TABLE OF CONTENTS
What is BudURL: Feature and Capability Overview
Getting Started
Link Management
Creating a Link
Choosing a Redirect Type
Labels: Overview
How to Create Labels
Dynamic Link Routing
How Does Link Routing Work?
Creating a Route
Analytics
Dashboard
Click Stats
Activity Stream
Clickbeat Report
More BudURL Features
QR Codes
Pages
Twitter Integration
SMS Campaigns
Domain Management
How to Create & Manage Custom Short Domains
Integration
API Integration
Partner Integration
User Roles & Management
Support
WHAT IS BUDURL?
BudURL is an easy-to-use, flexible tool that will help you to shorten, organize and manage your links while providing clear visibility into engagement with your content. BudURL also generates a QR code for every link, features built-in social content management, and offers a robust API and seamlessly integrates with many popular platforms.
Data security is inherent in BudURL- only approved users can view your metrics, and your account manager can assign viewing and editing permissions by user.
BudURL Link Management Features include: ● Custom and multi-domain support ● Custom link hashtags
● Link routing by location, device, language, and date / time
● Labeling for campaign-level analytics tracking and organization efficiency BudURL Analytics Features include:
● Advanced dashboard designed to provide both a quick engagement overview and a detailed drill down by your metric of choice
● Click Stats provide a leaderboard of your top links, campaigns and users at a glance ● Activity Stream offers real-time insight into your content’s clicks, referral sources,
locations and more
● Clickbeat Report visualizes your engagement with real-time metrics on trending links, pace of clicks, traffic sources and more
GETTING STARTED
This handbook will walk you through ways to make the most of BudURL’s many handy features. Refer to the Table of Contents to easily skip to the section you’re interested in.
Is it your first time signing in? A few suggestions to begin familiarizing yourself with frequently-used features:
Check out the Dashboard: This is your mission control and where you land upon logging in. While there’s nothing there yet, your top level analytics will be at your fingertips once you start creating links.
Learn to Filter: Located in the right corner below the page navigation of each BudURL page, this form will allow you to filter your analytics view by keywords, date, user, and campaign labels.
Know your Domain: Manage and view your existing domains by selecting them from the orange dropdown menu in the top right corner of your screen.
Visit the BudURL Knowledge Base: Choose Help at the top of your screen- here you’ll find the answers to many questions, and can easily reach out for support if needed!
Add Content: The “Add New” dropdown menu located to the right of your page navigation provides quick access to add new links, campaign routes and pages.
Need to Migrate Data? If you came to BudURL from another service, we’d be happy to help migrate your links and data at no extra cost. We promise no hassle or no data loss - just shoot an email to support@budurl.com and we’ll get started!
LINK MANAGEMENT
On the Links page you will find everything you need to create, edit, and organize your links. See the below screenshot for key areas of interest:
1. Add New - this is where you’ll start when creating a new link.
2. Filter - here you can add search parameters to view a set of links of your choice. Notice the breadcrumbs in the example- the results are filtered by the user “Me” and the label “Social Content.”
3. Domain - Check which domain you’re viewing and change it here.
4. Pencil & Pie Chart icons - Click the pencil to edit the link, and the pie chart to view analytics for that specific link.
5. Description - A short description of where your link points. Not required, but helpful when searching for a link or understanding which link is which at a glance. In this
example, the name of the blog post and the source are in the short description: “Hubspot - 7 Viral Campaigns We Miss.”
6. Type - Indicates which Redirect Type was chosen for this link, 301 or 307. (We’ll discuss what this means later on in the handbook!)
7. Label - Organize links by creating Labels to group them together. You can later filter by label to view analytics by the link groups you’ve created. In this example, the label is “Social Content.”
Creating a Link
Creating a link is easy! Start with using the Add New menu to select Link. You’ll arrive at a simple form that looks like the screenshot below.
1. Paste your long URL here.
2. Choose a custom hashtag for your shortlink, or leave it blank and one will be randomly assigned once you save. You’ll be notified if your hashtag of choice is already in use. 3. Add a short description that will help with keyword searching for this link in the future, if
you want - this field is not required.
4. Choose which type of redirect you’d like to assign to your link. See the Which Redirect Type Do I Need? section of this handbook for help here.
