Modern PR teams rely on strong storytelling to drum up interest in their campaigns, but that’s only part of what it takes to generate lasting results. You’ll also need trustworthy digital tools that provide the data and flexibility to support fast-moving campaigns.
Enter Bitly: A powerful platform for building digital connections across your entire PR strategy. Bitly’s full suite of tools includes short links, QR Codes, no-code landing pages, analytics, and UTM tagging to support campaigns at every stage.
With Bitly on your side, you can create seamless experiences across media types, maintain brand consistency at every touchpoint, and track your campaign performance in real time. Here’s how to use Bitly to power up your PR campaigns.
Note: The brands and examples discussed below were found during our online research for this article.
Why Bitly is a powerful tool for PR teams
As a PR professional, you’re juggling a wide range of brand marketing strategies and digital assets in every campaign. Bitly’s tools help you build strong connections between platforms for a more cohesive approach.
Short, branded links help control the message
When creating press releases, media kits, or promotional emails, you have a limited amount of space to work with. But it’s still essential to link to your website or social media accounts to drive traffic.
This is where Bitly links come in. Instead of including a full URL in your PR assets, use a branded short link to save space and ensure your links look professional.
With Bitly, you can customize your shortened URLs with your brand domain and a custom back-half. This small detail has a big impact, creating brand consistency across your PR assets and building trust with your audience.
Long URLs can look messy or be confusing for readers, but Bitly branded links let audiences know exactly what to expect when they click on the link.
QR Codes connect physical PR to digital action
Physical media still plays an important role in PR strategies, but you need a way to connect your offline promotions with your online PR, sales, and marketing campaigns. Bitly’s customizable QR Codes help you turn in-person interest into tangible digital traffic.
You can place QR Codes on a wide range of physical PR assets, such as mailers, packaging, and product inserts. They also work well on signage and flyers when hosting events.
All Bitly QR Codes are dynamic, which means you can update the destination URL whenever you need to. This way, you can pivot on the fly or even repurpose QR Codes for different campaigns, rather than generating a new one every time your strategy changes.
Bitly Analytics also offers scan tracking, so you can measure engagement levels in real time and tweak your approach to drive more interest if needed.
Bitly Pages simplify digital storytelling without dev help
Landing pages are an essential component of any PR campaign, as they provide your audience with the exact information they’re searching for, all in one place. Bitly Pages serve as a one-stop landing experience for all your PR strategies, including announcements, events, media kits, and influencer campaigns.
Bitly Pages are visually appealing landing pages that don’t require any design or coding skills to create. You can choose from a wide range of templates and customize each page to align with your brand identity and campaign goals. Landing pages that are both aesthetically pleasing and functional build trust and brand loyalty, setting the stage for future engagement.
And since 96.3% of the world’s internet users access the web on mobile devices at least some of the time, Bitly Pages are mobile-optimized, creating a seamless experience for your audience regardless of which device they are using.
How to use Bitly in campaign launch and media distribution
For PR pros, launching a campaign is a busy but exciting time. There’s so much to do during this phase, including reaching out to the media, drafting announcements, and distributing the PR assets you’ve created.
Bitly provides essential support during your initial campaign launch, helping you create a cohesive campaign and track your early progress. Here’s how to use Bitly in the early stages of your campaign.
Use branded links in press releases and media kits
A key step in early PR campaigns is sending email pitches to journalists, influencers, and other relevant parties. In these pitches, you need to share media kits and press releases, but you only have a limited amount of space to make it count. Many of your email recipients also receive hundreds of emails daily, so you’ll only have a few seconds to make a bold first impression.
Short links look clean and professional in email pitches, making them an ideal solution for PR campaigns. With short URLs, you can link to a landing page with downloadable media kits, press release PDFs, and high-quality images, so there’s no need to include them as attachments.
Short links are also trackable with Bitly Analytics. You can monitor clicks in real time to determine whether or not your emails are driving awareness.
Create QR Codes for physical mailers, signage, or packaging
If you’re using physical assets as part of your PR launch, be sure to add QR Codes that link to supporting digital content.
For example, if you’re sending complimentary products to influencers, include a QR Code on the product mailer or packaging that links to a custom media kit or other exclusive content. This gives influencers essential context for the products they’re receiving, which can increase their chances of getting featured in a future social media post.
