Bitly
Bitly is a link management platform for shortening, customizing, sharing, and measuring links and QR codes.
Verdict
Common use cases
- Shorten campaign URLs during creative reviews
- Pull click analytics for last week's newsletter
- Audit all group Bitlinks before a rebrand
- Check monthly link quota before a launch
- Delete test links after QA completes
Integration
- Vendor
- Bitly
- Category
- other
- Auth
- API_KEY
- Tools
- 10
- Composio slug
bitly
Tools
- Delete Bitlinkdestructive
Permanently delete an eligible unedited hash Bitlink.
- Expand Link
Resolve a Bitlink to its current destination and destination history, when available.
- Get Account Context
Return the authenticated Bitly user together with accessible groups and organizations needed by other tools.
- Get Bitlink
Retrieve full Bitlink metadata, including destination, title, tags, archive or deletion state, and associated QR code IDs.
- Get Bitlink Activity
Return paid-plan click or engagement analytics for a Bitlink as a timeline or summary. Requires Bitlink analytics entitlement.
- Get Bitlink Traffic Sources
Break down paid-plan Bitlink click analytics by country, city, device, referrer, or referring domain. Requires Bitlink analytics entitlement.
- Get Usage and Limits
Inspect monthly plan quotas, hourly endpoint budgets, and optional group feature usage before performing quota-consuming work.
- List Bitlinks
List or search Bitlinks owned by a group, one cursor-controlled page at a time.
- Shorten Link
Create an ordinary Bitly short link for a long URL in a specific group.
- Update Bitlink
Update safe metadata or archive state for a Bitlink; this tool does not redirect destinations or configure advanced routing.
Setup
Setup guide
- 11. In Switchy, open Settings → Integrations and click Add MCP Server. 2. Select Bitly from the catalog. 3. Log in to your Bitly account at bitly.com, navigate to Settings → Developer Settings, and generate a new API token with read and write permissions. 4. Paste the token into Switchy's API Key field and click Connect. 5. Switchy will call Get Account Context to confirm the token works and display your accessible groups. 6. Inside any Project, type '@Bitly create a short link for https://example.com' and send the message. 7. If Bitly returns a bitlink, the connection is live and ready for your team.
What teammates see: by default, memories from Bitly are scoped to the Project (PROJECT visibility) - you can mark any memory PRIVATE or share it ORG-wide.
Works well with
Top models
Compatibility data appears once enough Projects have used this MCP together with a given model.
How Switchy teams use it
Starter prompts
Create Campaign Link
@Bitly create a short link for https://example.com/spring-sale with the title 'Spring Sale 2024'
Retrieve Click Data
@Bitly get click activity for bit.ly/3xYz over the last 7 days
Analyze Traffic Sources
@Bitly show me traffic sources for bit.ly/3xYz grouped by referrer and country
List Group Bitlinks
@Bitly list all Bitlinks in our group created in the last 30 days
Check Plan Limits
@Bitly check our current usage and remaining monthly link quota
Example outputs
Illustrative - representative of the model's voice and quality, not literal recordings.
@bitly list all Bitlinks created in the last 7 days for our marketing group, sorted by creation date
Found 14 Bitlinks created in the past week for group og-abc123. Most recent: bit.ly/3xYz9Qw (created 2 hours ago, destination: example.com/spring-sale), bit.ly/3aB4cDe (created yesterday, destination: example.com/webinar-signup), bit.ly/3fG7hIj (created 3 days ago, destination: example.com/case-study). The list continues with 11 more links. All links are active and unarchived. Use the cursor token to fetch the next page if needed.
This example uses the List Bitlinks tool with date filtering. Bitly returns paginated results—large groups may require multiple calls. The MCP needs a valid group ID from your account context; run Get Account Context first if you don't know your group ID.
@bitly create a short link for https://example.com/q4-report-2024.pdf with the title 'Q4 Financial Report' and tag it 'finance' and 'quarterly'
Created Bitlink: bit.ly/3kL8mNp. Destination set to https://example.com/q4-report-2024.pdf. Title: 'Q4 Financial Report'. Tags applied: finance, quarterly. The link is live and ready to share. A QR code was automatically generated and is accessible via the Bitlink metadata. This operation consumed one link from your monthly quota.
This example demonstrates link creation with metadata. Creating a Bitlink counts against your plan's monthly quota—check Get Usage and Limits beforehand if you're near your limit. The MCP cannot customize the short domain or back-half slug unless your plan supports branded domains.