5. Choose a label for your link. If you need to create a new label, go to Manage Labels and create it. You can create this link prior to doing this, then edit it to add your new label. More on this in the Labels section of this handbook.
6. Check this box to receive an email notification when someone clicks your link. This is not recommended for links that will be posted publicly, but can be useful for links meant for a small group.
7. Save! If you’re not sure about any of the options, go ahead and Save anyway. It’s easy to come back and edit your link later on.
Remember that you can edit your short links at any time. If you publish a short link anywhere, and realize later you want to change it, simply go back and edit the short link and reroute the long URL to whatever you choose. You will not have have to change your publicly posted short link, ever!
Choosing a Redirect Type
First, some background: redirection is the process of forwarding one URL to a different URL. A redirect is a way to send both users and search engines to a different URL from the one they originally requested.
301 Permanent Redirect: A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect which passes SEO ranking power to the redirected page. 301 refers to the HTTP status code for this type of redirect.
307 Temporary Redirect: 307 is the HTTP status code that is sent when a document is
temporarily available at a different URL. 307 tells search engines that this redirect may change in the future, so don't index the link and always check for the most recent content. 307 type
redirects are handy if you think the Target URL may change at some point. So which one should you choose?
It really comes down to your needs. The perception is that 301 redirects are better for SEO and Page Rank. If SEO is very important to you, then choose 301 redirects for your links. They are called 'permanent' because search engines like Google expect that your destination URL will never change and so they may cache the URL. However, proxy and caching servers (including most browsers) may cache the destination URL also, which may not give you accurate click counts.
If you expect to change your URL periodically and click counting is more important than SEO, then 307 Temporary Redirects may be the way to go.
A good case for 307 redirects is if you have a link in which the content may change periodically. For example, a sweepstakes link such as budurl.me/contest in which the giveaway content will change monthly. Or, a link to a special offers page that changes as you run different promotions. For more accurate click tracking, you can use 307 Redirects in channels with low/no SEO, such as Twitter, emails, advertisements, any site that requires a login, and links in your social networking profile pages.
Still unsure? We’re here to help! Send us a note to support@budurl.com and we’d be happy to help advise on which redirect type is best for your particular use case.
Labels
Think of labels as a tagging system within your link index - using them makes your work easier and more efficient. You can add as many custom labels to your account as you need, and we recommend applying a label to every single link. (You can add more than one label to each link, too.)
Benefits to Using Labels:
● Organize links into easily searchable groups ● View analytics by groups of links
● Simplify campaign reporting
● Easily share results with other account users or clients Best Practices for Using Labels:
● Social Media Type (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) ● Email Type
● Campaign Type (Direct mail, television, posters, etc.)
● Client Type - Agencies can use labels to track data by client ● Language
● Location ● Month / Year
An example use case for labels: Let’s say you are running a special promotion throughout the month of June in which you are testing offering a giveaway to increase referrals. You also want to test different messaging on Twitter vs Facebook to see what is converting better on those channels.
You’d want to create the following labels to maximize your ability to measure ROI on this
campaign: Twitter, Facebook, Giveaways, Referral Campaigns, June. Then, tag your links with the relevant labels as you create them, and also tag your other links not related to this promotion with relevant labels as well.
As your results roll in, you’ll be able to easily tell if the campaign that included a giveaway got more clicks, and which messaging worked best on your different social channels. And when you are planning for next year, you can go back and filter by June to see how certain campaigns performed that time of year.
How to Create Labels
Bookmark this link to hop right to the Label management page (make sure you’re logged into your BudURL account for it to work.) You can also get here from the Create a Link page- you’ll see a “Manage Labels” link on the right side of the page.
Once you begin creating labels, your “Manage Labels” page will look like the screenshot below. Easily edit existing labels and create new ones from this page. As with other areas of the BudURL site, the pencil icon will allow you to edit the existing information. The “Number of
Links/Pages/Campaigns” column indicates how many times the label is used across your content.
Creating a label is very quick and simple!
1. Reference which domain you’re creating your label in here. Remember, you can easily switch between domains using the dropdown menu in the top righthand corner of your screen.
