Tapper's Enterprise Link Management Guide

Introduction

Think of links as the digital ambassadors of your brand. Each link shared by your organization represents a part of who you are. In today's fast-paced digital landscape, having a reliable link management strategy is not just a choice; it's a necessity.

As a business, you generate a multitude of links – they populate web pages, videos, images, SMS, emails, and virtually every communication channel, whether it's online or offline. These links are the threads that connect your brand with the world.

The Importance of Link Management 

Links are the arteries of the internet and valuable assets for any business, but they require ongoing attention, updates, and periodic assessments.

Within every organization, a multitude of links comes into existence and gets shared throughout the year. Unfortunately, it's all too common for these links to be cast aside once they've been shared. Their performance often goes untracked, and there's no mechanism for making adjustments or recalling them once they're out there, potentially posing risks to the company.

Consider the following questions:

1. How many links does our organization generate and share annually?
2. Do these links align with our brand's voice and image?
3. Do our team members follow any guidelines when sharing links?
4. Are the links we use trustworthy and secure?
5. Can our managers easily update existing links and retire outdated ones?
6. Links are ubiquitous in online communications and serve as the primary calls to action (CTA) that bridge customers to the content businesses want them to engage with, including landing pages, legal documents, promotional offers, and much more.

Brand your links - first step in link management is branding.

Leading companies understand that building a brand is a long-term investment, extending far beyond mere logos, websites, or catchy slogans. A brand encompasses every interaction between a company and its audience, making consistency paramount. Visually, a brand should maintain uniformity across all channels, with a keen focus on elements like the logo, colors, fonts, tone, and imagery.

Links play an integral role in achieving brand consistency, as they unify various brand elements into a cohesive message.

Consider that a significant portion of shared links originate from external sources such as websites, tools, services like CRM or file management systems, partner websites, and various online resources.

Here are a few examples:

• https://markets.ft.com/data/indices/tearsheet/summary?s=IETP:ISE
• https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6369243742070800384/
• https://www.salesforce.com/eu/form/signup/freetrial-sales-pe.jsp?d=7013000000EhgV
• https://www.dropbox.com/sh/b2p7999tqx1Xk1h/AACgT5xB46f2_6AU7bcRG5yca?dl=0

As you can see, these links appear vastly different from one another. They are associated with various domain names, featuring long, incomprehensible alphanumeric codes that hold little meaning for end users.

To establish a more professional image, it's essential to manage all links under a unified domain, regardless of their destination content. This transformation turns lengthy, unattractive links into something more like this:

• YourBrand.news/NewsArticle
• YourBrand.rocks/JobAdvert
• YourBrand.finance/InvoiceNumber
• YourBrand.link/DocumentName

The first step in integrating links into a comprehensive brand strategy is straightforward: brand your links by utilizing a custom domain name. This ensures consistency and builds trust in every link. Branded links serve to streamline the brand's communication style.

Implementing a cohesive branded links strategy, both online and offline, offers a threefold advantage:

1. Enhances the brand's communication style.
2. Improves marketing performance.
3. Shields the organization from potential risks.

The benefits of a robust link strategy!

In the following sections, we will delve into the specific benefits of a robust link strategy, illustrated by real-world use cases from our valued customers.

Enhanced brand awareness and visibility

Each custom-branded link incorporates the company's name, creating a powerful expansion of the brand's reach over time. This empowers teams with the flexibility to craft concise yet meaningful URLs, enabling the brand to shine through with distinctive messaging that perfectly aligns with its core identity.

Increased link trust

People are more inclined to click on links when they have a clear idea of what to expect, especially when they see a trusted brand name combined with familiar keywords. When a company associates its brand name with its links, it assures users that they are being directed to authentic content rather than clickbait or potentially harmful spam/phishing sites.

Branded links serve as a testament to the company's dedication to providing relevant and valuable content, which fosters trust in the brand as a whole. This heightened level of trust can lead to a remarkable increase in the click-through rate (CTR), surpassing generic short URLs or lengthy unbranded links by up to 39%.

Cohesive customer experience

Consistency in messaging style should extend across all platforms, enabling companies to guide customers to the intended destination, regardless of their point of access. It's feasible to establish style and navigation standards based on the user's language, location, or even the device they're using to click. This ensures users enjoy a smooth and cohesive customer experience from beginning to end.

More Memorable Communications

Branded links incorporating straightforward keywords offer ease of pronunciation and memorability. In various scenarios, brands often need to announce links to their audience, making it imperative that these links are not only easily recognizable but also unforgettable.

