How to Use the Link Shortener in Sparkforge Social Planner

Sparkforge Social Planner has a built-in Link Shortener that converts long URLs into compact, trackable links in your post preview and final published post. Your content editor still shows the full URL so you always see what you are sharing.

Why use it

• Posts read cleaner without long, ugly URLs in the body.
• Auto-generation — click the shortener icon and the short link is built for you.
• UTM tagging is part of the same step, so analytics stay clean.
• Works across every social platform connected to Social Planner.

How to shorten a link in a post

1. Go to Marketing > Social Planner from the left menu.
2. Click + New Post > + Create New Post.
3. Select the social accounts you want to publish to.
4. Add your post copy in the Content input.
5. Click the URL Shortener icon next to the editor.
6. Enter a Name of the Link and the Target URL.
7. Set tracking details:
   • Pick or create a UTM Campaign (utm_campaign).
   • Add custom UTM parameters for source, medium, and content as needed.
8. Click Generate and Insert Link.
9. Review the post — the preview shows the shortened URL, the input still shows the long URL.
10. Click Publish or Schedule.

What you should know

• The published post displays the shortened link. The long URL stays visible in your editor only.
• Custom short link aliases are not yet supported — the slug is auto-generated.
• You can still paste a Bitly or other third-party short link if you prefer.

Click tracking and analytics

Open Marketing > Social Planner > Statistics > URL Tracking to see how each link performs.

What you can track

• Total clicks per shortened or original URL.
• Platform-by-platform performance (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.).
• Trends over time.
• Campaign-level grouping by UTM Campaign Name so you can compare placements and posts.

Filtering and previews

• Filter by Top performing or Low performing URLs.
• Click any URL to open a quick preview panel and confirm which link you are analyzing.

Why UTMs matter alongside the shortener

Without UTMs, analytics tools usually log shortened-link traffic as direct or generic referral, so you cannot tell organic Facebook from a Facebook ad, or one influencer from another. With UTMs:

• Campaigns get attributed correctly in GA and other tools.
• You can compare channels and creatives side by side.
• You can prove which placement actually drove conversions.

The shortener wraps the UTM-heavy URL in a clean link without losing the tracking.