2. Enter the name of your label here.
3. Notes can be helpful to further specify instances when this label should or should not be used.
4. If you want the label to be available for all users in your account to tag, mark it Global here.
Dynamic Link Routing
The link routing feature allows you to set rules about where your shortened URLs take your audience, based on a variety of use cases. You can use link routing to personalize what is seen based on who is clicking! This prevents you from having to create multiple links to the same campaign, and from spending unnecessary extra time changing link destinations to match business goals.
This feature allows you to skip the step of sending a user to page to select location or language- which means they see your content with less clicks! It also saves the day when using links and/or QR codes on print materials - never worry about a link going out of date, or having to go through the hassle and expense of printing multiple versions of collateral in order to include different links.
How Does Link Routing Work?
Link routing is designed in an “If, Then” format. A route will look something like this: If the click comes from the United States, then route it to the U.S. home page. If the click comes from Canada, then route them to the Canadian home page.”
Best Practices for Utilizing Link Routing, (plus example use cases!): ● Route by Day of the Week:
○ Use to promote a changing daily special or a promotion that happens once a week - route to special links during the promo time, and route the same link to different content during non-promo times. You never have to go back and change or create new links to support a rotating promotion schedule!
● Route by Time of Day:
○ Use to push different products based on time of day. You can talk about breakfast items until 10am, lunch specials from 11-2, then happy hour starting at 4- using the same link and without ever having to go in and change anything, once the route is set up!
● Route by Date:
○ This is especially useful for special promotions with an expiration date. Make sure you have no dead links or expired content by routing your special promo link to static content on the date your promotion ends.
● Route by Location:
○ Make sure you are showing the most relevant content to your global audience! Route links based on country, city, and even latitude / longitude for a hyperlocal promotion.
● Route by Language:
○ BudURL can detect the language setting on the device being used to click, so you can make sure your audience gets routed to content in their language.
○ Do you optimize content for mobile? Offer an app for iPhone but not Android? Route your traffic to the best experience for your audience’s device!
How to Create Link Routes
Before you create a route, make sure that all links you’d like to include in the route are created! You’ll need them to create the rules.
Start by using the “Add New” dropdown to menu to select Route. The “Create a Route” form is quite similar to the “Create a Link” form:
1. Ensure you are creating a route in your desired domain.
2. A shortcut if you only plan to route by mobile vs desktop device - checking this box will allow you to choose a link for desktop and mobile, and the desktop link will automatically be set as the catchall link. (That is, where all traffic that does not identify as mobile will go.) You’ll be able to skip the rest of the steps in this case!
helps to identify the group of rules you are creating. Choose a custom hashtag or leave it blank and the system will generate one. You’ll set up your rules and connect them to links after creating the route.
4. Optional - enter a short description to help reference the intent of your route. 5. Choose a redirect type for your route.
6. Save!
Now you’re ready to select a Catch All link, and add rules to route your traffic. The Catch All is where any traffic that does not satisfy a rule will go. Here’s what you’ll see after creating your first route:
Use the Pencil icon to edit the components of the route, such as the description and redirect type. Select the Rules icon to choose your catchall link, and add and edit routing rules. Here’s our new route, with only our Catch All selected so far:
Now let’s add rules using the Add Rule link near the top left of the page.
happens, THEN I want traffic to route in this way.” Choose your rule and then choose the “Save and Select Destination” button.
For the screenshot above, I’ve chosen to add a rule to route traffic that comes from a device with the Spanish language enabled.
Now you’ll need to select the link you want traffic satisfying your rule to route to. **Reminder**
Make sure all of the links you need for routing are created before setting up routes. You cannot route to a link that does not exist in BudURL yet.
Once you’ve selected a destination, you can view your route to easily determine where your traffic is going and add more rules if needed. The route below has one rule determined (route Spanish language traffic to a blog link), plus the required Catch All link determination.
BudURL allows for many different rule determinations within the same route! Below is a route with multiple rules for many different types of traffic. Use the sort fields in the right column to rank rules in order of importance, in the event that you have traffic that satisfies more than one rule. Make sure to read through all of the rules dropdowns to understand the many routing options you have with BudURL!
ANALYTICS
BudURL offers access to comprehensive analytics tools that are quite flexible and make it easy to drill down into the specific insights you are seeking.