Outstanding Calls To Action

In today's digital landscape, customers' online attention span is diminishing, while they are bombarded with an ever-increasing volume of marketing content daily. Hence, crafting advertising copy, social media posts, blog content, and online communications that captivate users' attention instantly and drive them to click has become paramount. Frequently, links play a pivotal role as the primary call to action (CTA) in these messages, making branded links the central element in rendering that CTA not just engaging but also actionable.

Better Search Engine Optimization

Branded links boast a streamlined and effective structure, positioning them as an ideal SEO solution. They are concise, featuring a targeted keyword in conjunction with a pertinent domain name. What sets branded links apart is their employment of a 301 response code, also recognized as a permanent redirect. This ensures that they seamlessly transmit the complete 'link juice' to the ultimate destination page, enhancing their SEO efficacy.

Amplified customer retargeting

Retargeting, often referred to as remarketing, stands as a potent online advertising technique to maintain brand visibility among users who have departed your website without taking desired actions. Branded links introduce the capability to seamlessly integrate retargeting pixels with links, allowing the inclusion of those who engaged with the links into retargeting lists. Link retargeting empowers companies to engage with individuals who interacted with their links, irrespective of whether those links directed them to the company's website or content.

Precise analytics

Branded links offer comprehensive analytics that delve deep into critical click data, offering the insights necessary for crafting more potent campaigns. Click tracking occurs right at the source level, ensuring the utmost accuracy in monitoring your traffic and acquiring invaluable insights to enhance your campaigns further.

Custom reports 

At Tapper, we gather valuable link click data, empowering you to effectively manage it through our personalized report builder. Craft tailor-made reports that can be conveniently scheduled and automatically shared with your team and collaborators. Dive into the default data we capture or seamlessly integrate custom data points. Whether you're measuring and refining omni-channel campaigns using trackable touchpoint links or conducting precise audience intelligence mapping, our platform enables you to generate insightful reports that uncover trends, seize opportunities, and mitigate risks with ease.

Attribution

Ever wondered which of your marketing endeavors are yielding real results? That's where attribution comes into play, involving the strategies and techniques employed to attribute value across various channels and interaction points. With a robust link management platform, you gain the capability to track conversions for each link. This empowers businesses to pinpoint the most effective marketing channels, campaigns, team members, and actions – and identify areas that might require a little extra attention. While setting up multi-channel attribution can be intricate, utilizing branded links with comprehensive tracking allows for precise measurement. You'll harness source-level data from every touchpoint, giving you a clearer view of your marketing efforts.

‍Dynamic traffic routing

With the advanced redirect feature offered by Tapper, you gain the ability to tailor link destinations according to user behavior. This invaluable capability enables brands to enhance the user experience and boost conversion rates by providing more personalized content. For instance, if a user accesses a website from a mobile device, hails from a particular region, city, or country, or is browsing in a specific language, the destination page can be dynamically adjusted to cater to those specific details.

Stronger brand protection

For brands, it's crucial to uphold meticulous communication protocols to ensure both legal and operational compliance. With employees spread across the globe actively generating and disseminating links on behalf of the company, the need for a method to edit or remove links at a later date becomes paramount. As time passes and thousands of links are shared, it becomes an onerous task to monitor and rectify outdated, broken, inaccurate, or potentially misleading links linked to the brand. Embracing a robust link management tool equips companies to uphold robust, consistent communications with their followers while proactively mitigating unnecessary risks down the road.

‍Reputation and message deliverability

Domain reputation revolves around the concept of domain credibility, assessing whether a domain is associated with trustworthy or illegitimate content. Generic URL shorteners offer an open door to anyone, including spammers, granting access to the same domain name. Consequently, when a brand utilizes URLs from such generic domains, they relinquish control over the reputation of the links they generate. Domains that end up on blacklists can severely impede the deliverability of all messages, particularly those transmitted via email.

In contrast, employing a custom branded domain to create short links places the domain's owner solely responsible for its reputation. This approach simplifies the task of maintaining a positive standing and ensures it remains well within your sphere of control.

Complete Link Ownership

Generating short URLs without a custom domain deprives companies of the ability to assert ownership over any of the links they've disseminated. Links crafted using a third-party domain remain under the purview of that organization, rendering them uneditable or manageable. Furthermore, should the short URL provider cease its operations, it poses a risk of erasing all associated links, leaving users with no means of recourse.

