Social Media 103: Using Bit.ly to track CTR from Multiple Places

A friend recently asked me how he could track click-throughs on a single link that he had posted on multiple social media sites.

He had created a bit.ly of the URL and posted it on Twitter and LinkedIn, but bit.ly could not differentiate which platform (Twitter or LI) the clicks had come from.

There is an easy solution:

Here is the solution on how to track a URL on multiple platforms, using bit.ly:

• If the URL were http://www.marketingxlerator.com/2013/10/08/video-the-top-3-linkedi…
• You’d tag it with ?src=location
• “?src =”… means “the source for this link is…”
• You can then put any text behind “?src=” to mark the location where you will post the URL

If you wanted to track click-throughs from the same link on LinkedIn and Facebook, the full URL you’d use to create a bit.ly would be:

• http://www.marketingxlerator.com/2013/10/08/video-the-top-3-linkedi…?src=locationLinkedInGroup
• http://www.marketingxlerator.com/2013/10/08/video-the-top-3-linkedi…?src=locationFacebookPage

Then create a bit.ly for each URL and post it multiple places, respectively.

Bonus Tip:

If you paste the Bit.ly in a browser and add a + at the end, you will get the stats for that link right there.

More reading:

Here is a more detailed blog on the topic by Jessica Torres.