Vanity URL: Everything You Need To Know

While running marketing campaigns, every detail matters. Among a great copy, attractive image, powerful CTA, appealing headline, dedicated hashtag or an accurate target group, another essential marketing aspect is a vanity URL. In the following article, we share the details on that topic. Keep on reading to find out how to use vanity URLs to maximize your marketing efforts.

What is a vanity URL?

Let’s start with a definition so that we are on the same page.

A vanity URL, also known as a branded link or custom short URL, is a URL that is easy to pronounce and memorize. In other words, a vanity URL is a unique web address that is branded for marketing purposes.

EXAMPLE
original URL: medium.com/@kozlowska.nina/black-friday-2019-is-coming-last-minute-e-commerce-tips-8432f8ce89b6
shorter and branded URL:rocketlink.me/Black-Friday-Tips

A vanity URL usually contains a domain (or subdomain) name and keywords regarding a given website it redirects too.

The advantages of using a vanity URL

Check out why you need to shorten your URLs.

Memorizable

While sharing links, the marketing goal is to get traffic. It is easier to achieve once your link is simple and contains keywords. That is why custom URLs can be successfully used in offline campaigns. For example, marketers can publish easy-to-remember links in printed materials like magazines, leaflets or posters.

Builds trust

How often you wanted to click a link, but you were afraid it might not be trustworthy? Your customers can have the same fears. Once you inform your audience about the content of the website in the link, you will probably get more clicks and increase traffic on your website.

Aesthetics

Shortened links simply look better so by customizing links you also improve customer experience. What is more pleasant to look at, it is also better to click on. It is also more likely that internet users will share your links if they are short and clear, rather than long and messy.

Retargeting

When customizing links, you also can add retargeting pixels. Thanks to that you can reach people who have clicked your links in the past with your retargeting campaigns.

Enable verbal sharing

Not every company has the opportunity to make a presence in tv or radio but if it happens, why not encourage the audience to visit your website? Moreover, when it comes to word of mouth in any context, an easy-to-pronounce customised URL is a must-have.

Improving SEO

It can be one of the most significant reasons why vanity URLs are worth using. URLs help people to understand what the website is about. Analogically, robots can easier detect what the content of a web page is. Moreover, search engines determine the web site’s relevance also based on keywords included in URLs.

How to make a vanity URL?

It is a piece of cake with RocketLink!

Thanks to online tools, you can easily change any link to a short and customized URL for instance Facebook URL.

Create a new link

Paste the link you want to shorten and customize

You can choose your own domain (or subdomain) ex. links.yourbrand.com.

Customize or edit a link

After creating a link you can edit it anytime you like. Think of a situation when you send a newsletter to 10k people and it turned out that the link you entered in the content is dead. RocketLink allows you to change the link’s destination so you can modify the target URL without the need of sending a newsletter again with a new link.

You can also customize your link’s thumbnail appearance making it more clickable when shared on social media.

These features let you take full control of the links you share and make the most of it.

But there is more that you can do for improving links performance with RocketLink!

You can add retargeting pixels so that you can track clicks as well as create a custom audience for your next social media campaigns. Retargeting can be a huge help in building awareness and a relationship with customers. To get internet users to the next stage of a sales funnel, you can target your ads to people who were previously interested in your products, services or blog content.

Via RocketLink you can add call-to-actions to links you share. Therefore, you can get more traffic to another website and achieve marketing goals easier. Moreover, you can embed widgets in customized links, such as videos, chat boxes, pop-ups and more. Find out more about ways of using RocketLink!

To make an even better appearance on social media, you can custom thumbnails. That way copy and picture can be more attractive and appealing then default.

One of the best features when it comes to custom URL shorteners is analytics. You can measure your efforts, test and optimize your campaigns.

We hope that now you do not only realize how helpful vanity URLs can be but only know how to make them with RocketLink. If you have any questions – give us a shout!

Did you like this article? There’s more:

Vanity URL: Everything You Need to Know

What is a vanity URL?