With social media trending towards character limitations, layout restrictions, and quicker feedback times, it seems that URL shortening services such as Bit.ly and TinyURL are becoming more and more ubiquitous every day.

So what exactly is URL shortening? In a nutshell, these services convert long web addresses into short, easy-to-use URLs that are convenient for sharing. If you’ve ever used Facebook’s status update tool or Twitter’s microblogging service, chances are you have come into contact with a link referring to a URL shortening service.

While I have yet to come across an email campaign that links to a shortened URL, I’d imagine that some email marketers will soon begin coordinating the links in their emails with the links distributed via Twitter and Facebook (to maintain consistency across channels). I also foresee email marketing messages occasionally incorporating tweets and status updates into the body of the email, which means that some URL-shortened links could be distributed via email.

So what should you know about URL shortening services before you incorporate them into your emails?

For digital marketers, URL shortening services are worth keeping an eye on for two reasons: they hold the potential to take analytics to new heights, while they also have the potential to take phishing and spam attacks to new lows. A recent article by Jenna Wortham of the New York Times explains further:

“The tracking element is very important,” said Mr. Sullivan. Some tools even highlight comments posted to Facebook or FriendFeed about a particular link — features that standard tools like Google Analytics may not be able to provide.

As the article points out, URL shortening services’ ability to track link usage across instant messages, Twitter, Facebook, blogs and e-mail holds great potential for marketers – but it does also come with several drawbacks:

“People have no way to know where they’re going,” said Patrik Runald, chief security advisor at F-Secure Security Labs, a maker of security software. “These services are great and they serve a purpose, but at the same time, there is a darker side.”

And if a shortening site shuts down, any links funneled through it would be lost forever, Mr. Runald said.

Weighing the benefits and risks involved, I would venture to say that email marketers, particularly those from financial institutions or in situations involving personal information, should proceed with caution when considering using shortened URLs in their messages. Ultimately, subscribers will desire more secure URLs that clearly indicate that the link they are clicking on indeed belongs to a reputable domain, and not some spoof or scam site.

I am also interested to see which technology leaders choose to develop their own form of link shortening services. I could easily envision web analytics, social media, or even email marketing companies developing their own proprietary form of this technology to make the linking process more secure. Regardless, I’d say that URL shortening is a topic worth keeping an eye on throughout this year.

Tags: bit.ly, link shortening, social media, tinyURL, url shortening, web analytics

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