Your Dashboard
The Dashboard is your mission control and where you’ll land upon logging in to your BudURL account. Here you’ll find a group of useful analytics charts and quick access to all of the features that BudURL has to offer. Let’s take a short tour with the screenshot below:
1. This area designates how your dashboard’s analytics charts are currently filtered. The default view upon logging in will show results for all labels and routes within the last 30 days, for links created by your user account only.
2. Here’s where you can easily filter your analytics data- by date, user, and labels.
**Important** Remember that to view a different domain, you need to change it using the orange menu in the top right corner of your screen (not pictured).
3. Create and manage your links from this link 4. Create and manage your pages from this link 5. Create and manage link routes here
6. View your Click Stats here
7. View your real-time Activity Stream and Clickbeat Report here 8. Schedule Twitter content here
9. Birds-eye view of your usage for the current domain 10.Shortcuts to add new links, pages and routes!
11.#Protip feed from the BudURL blog - where we share tricks of the trade and helpful advice to get the most out of BudURL
Now let’s take a look at analytic insights available on your Dashboard. First up, 2 ways to track how many clicks you’re getting:
The 1st chart features clicks by day, and the 2nd provides hourly metrics to illustrate when you getting clicks. Hover over either chart for more details on how many clicks are included in each data point.
Note the features highlighted by the black boxes - the dropdown menu in the top right corner of each chart allows you to download the chart as a .PNG, .JPEG, .PDF., or a vector file; and gives you the option to print the chart. Use the “Download to CSV” link to create a spreadsheet of links organized by date and number of clicks.
The next chart illustrates your top 10 labels. If you are utilizing the label feature, here you’ll get a glimpse at how your traffic is split among your different campaigns. As with the other charts, you can use the dropdown in the top right to download it as an image file of your choice, and mouseover for more details on each section of the pie.
The next chart provides metrics on which devices your traffic is coming from. Soon you’ll have useful insight into which devices you should prioritize when optimizing content!
And finally, get a handle on your geographic reach. The next 4 charts provide analytics regarding clicks by country, cities, and region.
A heat map by country:
**A note regarding Ashburn, VA: This humble city outside of Washington, D.C. is home to one of the largest data centers in the world. It is estimated that 2.2 trillion Google searches are routed through this center each day, and large internet companies such as Amazon and Time Warner route traffic through it. That’s why Ashburn will likely always be in your top 10 list of cities! Click here to read more.
Next, a bar graph of traffic by region (by state if most of your traffic is in the U.S.):
And last but not least, a more detailed graph of traffic by country:
Do you have another metric or key performance indicator in mind that you’d like to track within BudURL? Our team can create custom analytics in most cases - send your request to
support@budurl.com and we’ll do our best to help!
Now that we’re familiar with the Dashboard, we can dive into the more powerful analytics tools within BudURL.
Click Stats
The Stats tab ranks your links by which have been clicked the most often, overall. The data is updated hourly and the default view shows the last 30 days, but don’t forget the filter menu can easily show you more or less - or you can select a custom date range. You can also filter by user (choose all users to see whose links are ranking the highest in the organization as a whole), and by label or keyword.
Real-Time Analytics: The Activity Stream
The Activity Stream allows you to view your traffic as it happens with updates every 10 seconds. In real-time, view traffic by:
● Link or Page clicked on
● Referrer (where they are clicking your link from) ● City
● Browser type ● Device type
1. Use this menu to view real-time activity by user.
2. View link-specific dashboard analytics by clicking on the short URL.
3. Browser and IP address for each activity record are displayed here. Need to block an IP address from showing up in your stats? Click the red “no symbol” here.
Real-Time Analytics: The Clickbeat Report
The Clickbeat Report gives you real-time insight into what content is trending - and helps you put your finger on the “pulse” of your clicks as they happen.
Every account’s Clickbeat will look a little different - it is dependent on the rate at which you post links and the volume of traffic. A few things to note:
● The Clickbeat “pulses” every 10 seconds - this is when the data is updated
● Your top 15 links (in terms of click count) will show on the report, ranked by total clicks ● Links take the form of tiles, which contain the following info:
● Clicks in the past hour ● All time clicks
● Short URL link (click for dashboard analytics) ● Traffic source
The shade of the tile helps illustrate trends! It indicates the velocity at which a link is getting clicks. There are 3 shades of gray - if a tile is darker, it is either gaining popularity at a faster rate than it was, or clicks have dropped off significantly. An arrow next to the ranking in the bottom right corner will indicate whether it is gaining or decreasing in popularity.
