How and Why to Use Amazon Shortlinks [2023 Guide for Sellers]

Amazon URLs are long and complicated. As a seller, if you’re sharing links to your product listing, you’ll want to cut it down and use an Amazon shortlink instead.

A shorter link will result in more clicks, and generally allows you to add more tracking and analytics tools that help you get more from your marketing campaigns.

Read on and we’ll share all you need to know on this topic, including how to shorten Amazon links, why you should do this, and the best Amazon URL shortener for sellers in 2023.

What is an Amazon Shortlink?

An Amazon short link is simply a trimmed-down version of the full URL you’ll see in the address bar when you view a product on Amazon.

Take this for example – the URL for a product I viewed after making a search:

https://www.amazon.com/Magnesium-Glycinate-400mg-Bioavailable-Vegetarian/dp/B07ZD7R4RF/ref=sr_1_16?crid=3TLV15LS9YSHM&keywords=magnesium+glycinate&qid=1675234792&sprefix=%2Caps%2C330&sr=8-16

That’s a straight copy + paste from my address bar.

The URL contains a ton of information related to the product show, and how the person got to the product listing, such as:

Name of the product
ASIN
The keywords used in the search
Where the product was in the search results when it was clicked
A unique time identifier for when it was clicked
Other data that Amazon uses for internal purposes

You don’t need all these details to get to the product page, though. You can share the same thing, but with a lot of these numbers and letters stripped away, and still send someone to the same page.

An Amazon short link could be the shortest version of the above link, that doesn’t miss out on anything important for the link to function correctly. It could also be a link generated by a third-party tool that redirects the clicker to the product page, and the full URL in question.

How to Shorten Amazon URLs

The first way to shorten Amazon URLs is to do it yourself.

With the link above, most of this can be cleared away, and people will still end up on the same page.

We can clear this information, that relates to when, where, and how the person got to the product listing:

sr=8-16
sprefix=%2Caps%2C330
qid=1675234792
keywords=magnesium+glycinate
crid=3TLV15LS9YSHM
ref=sr_1_16

Now we have this:

https://www.amazon.com/Magnesium-Glycinate-400mg-Bioavailable-Vegetarian/dp/B07ZD7R4RF

This is cleaner and more friendly to look at.

But we can cut it down even more. The name of the product isn’t important – all you need is the ASIN:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZD7R4RF

If you try the link above, and the first link we showed, you’ll end up in exactly the same place.

An alternative option is to use a URL shortener to do it for you. Using this, you can not only shorten the URL, but customize it further.

Here’s an example, using LandingCube:

https://lncb.me/mg-glycinate/

This is a great way to cut out the confusing details from an Amazon URL, make it more friendly to click on, and easier for people to remember and type.

When and Where to Use Shortened Links

You should use a shortened URL whenever you link to your product from somewhere outside Amazon.

This includes:

Facebook Ads
Google Ads
TikTok Ads
Ads on other social platforms (Snapchat, Instagram, Pinterest, etc)
Organic social media posts
Links in social media profiles
Emails
SMS messages (or Messenger, WhatsApp, etc)
Blog posts
Links in show notes/video descriptions (e.g. for podcasts or YouTube videos)

Another place to use a short link is on your product inserts or packaging. If you want to put your product or storefront URL, you should use as simple a URL as possible, since people will have to type this URL manually.

Benefits of Using a Shortlink

Short links help you get more clicks, which means more sales. They also allow you to add valuable tracking and analytics tags to your links, without messing with the clickability of your links.

Here’s more on why you should use shortened URLs.

More trustworthy

People are probably going to be wary of clicking a link with a whole lot of what seems like gibberish attached. They might think it’s a scam, or something that’s going to harvest their data.

Thus you’re going to get a lot more clicks with a clean, simple URL.

Easier to remember and type

Whenever you put your product URL somewhere people can’t just click it, you need to make it as short and simple as possible.

For example, in a YouTube video, on a product insert, or saying it in a podcast. All these cases require the customer to listen and type it out on their own. You can’t expect them to type the qid, sprefix, and all the additional parameters you saw in the first example we showed. It’s much easier if the link is just the ASIN – or even better, a branded URL.

Easier to fit into character limits

For some social media posts or messaging apps, you may have a limited number of characters to use. If this is the case, you don’t want to use up all of your real estate with useless parameters. You want your link to be as short as possible, so you have more space to tell people why they should click the link.

Benefits of Third-Party Link Shorteners

The benefits we just shared are applicable for any kind of Amazon short link, including the simplest version of the basic Amazon URL.

You’ll get even better results if you use a third-party tool to shorten your Amazon URL, including the following benefits:

Branded links

Even better than shortening the URL down to just the ASIN is customizing it with your own brand.

Branded URLs get approximately 35% more clicks than basic, generic URLs. They also provide a multitude of small touchpoints for your brand, which add up to build brand awareness, not just with people who click your links, but those who see your links too.

You can customize the domain, to add your brand name, as well as the slug, to make the link more descriptive than simply your product’s ASIN. This is another powerful way that branded URLs get more clicks.

Keeping parameters intact

The biggest benefit is that you can load your links full of important tracking tags and parameters, without letting the URL become a bloated ugly mess.

We’re not talking about the stuff that Amazon adds in – you don’t need any of that. But you can add Amazon Attribution tags, Amazon Associates tags, and other things like Google Analytics tracking, TikTok or Facebook Pixels, UTM tags, and much more.

The real URL could be hundreds of characters long, but you can simplify it to something short, sweet, and easy on the eyes.

Link management

A third-party link shortener will also let you view all your links in one place. This is a big benefit for your overall marketing strategy. It makes it easy to see where you’re getting most of your clicks, from specific channels (such as Facebook Ads vs Google Ads) to specific marketing campaigns, or variables within those campaigns (e.g. different ad sets within a Facebook Ads campaign).

This is an amazing way to analyze your marketing efforts, and see what’s bringing you the best results.

LandingCube’s Amazon Link Shortener

LandingCube is the best way for sellers to shorten Amazon URLs.

It lets you do the following:

Set up Amazon shortlinks with our custom domain, lncb.me
Customize your URL slug (e.g. lncb.me/june-promo)
Integrate your own domain with your links
Add tracking tags such as Google Analytics, the Facebook Pixel, Amazon Associates, and custom tracking code
Automatically integrate with Amazon Attribution to add Attribution tags to your links
View data on all your links in one place
View Amazon Attribution data within the LandingCube dashboard

This is a powerful way to run your external marketing strategy.

It’s not limited to links directly to your product listing, either. You can create Add to Cart or Buy Together links, which send someone straight to the Add to Cart page with one or more products pre-filled.

You can also use it for non-Amazon links, or links to your Amazon Storefront.

Click here to sign up for a free trial, and start using LandingCube to shorten your Amazon links. You’ll get unlimited links on all plans, with full link management from the link dashboard.

You’ll also have access to our landing page builder, which will help you build high-converting Amazon sales funnels.

If you’re marketing with external traffic, you need an Amazon URL shortener. Try it now, for free, and get more traffic and sales.

by Andrew Buck