I sent the same link to three Slack channels last Tuesday and realized I had zero way of knowing which one drove the 47 signups I saw that morning. Honestly, it was a bit of a panic - I had no idea if the link was even working correctly, let alone which channel was performing best. I was using Bitly's free tier at the time, and it was clear that its limitations were starting to bite - I had already hit the 500 link limit for the month, and I still had 10 days to go. Why I Was Stuck with Bitly I had been using Bitly for years, and it had always been "good enough". I would shorten a link, share it on social media or via email, and then forget about it. But as my side projects started to gain more traction, I realized that I needed more insights into how my links were performing.…