Links that are the lightest shade of gray (seen in the screenshot above) are remaining steady with no significant surges in traffic or sudden drops in click rate.
The Clickbeat also offers top level analytics, including:
● The total number of clicks for the hour (toggle to view total clicks by today, this week and this month with the menu above the click count)
● Graphed comparison of clicks from yesterday to today ● An mini-version of the Activity Stream for quick reference
MORE BUDURL FEATURES
We’ve now covered the basic capabilities of BudURL when it comes to managing links and tracking your analytics. There’s a whole lot more! It’s a snap to create and integrate QR codes, mobile-optimized landing pages, social content, and SMS campaigns within BudURL.
QR Codes
Utilizing QR codes within your campaigns couldn’t be easier. BudURL generates a QR code for every link you create, automatically! You don’t need to do anything but download it. You can find the QR code for each link from the edit page, or the link-specific analytics page- both found next to each link within your Link Management page. Here’s where you can find your QR code:
All you have to do is choose which size you like - your download will begin automatically. We highly suggest reviewing QR Code best practices if you’re new to integrating them into your marketing plan! Check out our favorite tips and tricks here.
Pages
BudURL Pages are ready-made templates that allow you to quickly create mobile-optimized landing pages. Pages are small websites that need no domain hosting, no coding, are perfect for one subject content, optimized for mobile, completely customizable, and are easy to create with a fillable form template.
Best Practices for Using Pages: ● Coupons
● Lead Capture
● Virtual Business Cards (attach to your email signature or sales collateral) ● Comment Cards
● Facebook “Likes” ● Sharing Videos
● Open canvas (a static colorful page)
Page templates can be found in the “Add New” dropdown menu. Each template produces a fillable form that you can customize to fit your needs. Types of templates available:
● Micro-site ● Contact Card ● Comment Card ● Facebook
● Video Embedding
● Coupons
Need some inspiration? Head over to the BudURL blog to read some of our client’s success
stories using Pages!
● Rebecca’s Cupcake Shop Uses Mobile Landing Pages
● Mobile Micro-Sites from VIEO Design
Twitter Integration
BudURL makes tweeting easy with our Twitter integrated platform. Tweet any of your short links directly from your dashboard, or schedule for the future from any of your accounts.
Navigate to the Twitter page (just left of the “Add New” menu), where you can create your short link automatically or tweet an existing shortlink.
1. Navigate between your Twitter admin pages here. The overview page (shown in the screenshot) is where you’ll schedule tweets; My Tweets provides an activity log of every tweet you’ve sent via BudURL; and the Twitter Accounts tab is where you’ll need to add and authorize each Twitter account you want to integrate, and set a default if you wish. 2. Choose which account to tweet from here.
3. Compose your tweet here.
4. Add your link - if you have not created it yet, be sure to hit the “Shorten URL” button and it will automatically appear in your Links folder, where you can edit and track it. If your link already exists, simple paste the shortlink in this field.
5. The default is to send the tweet ASAP when you hit the “Tweet This” button. Use the + sign to expand a widget that allows you to schedule it for the future instead.
Short Message Service (or SMS for short) refers to campaigns that involve sending texts to your audience, most often including a call to action, such as “reply to enter a giveaway” or “reply to receive future promotional messages.” “Short” refers to the total of 160 characters you can include in one message blast.
This feature allows you to send messages from a PC to a text message on a phone. SMS campaigns can reach your audience even if they don’t have a smartphone.
To create an SMS blast, there is simple backend wiring that is done on the BudURL end. Simply send a request to set it up to support@budurl.com and we’ll get back to you within a few hours.
A few best practice ideas from BudURL clients (see screenshots above):
1. Use SMS blasts for giveaways, especially to encourage sales of product in order to enter. 2. Solicit customer feedback via SMS blasts.
3. Add value to your customers and establish thought leadership in your industry by offering educational services and reminders to enhance the product experience.
