This is a screenshot of the Twitter post from the marketing for the Deadpool movie that got Alan Dunn from TechCrunch to write, “Deadpool is missing out on a very real opportunity for consistent brand experience”:

Why? Because of the Bit.ly link. Short links are bad for business.

Techcrunch illustrates yet another reason. For some reason, the Deadpool people decided to give some free marketing away to bit.ly in their tweet instead of reinforcing their own brand.

And they’re not alone. Tens of millions of marketers and brands are building up the brands of tracking services instead of their own by branding the wrong domains in their marketing.

So far, TechCrunch is right on track, but then they go and say that Deadpool should use a custom secondary domain like “maybe deadpool.link, dp.link or something that’s more the Deadpool brand than someone else’s.”

On that point, I have to disagree.

Secondary domains are the standard solution to upgrading from short links, and they are much better for sure. But, there is only one domain that Deadpool should be branding, and that’s their website.

Whatever your brand, people intuitively know that domains like Deadpool.link or dp.link could be owned by anyone. In fact, the first domain TechCrunch suggested is already owned by someone else. When people see the real domain, like deadpool.com, they believe it.

Take a look at the three options in context:

Looking at the links, there is only one that is obviously safe.

That’s one of the reasons we built Tracker.ly. It is the only SaaS analytics service that makes links on your own websites. With our automated installer, the best branding possible is accessible from everyone from beginners to big brands.

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