW!
The bottom line with SXSW – expect the unexpected, and you’ll be ready. The best things to pack are an open mind, a change of shoes and energy for long days and longer nights. See you in Austin!
How Marketers Should Talk to Developers About Deep Links
This is the first post of our three-part series educating marketers about the importance of mobile deep linking for app re-engagement. This was written by our CPO, Matt Thomson.
With apps consuming more and more of our time, digital marketers need to focus on app growth and engagement. And, as the cost of install and re-engagement ads continues to grow - and those ads become less effective - it’s time for marketers to again look for ways in the earned and owned markets to drive customer adoption. But first, there is a deeper problem standing in the way: mobile deep linking.
Mobile deep linking is the ability for marketers and developers to bring app users to a specific location within their app via a link. For a publisher, this might mean driving readers to the right article. For an e-commerce brand, this might mean driving customers to the right item to add to their cart.
For many marketers, deep linking is still a problem for developers to solve - but that’s changing quickly. The most mobile-forward marketers are already intelligently using deep links to drive activity back to their apps. The difference between leading marketers and those catching up is that the leading mobile marketers know how to ask developers the right questions about deep links.
One of the biggest hurdles for a mobile marketer is just finding the deep links to use in their marketing efforts - it’s not like you can just open a browser and CTRL+C a deep link. To make matters worse, your developers might have different deep link names in your iOS app vs your Android app. And, for some of you, your app may not have any deep links at all. URX, one of the new authorities on deep linking, found that only 8% of the top 200 apps even have deep links.
Before marketers can start using deep links to drive app installs and re-engagement, they need to be using the right vocab when asking developers about their deep links. Here are the three questions marketers should ask their developers:
- “What custom Scheme, Host, and Path in our iOS app should I use for my campaign?” If you’re looking to drive app users to your iOS app, then you need to ask for the Scheme, Host or Path. The Scheme is the first part of the deep link that tells the phone which app to open. Here’s a good writeup on Originate. In the example below, the Scheme is “Sportscenter.” A marketer creating this deep link would be driving the ESPN audience to the ESPN app.
- “What is the Intent Filter?” If you’re looking to drive users to your Android app, you might need to use different language since its a different platform. For Android apps, you’ll be asking about the Intent Filter. Intent Filters are just the Google/Android way of communicating across mobile devices. Here are the Android docs in case you want to check our work.
- “What is the URI is for this screen?”URI stands for Uniform Resource Identifier. For apps, the URI is the location within the app or the screen that you want to link to. (This is a shorthand way to ask for the same thing in questions 1 and 2.) In a typical web address, the URI is the path the link would follow to get to the right content. When you have the URI, you can directly link to the right page within your app from any campaign you run, provided your customer already has your app installed.
That’s it - and it’s a good start. Now that you’re armed with the right verbal currency and can find your deep links, you’re ready for part two: how to use deep links in your omni-channel campaigns to drive app re-engagement.