After your product launch, one big question lingers: Are people engaging? From QR Codes on packaging to short links in social media posts and influencer marketing, tracking which assets actually drive user engagement can be tough. Bitly makes it easy.
With built-in analytics tools, Bitly shows you real-time data—link clicks, scans, device types, and more—so you can evaluate marketing performance across every channel. Whether you’re optimizing landing pages or reviewing engagement metrics from branded links, our tools help you make data-driven decisions about everything from partnerships to social media campaigns with confidence. In this article, we explore how to use Bitly for digital marketing insights once your product launches.
Note: The brands and examples discussed below were found during our online research for this article.
Why post-launch engagement tracking matters
Your product launch is just the beginning. Once the announcement goes live, the real brand awareness work begins—figuring out how your audience interacts with the content, campaigns, and experiences you’ve built around it. No matter how you do it, tracking performance after launch is essential. In the following sections, we’ll break down what makes post-launch tracking critical and how Bitly helps you close the loop with real-time engagement insights.
The engagement blind spot after a product goes live
Many marketing teams go all in on launch-day excitement—crafting splashy campaigns, teaser videos, and polished product launch landing pages—but then miss the mark on what comes next. Without a plan to track follow-up engagement, you’re left with a blind spot. Are users actually visiting your support page? Scanning the QR Code on the product insert? Clicking links in onboarding emails?
This is where Bitly shines. Using our short links and QR Codes with built-in analytics, you get real-time data on how, when, and where your customers engage, so you’re never in the dark about post-launch performance.
What marketers want to measure after launch
After launch, it’s time to start gauging the effectiveness of your campaign. You want to know:
- Did customers scan the QR Code on our flyer?
- Are they clicking the CTA in our follow-up emails?
- Which cities engaged most with our booth’s promo link?
These moments offer insight into what’s resonating. Key metrics like clicks, scans, city/country engagement, and device types help you assess campaign effectiveness, optimize messaging, and report on ROI.
95% of new products fail. If you don’t want your product to be part of that statistic, you must put in the work to track the right metrics after launch and update your strategies accordingly. No product launch is fire-and-forget. While it’s important to be creative before launch, you have to carry that creativity on into the post-launch phase, while staying informed about what is and isn’t working.
Bitly makes it simple. You get real-time access to all this via a clean analytics dashboard or exportable Bitly reporting that’s perfect for syncing with other marketing tools and aligning your team’s next moves.
There are common tracking gaps in traditional product launches
Most launches rely on siloed metrics: Social media platforms track engagement in one place, email tools in another, and offline efforts like print materials often go untracked. Add in the absence of a solid UTM links strategy, and it’s no wonder many marketing campaigns fall short on insights.
Bitly fills in the gaps. With centralized, link-level data, you can track every touchpoint—from QR Codes on direct mail to short links shared in webinars. This unified view eliminates guesswork and helps you spot underperforming assets fast, so you can adjust your marketing strategy with confidence.
How Bitly helps teams track post-launch engagement
Once your product is live, visibility across every marketing channel and all demographics becomes crucial. In the sections below, we’ll walk through how Bitly Links, QR Codes, and campaign features work together to provide complete post-launch performance insights.
Track which assets are actually driving traffic
With Bitly, you can create individual short links and QR Codes for every post-launch asset—social media posts, product inserts, pitch decks, follow-up emails, and more. Each includes click and scan metrics so you can pinpoint what’s performing by format, channel, or audience segment.
Bitly Links aren’t just smart—they’re sleek. Shortened URLs are on-brand, mobile-friendly, and easy to share, whether you’re printing them on materials or embedding them in LinkedIn posts. Every link becomes a built-in engagement tool. You can brand each link even further by using a custom domain, and maintain conceptual continuity across your QR Codes with unique brand colors, integrated logos, and bespoke frame text that users immediately associate with your messaging.
Organize post-launch links into campaigns or by region
Using tags in Bitly Campaigns, you can group your short links under a single launch initiative. This lets you view collective engagement metrics while also comparing performance across formats and channels as needed.
