How to use neon.ly

When should you use neon.ly?

Sometimes links are just hard to remember, don’t really look secure, and, depending on where they lead to, are not easy to track.

 

That’s where neon.ly comes in – shrink your existing links into short links that are:

• 🧠 easy to remember by your followers
• 🐦 nicely fit into a Tweet or Instagram Bio
• 📈 track click data (for example when your link does not go to a page on which you can track visits, like your IG profile)
• ✨ clean and concise, no distraction that could disturb your follower
• 🔐 password protectable if needed

Read our blog article “Why you should use URL Shorteners” to learn more about the benefits.

How to use neon.ly

Creating a short link

1. If you’ve added a custom domain, you can select it here (1). If no custom domains were added, you can ignore this field – neon.ly will be the default. To learn how to add custom domains, check out this tutorial.

2. Copy-paste the URL (the link) that you want to shorten into the field (2). We’ll call this your “base URL”.

3. Use the form (3) to add UTM tags to your URL (What are UTM tags?)

4. Then click the arrow (4) to confirm.

 

 

Modifying your short link

Congrats, you shortened your base URL and turned it into a neon.ly! The next screen is specific to the neon.ly you just created.

1. You’ll land on the data tab (1) which displays your click data (more about this later).

2. To modify your link click on the edit tab (2).

3. You can always duplicate or delete your links with these buttons (3).

Let’s assume you clicked on the edit tab:

1. Modify your base URL here (1).

2. With the “Customize link” button (2), you are able to change the slug (what comes after the slash in “neon.ly/” or your custom domain).

3. You can always change your mind and use a custom domain for the link (3). To learn how to add custom domains, check out this tutorial.

4. You can protect your link with a password here (4).

5. If checked (5), our tool will automatically add the referral UTM source. So, if someone clicks on your link on Facebook, we will automatically add “?utm_source=www.facebook.com” to the base URL, so you see the information in Google Analytics.

 

 

Setting a Fallback URL

Once you’ve set up a custom domain, you can define one of your short links as Fallback URL for your domain. This means that if someone goes to the domain without adding a slug, they will be redirected to that Fallback URL.

 

Analyzing click data 

Once you’ve shared your link and people click on it, data will start to appear below the edit options in this page. Remember to refresh the page to update the data, as it doesn’t update in real-time.

For each click, you will see:

• Referrer: The websites or apps where people clicked on your link
• Browser: The Web Browser people used when clicking on your link
• Platform: Did they use mobile or desktop?
• Location: The geographic location where your users come from
• Browser Language: The language of their web browser

Once you’ve collected a few clicks, your interface will look similar to this:

Furthermore, if you scroll down until the end, there’s a list of all the clicks that can be downloaded as CSV (1).

 

 

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All tutorials

FAQs	for specific answers
before you start	set up your account
how to upgrade to neontoolsPro	boost your tools
Post Automator	automate your Social Media
neon.ly	URL shortener
neon.page	microlanding pages / link in bio
neon.page link clicks	tracking individual link clicks
neon.page + Google Analytics	track your page with GA4
neon.page + Meta Pixel	track your page with Meta
neon.page + Matomo	track your page with Meta
Collect emails	collect emails directly from your neon.page
Custom Domains	add custom domains to neon.ly or neon.page
Social Audit	influencer analyzer and collections
Hashtag Analyzer	for Instagram™ hashtags
Interest Browser	for Facebook™ Ads
Reach Calculator	for social media campaigns
UTM Generator	to track your links
QR Code Generator	create offline links
Browser Extension	for neon.ly & Social Audit