Another popular PR strategy is hosting events, and QR Codes are a particularly helpful tool for collecting RSVPs. Whether you’re sending event invites directly or posting promotional flyers around town, you can include QR Codes that link to an online RSVP page with all the details attendees will need.
Build a Bitly Page as a campaign hub
With Bitly Pages, you can consolidate all of your campaign assets into a single mobile-friendly online destination. Instead of having different pages for your press releases, media kits, and other promotional content, you can create one user-friendly PR hub in minutes using a Bitly Pages template.
Journalists, influencers, and brand partners can all visit your Bitly Page to find the assets they need to promote your brand.
Track early momentum with link and scan data
With Bitly, you don’t have to wait to see how your PR campaign is performing—you can monitor link clicks and QR Code scans as they happen with Bitly Analytics.
You’ll be able to see when people engage with your pitches in real time, which can help you determine whether your campaign is gaining traction or not. These metrics can also help you prioritize follow-up actions and make adjustments to your campaign to maximize performance.
Tag all links with UTM parameters to prep for wrap-up reporting
When you launch new digital assets for your PR and marketing efforts, it’s helpful to know where your traffic is coming from. During the initial campaign launch process, plan ahead by adding UTM tags to each of your Bitly links. Adding UTM tags is a simple step that will help with attribution later on in your campaign.
For example, you can add UTM tags to a URL specifying whether the traffic is coming from email, social media platforms, or other sources. Then, you can track your UTM tags in Google Analytics to see where your online visitors are coming from.
Used together, Bitly and Google Analytics provide comprehensive insight into your PR campaign performance.
Using Bitly to manage live PR campaigns
Once you’ve launched your PR campaign and your digital assets are live, Bitly continues to support you with easy updates and real-time tracking. Here’s how to use Bitly to manage your live PR campaigns.
Monitor media pickups and social shares in real time
First, you can use Bitly Analytics to identify which brand mentions are driving traffic. To do this, include a shortened link in your media kit or press releases to your most buzzworthy digital content. Then, encourage journalists and influencers to include that link if they talk about your brand online.
Bitly Analytics helps you track referral sources for your clicks and scans, which can tell you where traffic is coming from. For example, if an influencer shares a post about your brand on Instagram and includes your dedicated Instagram link, you’ll be able to see the number of clicks coming from that platform.
This approach will help you identify social shares and media pickups as they happen, so you can respond right away and keep the momentum going.
Update QR Code destinations instantly if needed
Bitly’s Dynamic QR Codes are easy to update, so you can make changes to your PR strategy with ease.
Maybe you need to update your press kit to reflect current events in your industry. You can create a new press kit and replace the URL embedded in your associated QR Code, without having to reprint or redistribute your existing marketing assets. You can also easily update your QR Codes when you launch a new landing page or make other website changes.
Create new Pages or links to support campaign pivots
As your PR campaign evolves, you may need to launch new assets to capitalize on unexpected engagement. Fortunately, Bitly makes it easy!
Say an email pitch leads to a feature story in a reputable publication, and you want to share the story prominently in your marketing efforts. To do this, you can create a new Bitly Page highlighting the feature and a corresponding custom link that directs your audience to the article. This makes it easy to promote the coverage in your digital ads, email marketing, social media, and more.
How Bitly supports influencer and partner PR efforts
Influencer partnerships play an essential role in modern PR strategies. In fact, 77% of brands maintain partnerships with 1–10 influencers at any given time.
Many brands also partner with other companies in their industry or related ones to launch partner campaigns. In both scenarios, control, consistency, and data-sharing are essential for a successful campaign. Here’s how Bitly can help you manage your influencer and partner PR strategies.
Provide partners with branded links to use in posts
As we’ve previously mentioned, distributing branded links to your partners is an excellent way to stay in control of your PR strategy and manage engagement levels. When working with influencers or other brands, provide them with a custom Bitly URL to link to your website, instead of having them include their own links.
This approach helps keep messaging on brand across your entire PR strategy, as you can control what your short links look like with custom domains and back-halves. This also allows your PR team to monitor clicks and determine whether influencer marketing has been effective at driving engagement.
