How to Get a Custom URL for Your Campaigns -- And Why You Should

How often do you think about branding for your business? Hopefully your answer falls somewhere between "all the time" and "so much that I even dream about it!" Entrepreneur defines branding as "The marketing practice of creating a name, symbol or design that identifies and differentiates a product from other products."Why is branding so important? Branding does more than add cohesiveness to your business's marketing and set you apart from your competitors; branding positions your business as the "go-to" in your industry when your clients have a problem that needs solving. Think about slogans from companies like Home Depot ("More saving, More doing") or Nike ("Just do it") or Apple ("Think Different"). These slogans are part of the company's branding.

I love how About.com emphasized the importance of branding by saying, "Your brand resides within the hearts and minds of customers, clients, and prospects. It is the sum total of their experiences and perceptions, some of which you can influence, and some that you cannot."One of the most important places to brand your business is in URLs.

This can be difficult if you're using a tracking software or even a third-party platform that creates URLs for your marketing materials, such as with ShortStack.com. When you build a Campaign using ShortStack.com you'll be provided with a Smart URL. We use Smart URLs because they enable all of our Campaigns to be mobile friendly without requiring any extra steps from users. However, unless you embed that Campaign on your website, you'll want to customize your URL so that it reflects your brand.

Here are 3 reasons you should brand every Campaign URL you create:

1. Uniform Verbiage:

‍As we previously expressed, it's important to brand all of your marketing materials. Using a custom Campaign URL gives you the opportunity to include relevant words and your business name in your URL. This will keep your Campaign consistent with the rest of the materials you're sharing online.

‍2. SEO:

‍URLs are one of the fundamental building blocks for SEO. The easier you can make it for top search sites to find your URL the better they'll rank. Using your business name in your Campaign URL makes it easy for anyone online to find your Campaign if they're searching your business.

‍3. Looks more trustworthy:

‍Including your company name in your Campaign URL makes it look more professional than a default URL does.

Here is how you can brand your Campaign URL in ShortStack

Step #1: Build your Campaign and hit publish. You'll be greeted with a Congratulations message that will include your Campaign URL. Click on the Custom URL button to brand your Campaign URL.

Step #2: Type in your preferred custom subdomain in the box. We recommend including your business name and a relevant word to your Campaign. For example "dove-thanksgiving-giveaway." Click on the pencil icon if you'd like to change the main domain.

Step #3: Depending on your subscription, ShortStack offers up to five different domain options that you can choose from for your main domain. Your Campaign URL will appear as such, "yourbrand.maindomain.com/xxxxx"

Step #4: Use your custom URL to share your Campaign with your audience. All ShortStack URLs are inherently mobile friendly.

*The features discussed in this post require a premium ShortStack plan.