Modern marketing has completely transformed due to social media’s impact on our daily lives. Since billions of people use social media across the world, anyone can make a name for themselves by gaining followers on social media such as Instagram in a couple of days.
The same applies to businesses as social media marketing can match and even exceed the results that businesses get through SEO and blogging, helping them build an enormous reach to their audience simply by using the power of social media.
However, the bio section puts a limit to marketing endeavors on platforms like Instagram as you can only put one link in it. Bio link tools have become popular as they help in overcoming this obstacle.
The link in bio is a popular feature in social media platforms like Instagram and X (Twitter). The features can be found in the bio of any profile and allows users to create a single link to external sites, making it easier for the followers to access different resources they provide. Bio link tools offer a platform for social media users where they can showcase a collection of links for their followers.
In this post, we will discuss Beacons.ai vs Linktree in terms of key features and user experience. Let’s dive in…
About Beacons (beacons.ai) and Linktree
Beacons (beacons.ai) is a useful tool designed for creators to facilitate building connections with their audience, monetizing their brand, and customizing their pages where all their links are showcased. Creators can bring their content to their fans, bring their brand to life, and share everything with one easy link. You can also claim your own domain (yourdomain.com) that fans will love and remember.
Established in 2016, Linktree was one of the very first bio-in-link tools that provides users with a straightforward link to make their content more discoverable, easier to manage, and more likely to convert. The tool gained popularity because of Instagram’s limitations, which do not allow you to share multiple web links anywhere apart from Stories and the Bio section of the Profile page. Linktree is used by over 40M users, including influencers and agencies, to better control their presence online.
A Quick Walkthrough Beacons.ai Dashboard
When you first sign up for Beacons, the platform asks for various information from you so that it can start building out your bio link page automatically. For instance, it asks for your social media profile links so that links to your social media profiles can be prebuilt into your bio link page.
After completing the initial setup process, you are presented with the main dashboard:
The “My Pages” area allows you to edit the blocks of your page. From here you can edit your link page by clicking the drop-down arrows to edit the following blocks:
Header: Edit the top area of the page and add your profile picture as well as any text you want.
Links: This block allows you to add as many links as you would like such as blogs, ecommerce stores, or any other website.
Email Signup: The Email and SMS block allows you to capture email addresses from your followers and add them to your mailing list so that you can keep them up to date with a newsletter. Alternatively, you can collect phone numbers for SMS marketing.
You can easily add, remove, or reorder these blocks according to your own preferences.
Unlike Linktree, Beacons.ai allows you to add a second page from this dashboard too.
Additionally, by clicking the “Design” tab, you can further edit the design of your page. Changes that you can implement include the font, the style of the blocks (round vs circular etc.), background images, and more.
The platform allows you to see the implemented changes in real time, making the process convenient.
You will be presented with this dashboard once you move onto the insights tab:
Here you get powerful analytics on not only how many people have landed on your page, but also how many clicks each of your links have received. Additionally, you can get detailed analytics on the number of subscribers you have captured along with additional data on how users have interacted with your page.
In the ‘Store’ tab, you’ll find the following page:
This is your one-stop shop for monetizing your page. Here you can collect donations from your followers by connecting either your PayPal account or Stripe account. The earning tab also shows detailed analytics on earnings generated from your page.
Furthermore, with Beacons, you can set up a page to sell merch or pay for subscriptions. A new feature has just been released that even allows you to integrate your Shopify store—although this is still in beta.
Key features of Beacons.ai
- Integrated with AI features
- Next Generation Link in Bio
- Media Kit
- Email Marketing
- Online Store
- QR Code Generator
- Audience Manager
- Link Shortener
- Invoicing
- AI Brand Outreach
A Quick Walkthrough of the Linktree Dashboard
To get started with Linktree, all users are required to sign up by creating a username, entering their email, and setting a password. You’ll then be prompted to pick a template design to use and add all your links (such as websites, social media, stores, etc). Once the registration is complete, you’ll reach the Linktree dashboard where you can edit your links and explore all the amazing features of Linktree.