Use QR Codes in packaging or event kits for PR stunts
Add scannable QR Codes to your PR stunts to create a memorable experience for your influencer partners. These small details will help your brand stand out and increase your chances of being featured in organic content.
For example, if you’re sending makeup or skincare products to beauty influencers, include a QR Code on the mailers or packaging inserts. The QR Code can link to tutorials and other exclusive online content, which helps make the product more enticing and shows influencers exactly how to use it in their content.
Another popular influencer PR strategy is hosting events, and QR Codes can be powerful assets here too. Say you’re hosting an influencer PR event for a new restaurant. You can include a QR Code on the invitation that links to the curated menu, building anticipation and letting attendees know what to expect.
Create landing pages with pre-approved messaging or assets
One of the biggest challenges when launching an influencer PR campaign is maintaining a cohesive brand message while still encouraging your influencer partners to create content that’s authentic to them. A simple way to solve this problem is to create a dedicated Bitly Page for your influencer partners or spokespeople.
On this landing page, you can include taglines and images for influencers to use, as well as general brand guidance to keep in mind. This is also a great place to answer influencer FAQs for seamless collaborations.
With this approach, you can ensure more consistent messaging and imagery across partnerships and a more memorable PR campaign overall.
Track campaign performance by source
When you’re working with multiple influencers or brand partners, Bitly helps you compare their performance. Just create separate Bitly links for each partner or marketing channel, then use Bitly’s link management tools to track engagement levels in real time.
Metrics like total clicks and clicks over time can help you assess the ROI of each partnership and also inform your future PR strategies. You might opt to send more PR packages to influencers who were particularly successful or rethink strategies that didn’t drive many clicks.
Use analytics to prepare performance summaries for stakeholders
Once your influencer PR campaign has wrapped up, you can use data from Bitly to create detailed performance summaries for internal stakeholders or external clients. Click and scan data illustrate your brand’s reach and engagement, and you can also use these insights to highlight standout partnerships.
Creating these wrap-up reports is an easy way to showcase the importance and effectiveness of PR campaigns, encouraging investments in future initiatives. One study by Cison found that 44% of communications professionals struggle to align metrics with revenue or business KPIs, and Bitly can help you connect the dots to measure impact.
How Bitly boosts fast, effective crisis communications
Of course, not all PR campaigns start off on a positive note, and if you need to respond to a crisis quickly, Bitly’s digital marketing tools can help. With Bitly, you can share timely information and track engagement levels to control the narrative.
Use branded links in rapid response messaging
If you need to share a sensitive update on social media, in an email, or in an SMS message, do so with branded links. Bitly’s short links look clean and professional in official statements, and they align with your brand for cohesion and professionalism. Sharing official statements on high-traffic marketing platforms helps prevent misinformation in a crisis.
Create a crisis response landing page with immediate updates
In a crisis, overwhelming your customers with multiple emails or social media posts can be confusing. Instead, create a central Bitly Page and update it regularly with the latest information. Bitly Pages are ideal for mobile readers looking for quick updates, plus they’re easy to edit as new information comes in.
One instance where a crisis response landing page is particularly helpful is during a natural disaster. For example, if hurricanes or wildfires are affecting areas where your business operates, create a landing page to share the latest information and give your audience peace of mind.
How to use Bitly for PR reporting and post-campaign insights
Reporting is the final step of any PR campaign, and Bitly offers valuable insights during this wrap-up process. Here’s how to incorporate Bitly into your post-campaign analysis.
Analyze clicks and scans to measure total reach
Bitly Analytics provides a detailed breakdown of your QR Code and short link performance. When you navigate to your Bitly Analytics dashboard, you’ll see the total number of clicks or scans each asset has received, which illustrates total campaign reach and engagement levels.
Then, you can break down your click and scan data even further to learn more about who’s engaging with your content. View clicks and scans by location (city/country), referrer, and device (iOS/Android, desktop vs. mobile), which tells you where your PR audience is located and how they’re accessing your content.
On top of that, Bitly Analytics helps you visualize clicks and scans over time to see when your engagement was at its highest.
Filter by campaign, source, or content type
Next, break down this performance data by category and create a detailed report by combining data from Bitly Analytics with information from other marketing and analytics platforms. This will give you a more holistic look at your overall performance.