DOMAIN MANAGEMENT
When you first join BudURL, the default domain on your account will be budurl.me. While you can use this one all you want, we highly recommend you create a custom short domain name!** Also known as vanity short URLs or short domains, custom domain names are included in your BudURL package and establish credibility behind your links. When your audience sees that your short link is taking them to content your brand has curated, they have more trust and
are more likely to click.
Do you manage multiple brands or clients? No problem! Create a custom short domain for each of them to ensure proper branding and analytics tracking are preserved.
**Note: This feature may be disabled based on your account permissions. If you believe you should be able to create a custom short domain and aren’t able to, please contact your account administrator or reach out to support@budurl.com and we’ll look into it.
How to Create and Manage Custom Short Domains
Get started by finding the
orange domain menu in the top right corner of your screen. As shown in the screenshot to the left, select the “Add New
Custom Domain” option.
This will take you to the “Manage Your Custom Domains” page. You’ll need to select the “Add New Domain” link highlighted in the screenshot below.
Note that you’ll also come to this page to disable and enable your custom domains once you have them set up.
The next few screens will walk you through the steps to setup your domain. Read the instructions carefully to ensure success!
1. Choose your domain name - make sure your brand is recognizable even though it’s shortened. You can use a generator such as this one if you need ideas, or email support@budurl.com and we’ll be happy to help too.
2. Follow the instructions on the page to update your DNS with your hosting provider (or forward them to your IT department.)
3. You’re ready to rock! Your new custom domain should show as active on the Manage Domains page, and appear in the orange Domain Menu in the top righthand corner.
API & PARTNER INTEGRATION
BudURL is built to seamlessly integrate with the other technology tools you use to do business. In addition to integrating with some of the most popular platforms in the world, BudURL has an expansive API that facilitates all of the core features of the BudURL platform.
Our goal is to make it easy for your Development team to quickly integrate with us and get back to focusing on growing your business!
How to Integrate with the BudURL API
An API key is tied to a domain. So, you have an API Key for any custom short domains you have created, and one for budurl.me.
To get the API Key for your custom domain, login to your account and make sure to select your custom domain in the header. Then go to Settings at the top of the page, select “My Account”, which is under the “Personal Settings” header. This takes you to a profile page, and you’ll find your unique API key at the bottom (the actual key is blurred in the screenshot for security purposes):
Next you’ll need to integrate the API on your end. You can find details on API documentation at this link to pass on to your Development Team. Let us know at support@budurl.com if you need any assistance!
Partner Integration
BudURL currently integrates with the following platforms: ● Wordpress
● Salesforce
● Adobe Marketing Cloud ● Eloqua
● Social Flow ● Expion ● OpenAPI
We have several new partnerships in the works, and we’re always open to considering more! Just reach out with to support@budurl.com and let’s chat about how we can enhance your BudURL experience with platform integration.
USER ROLES & MANAGEMENT
BudURL Enterprise includes multiples user capabilities and permissions within one account. The account administrator(s) can add additional people with their own separate logins. This is managed through the Settings page, found in the header at the top of every page once logged in. The Settings page will also display how many domains and users your current plan will allow. There are 3 types of user accounts:
1. A regular user can create links and view traffic analytics for their user account only.
2. A reporting administrator can create links, and view all of the links and stats of all users on the account.
3. An account administrator has master access to all features, including creating links, the ability to view and edit links and view analytics for all users on the account, and adding or editing the users on the account. (The owner of the account is an account administrator by default.)
To add or edit a user, go to Settings and click the “People” link under the “Organization Settings” header.
To manage access and roles, go to Settings and click the “Access and Roles” link under the “Domain Settings” header.
SUPPORT
At BudURL we pride ourselves on going the extra mile to ensure the absolute best experience for our clients. We’re always willing to chat about adding additional metrics, features,
integrations, and more! Reach out to support@budurl.com and let’s talk about it.
You can also reach us quickly by clicking “Help” in the page header, or by using the “Contact Us” widget at the bottom of the screen to chat live.
Additional resources to help enhance your BudURL experience:
● The BudURL Blog: We love to post #protips and new feature announcements here ● BudURL Knowledge Base: Browse FAQs and send a support ticket here
● Follow BudURL on Twitter and Facebook for industry news, best practices and maybe the occasional cat video.
