Use cases
What people actually do with a short link
Nine jobs, grouped by the thing that makes each one work rather than by the industry it happens in. Every one names the capability underneath it, because a use case you cannot trace to a feature is a use case somebody made up.
01
One code, more than one destination
A printed code is fixed the moment it is printed, and it will be scanned on an iPhone in one country and an Android in another. Rules decide where each scan lands. Anything no rule matches falls through to the link’s own destination, so a visitor nobody planned for still arrives somewhere.
Send every phone to the right app store
One code on the packaging, the poster or the foot of an email. An iPhone gets the App Store, an Android gets Google Play, and a laptop gets your web page — because a single store link is the wrong link for roughly half of everyone who scans it.
A rule on operating system, with iPadOS counted as iOS.
A menu in the language the phone is set to
One code on the table. A rule on language opens the menu that guest can read, and everybody else gets the default — so a visitor whose phone is set to something nobody wrote a rule for still gets a menu rather than a dead end.
A rule on the language the browser asks in, read from its first preference.
One design, several markets
The same artwork ships to every country, and the scan resolves to the shop, the listing or the price page for wherever it was scanned. Rules combine, so an iPhone in the US and an iPhone in the UK are two different answers to one printed code.
Rules on country, continent, region or city, combined with device or OS.
02
Print is the part you cannot take back
Everything else in a campaign can be edited after it goes out. Five thousand leaflets cannot, and neither can a label already on a shelf. Resolving through a link you still own is the only version of print that stays fixable.
Packaging and leaflets you can still change
The campaign ends, the page moves, the offer is replaced. Edit the destination and every code already in the world starts going somewhere else. The address printed on the paper never changes — only where it lands.
Editing a live link’s destination, and archiving one that should stop.
Signage that tells you which sign worked
A link per position — the banner, the lanyard, the table at the back — grouped into one campaign. You get the figure for the event and the figure for each place you put a code, instead of one number covering all of them.
A link per placement, grouped into a campaign, with scans counted apart from clicks.
Boards, window cards and brochures
A code per property, pointed at the listing and repointed when the listing changes. Archive it when the place sells, and a board somebody photographed last month stops going anywhere rather than leading somewhere unintended.
Per-link reporting, repointing, and archiving that keeps the address reserved.
03
Numbers somebody is going to question
The counts that get challenged are the ones attached to money — a payout, an invoice, next quarter’s budget for a channel. Automated traffic is counted apart from people and every exclusion is named, so the answer to “why is this so high?” is a line item rather than an assurance.
An email whose click rate looks too good
Mimecast, Proofpoint and Defender each open every link in a message before its recipient does. Counted as clicks, that is a click rate which collapses the first time somebody sets it beside the number of people on the list.
Mail-security scanners classified and reported separately, each one named.
A click count somebody is being paid on
Per-link reporting where both sides read the same figure and the same exclusions. What came out is itemised, which is the difference between a number that settles an argument and a number that starts one.
Per-link totals, with every excluded request attributed to a named rule.
Links pasted into Slack, WhatsApp and LinkedIn
Every platform fetches a link once to build its preview card, before a single person has seen the post. Those fetches are separated out — and on a paid plan you write the card yourself, so one page can be framed differently in each channel you share it in.
Preview crawlers classified from one User-Agent list, and a card you set per link.
Not on this list
Two things people expect to find here
Both are reasonable to want from a page like this, and neither is built. Better said here than discovered after the leaflets are printed.
- Your own domain
- Short links on a hostname of your own, so the link carries your name from the first character. Links run on a Badger short domain today.
- Conversion attribution
- Which links led to a sale or a sign-up, not just a visit — so a campaign can be judged on what it earned rather than what it attracted. Badger Links counts clicks and scans today.
Ten links is enough to test one of these
The free plan carries the whole report rather than a preview of it, and no existing link is ever switched off for being over a limit. No credit card.