For example, you might break down traffic by digital platform, influencer, or event to see which sources generated the most traffic. Since Bitly enables you to add UTM parameters to your links, you can pair it with tools like Google Analytics to extract even more granular data and highlight what worked and what didn’t.
Use results to improve future messaging and targeting
After you’ve analyzed the results, you can use them as a catalyst to improve your future PR campaigns. Insights from past Bitly Campaigns can highlight which strategies are working well and should be repeated in future campaigns, as well as areas for improvement.
Say you notice that pitches sent via social media are getting more clicks than pitches sent via email, or vice versa. You can use this information to fine-tune your pitching strategy in the future to maximize results.
Post-campaign reporting can also help you improve timing and messaging for future PR strategies. For example, you might find that your clicks and scans are highest at the beginning of the month. During future campaigns, you can use this knowledge to optimize your messaging schedule and increase your chances of getting a quick response.
Step-by-step example of Bitly in action for your PR campaigns
Wondering how to get started with Bitly for PR? Here’s a step-by-step breakdown to help you integrate Bitly into your next campaign.
Step 1: Set up branded links and QR Codes before launch
Before you launch your next PR strategy, start by creating branded links for your website, media kit, social media accounts, and downloadable assets.
All you have to do is enter the long link for the target website into Bitly’s URL shortener. Then, depending on your plan, you can customize the link with your branded domain and back-half.
Then, create custom QR Codes for the same websites. Just enter the target URL in Bitly’s QR Code generator, then customize the design by adding your brand’s colors, logo, and other design elements. Once the QR Code is ready, you can download it as a JPEG, PNG, or SVG file to add to your physical PR materials.
Step 2: Build a Bitly Page to host key campaign assets
Next, create a single Bitly Page to consolidate all links related to your PR campaign. This could include press releases, product images, internal contact details, and any other relevant information. This landing page should be designed with journalists, influencers, or brand partners in mind, as it will help them find everything they need in one place.
Creating a Bitly Page is a straightforward process that doesn’t require any coding knowledge. After creating your custom short URL, choose a template that aligns with your campaign image. Then, simply populate the template with content and brand assets, push it live, and test to make sure everything works correctly before sharing.
Step 3: Launch the campaign with links tagged for tracking
Now that all your assets have been created, it’s time to launch. Distribute your short links and QR Codes across your press releases, email pitches, and social posts, as well as any physical PR assets you’re using. And don’t forget to add UTM parameters to each short link so you can track where your clicks are coming from.
You can also use different short links and QR Codes for each PR channel for more granular engagement tracking. For example, if you’re conducting outreach via email and social media, use a different link for each platform, rather than reusing the same one. This is particularly helpful if you also use Bitly for digital marketing, as it helps you keep your campaign metrics separate.
Step 4: Monitor link clicks and QR Code scans in real time
After launching your campaign, use Bitly Analytics to keep tabs on how your campaign is performing. Keep an eye on key metrics like top-performing channels, geographic activity, and timing of engagement.
Since you’ll be tracking engagement levels in real time, you can make updates to your campaign as needed to maximize performance. You can update QR Code destinations, create new links, or tweak your Bitly Pages to add new information as your PR strategy evolves.
Step 5: Review campaign data and compile your wrap-up report
After your PR campaign has ended, conduct a thorough review of your engagement levels using Bitly Analytics. Assess your overall engagement volume and compare it across different channels or audience segments.
Having pre-tagged links with UTM parameters will be particularly helpful here, as you’ll be able to see exactly where your web traffic is coming from via Google Analytics. Use these insights to create a wrap-up report and make your strategy even better for future campaigns.
Prove the value of your PR efforts with Bitly
Bitly is a powerful campaign enablement platform for PR professionals and brand managers, enabling you to share smarter, move faster, and report with confidence.
Create branded links, QR Codes, and mobile-optimized no-code landing pages—all from one user-friendly platform—and leverage Bitly’s extensive customization options to ensure all your assets are aligned with your brand image.
With Bitly, you can also track your PR assets in real time, measuring every link and click to see where your strategy is shining and where it could use a boost. The result? Invaluable insights, more impactful campaigns, and the data to prove your ROI.
Sign up for Bitly today and get the tools, data, and flexibility you need to take your PR campaigns to the next level.
