Email Tools TLDR Vol. 2 ft. LinkShortener.io - Finding your next best email tools.

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Hey there, Friend!

Today marks Volume 2.0 of our newest member to the Email Advice in Your Inbox stable.

Last time, we took a look at a brilliant Gen-Ai email tool from Stripo, and we’re back with something new to help our community.

We’ve been avid users of our favourite link-shortening and tracking tool, LinkShortener.io.

They’ve been kind enough to let us use an upgraded version of their tool, and we have to say, a huge portion of our strategy, and what guides our content curated for the members, has been built using their platform.

Your tracking goes beyond mere in-email platform tracking. Are you ready to see why this is a missing part of many email sender strategies?

(PPS: These are exclusive to our Email Advice in Your Inbox community. If you’d like to stop receiving these, simply hit this link or the preferences button to choose what you’d prefer to hear from us.)

More about LinkShortener.io

Over the years, we’ve tested our fair share of link shortening tools. Some basic, some a little too clunky, and others that make you question your life choices 🙃

LinkShortener.io, though? It lands neatly in that sweet spot between some pretty robust functionality and genuinely intuitive design.

(And, we need to add a disclaimer to say that they haven’t got us in a chokehold to say that either.)

If you’ve been dabbling in email, SMS, or social campaigns, chances are you’ve needed a short link or QR code (or seven). And while most tools get you halfway there, LinkShortener.io seems to have asked: “What if we just made everything a bit easier?”

Turns out… they did.

For starters, you can shorten more than just URLs. Email addresses, phone numbers, full bio landing pages… they’ve built an ecosystem that goes well beyond what the name implies.

Need to whip up a trackable QR code that isn’t hideous? Done.

Looking to export links to your CRM via Zapier? Not a problem.

Want to design a branded link-in-bio microsite for your Instagram profile in under 5 minutes? Weirdly possible.

Let’s walk you through our experience.

First impressions

We were handed access to the Pro plan, and our dashboard was loaded with potential:

• 4,000 links and QR codes to work with monthly

• 10 custom domains

• Previews of real-time analytics

• A tidy, clutter-free interface that just makes sense

Spoiler: All the features feel incredibly easy to use, even if you’re not the most technically inclined marketer.

It’s always a good sign when a product’s first click feels like you’ve used it before.

The creation journey

Each tool you click on feels like it belongs in its own standalone app. But it’s all there, under one roof.

When creating a shortened URL, for instance, you can:

• Add UTM parameters

• Tag links for tracking

• Set expiry dates

• Choose from branded domains (if you’ve added yours)

• Instantly view analytics like clicks and referral sources

The QR code builder deserves a special mention. You can add your logo, tweak the colour palette to match your brand, and select from platform-based templates. Pretty much, everything from Facebook to WhatsApp.

That’s a solid value add in itself.

And yes, you can download them as PNGs or embed them directly into emails or landing pages.

For those of us who still remember trying to manually create QR codes in 2015, this feels like luxury 😅

Management made easy

Where LinkShortener.io stands apart. You’re not just dumping data into a box. 

You’re customising, shaping, and styling your tracking environment.

Five features genuinely shifted the platform from “nice tool” to “this could live in my stack permanently”:

1. Trackable Email & Phone Shorteners
For email senders, most ESP tracking doesn’t cover phone or email link clicks. You can create clickable, shortened email addresses and phone numbers, then track engagement from your campaigns. It’s simple, smart, and surprisingly rare.

2. Push to CRM or ESP
Use Gmail or Outlook? Sorted. Prefer Mailchimp, MailerLite or Constant Contact? Covered. Don’t want an ESP at all? Push data to your CRM via Zapier or Webhooks. It’s nice to have options, especially when working across multiple platforms.

3. Branded Link in Bio Pages
Custom microsites with social links, product pages, and galleries. Drag, drop, done. And no need to spin up a full webpage on your CMS either (or have your page look like everyone else using Linktree either).

4. Custom Fonts & Branding Options
Uploading and using your own fonts only takes a few minutes, and you can set consistent brand colours and buttons too. It’s all built around keeping your identity intact (something we appreciate far more than we used to).

5. Deep Analytics
Clicks, scans, referrals, performance over time…these are all neatly visualised in our dashboard. Plus, a clean look at our weekly growth and activity across assets really helps guide the content we share with you!

(Our Ultimate List of Newsletters seriously wouldn’t be what it is without these guys).

Our overall impression

To sum things up: LinkShortener.io brings surprising depth to a space that’s often been an afterthought.

With a Free Plan to get you going, and a Pro Plan (which we’re using) that gives you 2,000+ links, 3 custom domains, and full analytics access, it ticks most boxes for small teams and large campaigns alike.

A couple of things we’d love to see down the line:

More styling options in Link in Bio
More flexibility here could turn this into a mini full-page builder. But even as it is, it’s a gem.

Click heatmaps or device data
Not essential, but it'd be great to see clicks by device or geography for that extra layer of insight.

Better site speed
It’s not bad, but it could always be better when it becomes noticeable (though, my small-town internet latency might also be a culprit at times).

Overall, this is a highly capable, surprisingly well-designed tool that could easily slide into your workflow (especially if you’re looking for more than what Bit.ly or similar one-trick platforms offer).

We’ll be keeping this one in rotation. Give it a try. You might just be pleasantly surprised.

Where to try LinkShortener.io?

As exhaustive as our quick review may have been, you can find out more by visiting their site here.

Keen to skip the reading and get started?

Hit the button below to head on over and sign up for a free plan to try them out today 👇🏻

(FYI: This email is a completely free and unpaid publication. We won’t receive anything if you sign up for LinkShortener.io, and our views remain our own and are in no way influenced.)

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