@bitly pull click analytics for bit.ly/3xYz9Qw and summarize the top 3 traffic sources by country and device type
Analytics retrieved for bit.ly/3xYz9Qw (last 30 days): 1,247 total clicks. Top countries: United States (68%, 848 clicks), Canada (14%, 175 clicks), United Kingdom (9%, 112 clicks). Device breakdown: Mobile (61%, 761 clicks), Desktop (34%, 424 clicks), Tablet (5%, 62 clicks). Traffic peaked on March 15 with 203 clicks. Most clicks came from direct traffic (42%) and social referrers (31%).
This example combines Get Bitlink Activity and Get Bitlink Traffic Sources to produce a synthesis. Analytics tools require a paid Bitly plan with analytics entitlements—free accounts will receive an error. The MCP surfaces raw data; the AI interprets trends and comparisons.
Use-case deep-dives
When Bitly MCP makes sense for paid social campaigns
A 3-person marketing team running paid ads across LinkedIn, Twitter, and email needs to track which channels drive conversions without juggling spreadsheets. The Bitly MCP wins here if you're already on a paid Bitly plan with analytics entitlements—Get Bitlink Activity and Get Bitlink Traffic Sources pull click counts, device breakdowns, and referrer data directly into your Switchy workspace during weekly campaign reviews. You can automate link creation, tag variants by channel, and compare performance without leaving the conversation. The threshold: if you're on Bitly's free tier, you lose the analytics tools and this MCP becomes a glorified URL shortener. For teams spending $30/month or more on Bitly and running multi-channel campaigns, this integration closes the loop between link creation and performance analysis in one shared context.
Using Bitly MCP to clean up stale support links
A 6-person support team discovers that half the Bitlinks in their help docs point to outdated product pages or broken redirects. The Bitly MCP's Expand Link and Get Bitlink tools let you bulk-check destinations without opening the Bitly dashboard—paste a list of short links into Switchy, run the expansion, and flag any that resolve to 404s or deprecated URLs. Delete Bitlink handles cleanup for unedited hashes, though edited links require manual intervention. This scenario works best for teams with under 500 active Bitlinks; beyond that, you're better off exporting a CSV from Bitly's web UI and running a script. The buying call: if your support docs rely on Bitlinks and you've never audited them, this MCP turns a 4-hour manual slog into a 20-minute Switchy session.
When Bitly MCP helps conference organizers track signups
A 2-person events team promoting a virtual conference needs real-time visibility into which promotional partners are driving registrations. They create unique Bitlinks for each partner, then use Get Bitlink Activity during daily standups to see which links are converting. The MCP's Get Usage and Limits tool prevents quota surprises—if you're hitting Bitly's hourly API ceiling, you'll know before a bulk check fails mid-workflow. The trade-off: this only works if your Bitly plan includes analytics and you're checking fewer than 50 links per session. For larger events with hundreds of affiliate partners, the List Bitlinks pagination becomes tedious and you're better off using Bitly's dashboard or a dedicated analytics platform. If you're running a small-to-midsize event and need partner performance data without context-switching, this MCP delivers.
Frequently asked
What does the Bitly MCP do in Switchy?
It lets AI agents create, retrieve, and delete Bitlinks, then pull click analytics and traffic sources for any link you've shortened. The MCP also checks your monthly plan quotas before running operations that count against your Bitly limits, so you won't accidentally burn through your allocation mid-workflow.
Do I need a paid Bitly plan to use this MCP?
You need at least a free Bitly account to authenticate with an API key. Analytics tools—Get Bitlink Activity and Get Bitlink Traffic Sources—require a paid plan with the analytics entitlement. If you only shorten links and retrieve metadata, the free tier works fine.
Can the Bitly MCP edit an existing short link's destination?
No. Bitly's API only allows you to delete unedited Bitlinks; once a link is created, you can't change where it points. If you need a different destination, delete the old Bitlink and create a new one. This is a Bitly platform constraint, not a Switchy limitation.
How is this better than just using Bitly's dashboard?
The MCP lets AI agents bulk-create short links, pull analytics for dozens of campaigns at once, and cross-reference click data with other tools in your Switchy workspace—all without you opening a browser. If you only shorten one link a week, the dashboard is faster.
Who on my team should connect the Bitly account?
Whoever owns the Bitly workspace or has API key access. The MCP inherits that user's group permissions, so if your marketing lead manages all branded short links, they should be the one authenticating. Everyone else in Switchy can then invoke the tools without needing their own Bitly login.