Suppose you need to track regional launches or retail performance. In that case, organize links by location. Even outside a full campaign, tags keep your links organized and searchable—ideal functionality for fast-moving teams juggling multiple assets.
See when and where people engage with your product materials
Bitly Analytics offers real-time insights into your launch’s engagement rate and impact footprint. You’ll see top-performing links by day, location (city/country), and device type, so you know not just what people are engaging with, but when, where, and how.
This data helps your marketing and ops teams fine-tune timing, target the right regions, and place assets where they’re most likely to convert—whether that’s a support page, a follow-up email, or a QR Code on a thank you mailer.
Drive engagement with mobile-optimized landing pages
Need a quick, branded destination for your post-launch content? Bitly Pages makes it easy to create mobile-optimized, no-code landing pages that help with product launches. They are perfect for hosting additional CTAs, product info, support links, or promo offers.
Pair a Bitly Page with a short link or QR Code to guide customers through a seamless experience—then track clicks and scans through Bitly Analytics. This is especially effective for product inserts, signage, or post-purchase email marketing, where you want to deliver increased online value without having your dev team spin up a whole new web page.
Compare physical and digital performance in one place
Most tools separate digital and physical metrics, but Bitly brings them together. With scans and clicks tracked in the same dashboard, you can compare performance across Instagram stories, email links, signage, and packaging inserts in one place.
This omnichannel view is a major win when you’re managing launches that blend brick-and-mortar activations with online campaigns. Bitly makes it simple to evaluate which channels are driving engagement and which need optimizing. Our tools streamline the process of tracking usable data across different engagement mediums, so you spend less time wondering what is happening, with more time free to act on verified insights.
How to optimize your post-launch strategy with Bitly insights
Now that you’ve captured engagement data, it’s time to turn those insights into action. This is the moment where Bitly transforms from a tracking tool into a strategic asset. The sections below show exactly how to leverage Bitly Analytics for smarter, more effective post-launch decisions.
Spot underperforming channels or regions quickly
Bitly Campaigns’ tagging features let you slice engagement data by channel, city, or asset type. If a QR Code on in-store signage is getting less traction than a social media post in the same campaign, you’ll see it as soon as response data starts to come in.
These insights help you reallocate budget, test new messaging, or amplify high-performing content while the campaign is still active. Best of all, real-time data gives you proof to back those pivots, making it easier to bring stakeholders along.
Iterate faster on what’s resonating
In a post-launch window, timing is everything. Our real-time analytics show you what’s working right now. Trending links, fast-scaling scans, or a spike in click-through rate can tell you where to lean in or where to experiment next.
There’s no need to wait for lagging reports. Exportable data makes it simple to share performance snapshots across your team so you can tweak campaigns while momentum is high. Agile teams can capitalize on what’s resonating and drive even more engagement, fast.
Use historical data to improve future launches
Bitly doesn’t just help you track one launch—it helps you build smarter campaigns over time. By revisiting past analytics, you can identify which social media platforms underperformed, what formats delivered the best ROI, or how QR Codes compared to email links.
We store this data across campaigns, letting you spot long-term trends in user engagement, content strategy, and traffic sources. Whether you’re planning the next product launch or refining your UTM strategy, our historical insights keep your team learning, optimizing, and growing.
Use Bitly to drive smarter engagement after launch
A product launch isn’t the finish line; it’s the kickoff to meaningful customer engagement. From comparing call-to-action performance to gauging influencer effectiveness, the next steps in your marketing efforts are about a lot more than just your new product. Making the informed decisions that will convert potential customers from your target audience requires the hard data and know-how we’ve discussed in this article.
Bitly equips you with the tools to track what happens after launch: Who’s scanning your QR Codes, clicking your short links, engaging by city or device, and interacting with your launch content. With real-time analytics and centralized insights, you can act fast, optimize smarter, and turn momentum into measurable impact.
Ready to power your next launch with data-driven decisions? Find the plan that’s right for you and start crafting the perfect launch data capture strategy today.