One centralized management dashboard

Through a branded link platform, teams can be grouped into specialized 'workspaces' based on their departments or locations. Managers have the authority to regulate domain access and account permissions within these workspaces. This setup enables colleagues to seamlessly share links within the same workspace and grants them access to one another's links. By implementing a centralized dashboard, the challenge of employees across the globe following disparate or undefined link-sharing procedures is eradicated. Instead, a single, user-friendly dashboard consolidates all of a company's link resources for effortless management.

‍Full control over the destination

In the realm of marketing, where human errors, swift shifts in campaign directives, and updates to legal policies are par for the course, it becomes imperative for companies to have the ability to modify link destinations or remove links post-sharing. The limitations of generic short URLs and standard links lie in their inflexibility when it comes to editing or deletion. In contrast, branded links empower your company with control. Beyond convenience, this control holds significant legal implications, offering assurance and safeguarding, as it ensures that companies can direct users to current, pertinent content in case anything potentially risky or detrimental gets shared.

Powerful automation

In the world of large organizations, the demand often arises to handle a substantial number of links simultaneously – a task referred to as 'bulk' link management. This is where automation via APIs comes into play, offering a particularly valuable solution when the creation of hundreds, thousands, or even millions of links occurs rapidly, such as in email or SMS campaigns. APIs stand as one method for efficiently generating links in bulk, but there are alternative approaches available, including integrations and the option to upload them conveniently from a CSV file.

Better data and privacy protection

By having complete link ownership and central management through a unified dashboard, you gain the ability to exercise precise control over how data is stored and shared. Privacy laws and standards exhibit significant variability from one country to another, and there exist specific regulations governing how data controllers manage the data they accumulate – in this context, it pertains to the link data.

Were you aware that some of the most renowned URL shorteners inadvertently allow competitors to gain insights into your link click metrics? For instance, simply appending '.info' to a Goo.gl link or adding a “+” sign to a Bitly link readily exposes all the click statistics for that link! Conversely, when you leverage a personalized domain and collaborate with a trusted link management provider, you retain the authority to determine what information about your links is made public.

Responding when things go wrong

When engaging with customers, it's a certainty that occasional mishaps will occur, whether stemming from technical glitches or human oversight. Being well-prepared to address various user responses is vital, requiring a predetermined understanding of what qualifies as a major issue versus minor hiccups.

In the realm of customer communication, including handling complaints, maintaining a robust brand image is just as pivotal as delivering swift responses. Certain events have the potential to inflict irreparable harm to a brand's reputation if not managed effectively.

In many scenarios, the most expedient crisis resolution involves adjusting the destination URL of the affected link or links, guiding customers toward a new landing page or an updated article tailored to the prevailing situation. Branded links empower you with the flexibility to modify destination URLs at your discretion, enabling you to swiftly contain and prevent the escalation of a crisis.

Keep it simple with Tapper 

Tapper stands out as the rapidly growing provider of cutting-edge link management and branding solutions specially crafted for large enterprises and prominent brands.

Our team of marketing and technical experts collaborates closely with your internal management teams, kickstarting the process with an initial evaluation and crafting tailored solutions designed to suit your unique needs.

At Tapper, we excel at ensuring that your organization's links, irrespective of the department or use case, are impeccably managed and optimized. We work hand-in-hand with your organization to develop comprehensive implementation strategies, encompassing:

• Initial Assessment and Scope-of-Work Recommendations
• Expert Domain Name Consultation and Portfolio Management Guidance
• Precise Link Branding Procedures Definition
• Seamless Initial Setup and Link Import
• Convenient Single Sign-on Integration
• Tailored Custom Report Setup and Scheduling
• Effortless Software Integrations
• Comprehensive Company-Wide Training Programs
• Customized SLA (Service Level Agreement)
• Vigilant Malicious Content Monitoring
• Committed Account Manager and Engineer Support

The Tapper branded link platform empowers brands to:

• Effortlessly Embrace New Technologies
• Utilize a Unified Platform for Link Distribution and Cross-Channel Data Monitoring
• Establish Standardized Analytics Protocols Across Teams
• Gain Deeper Insights into Every Customer Touchpoint's Value
• Cultivate a Consistently Exceptional Customer Journey from the Initial Click Across Various Devices
• Effectively Manage All Link Assets from One Central Hub, Whether Through Manual or Programmatic Means

Tapper provides marketing teams a smart link for every campaign. You can brand links, redirect, retarget, deep-link, A/B test audiences, and precisely measure the performance of your campaigns across platforms and channels.