Thanks to Linktree’s flexible link-adding feature, you can add all types of links and add as many links as required to your page. Besides links to other social media profiles or websites you can also add the following links:
- Music links (Music from Spotify or other music platforms that can be played from your page)
- Video links (Embedded YouTube videos or videos from other platforms)
- Store links (Gives you the ability to display products from your e-commerce store)
- Form links (Links to forms to collect email addresses)
- Support me links (For collecting donations)
- Request links (For receiving requests and payments from visitors)
In addition to that, if you opt to upgrade to Linktree’s pro plan, you can also add the following links:
- Leap links that allow you to forward all visitors directly to a destination and skip your Linktree page altogether.
- Priority links that you can use to highlight your most important links.
- Schedule links that allow you to schedule when your links go live.
- Gated links that have to be unlocked by providing a code, entering a date of birth or by acknowledging that the information that the link takes you to is sensitive.
Here are just some of the linking integrations Linktree offer:
In addition to that, if you opt to upgrade to Linktree’s pro plan, you can also add the following links:
- Leap links that allow you to forward all visitors directly to a destination and skip your Linktree page altogether.
- Priority links that you can use to highlight your most important links.
- Schedule links that allow you to schedule when your links go live.
- Gated links that have to be unlocked by providing a code, entering a date of birth or by acknowledging that the information that the link takes you to is sensitive.
Furthermore, Linktree allows you to add thumbnails and icons to the links and further shows you in-depth analytics for each added link.
At any time, you can easily preview how the page looks on mobile devices by taking a look on the right side of your dashboard that shows the mobile view. You will remain up to date with the latest changes as the view automatically updates with each edit you make to your Linktree page.
After all the links show up on the page, you can use the Appearance tab to customize your page further. Changes you can make include adding a profile pic, altering the profile title, and adding a bio.
Here, you get to choose an appropriate theme that would perfectly complement your page. The free version has a plethora of themes to choose from while the paid version would unlock plenty more options for themes, background, and button designs and fonts.
Once you’ve created the perfect appearance of your page, move on to the Setting tab. Here, you can configure options such as eCommerce or e-mail list integrations, and more.
The only thing now left to do is grab the URL of your Linktree page from the upper right corner of the dashboard.
Once you’ve promoted your Linktree link on social media, you can view the performance of your marketing efforts in the analytics tab. The information can help you in improving your marketing campaign and creating the best bio possible. Here you can find information such as the number of people who have landed on your Linktree page, the number of clicks, and from what sources people have come from (TikTok, Instagram, or other social media). Note that this is a feature available to Pro users only (although you can try Pro free for 30 days).
Aesthetics and Appearance
The way that your landing page looks is typically the most important thing that people care about.
Beacons.ai comprises of numerous themes that can be a hit or a miss. Although some themes are stylish and modern, others can be a little bit tacky. Nevertheless, the abundance of options makes up for the few themes that might not look so appealing.
One cool aspect of Beacons’ themes is that you can generate custom themes simply by filtering by a certain keyword.
Linktree also offers a multitude of themes, many of which are a match for Beacons’ theme when it comes to style. However, the appearance of Linktree’s pages might be slightly more customizable. It appears as though Linktree has a larger font selection and more customizability in terms of how clickable buttons look. Overall, both Linktree and Beacons have a wide range of themes and provide better customization to improve the pages’ appearance as compared to other bio link tools.
Pricing Comparison
Aside from their all-in-one creator packages – here are Beacons.ai standalone link-in bio packages:
Free Plan:
- Fully customizable link in bio page
- Unlimited links
- Collect fans’ contact info
- Sell digital products with 1-tap checkout
- Import products to sell from other platforms
- Traffic analytics
- Send emails to fans
- Access to full Beacons suite of 14 tools for creators
Link in Bio Pro – $10/mo
- This plan includes all features of Free Plan, plus below additional features:
- Custom domain for your Link in Bio with domain fees waived for the first year.
- Unlimited sub-pages.
- Remove Beacons branding.
- Expert onboarding to help build your pages.
- Priority Support
VIP Plan (all-in-one creator platform) – Starting at $100/mo
- This plan includes all features of Marketing Bundle, and these additional features:
- Expert advisor to set up your link in bio page, emails, and store items
- Priority support
- Physical NFC business card (US and Canada only)
Linktree offers four plans:
Free Plan
Key features
- NFT Lock and Gallery
- Community, Pinterest, Spotify, and Clubhouse Link Apps
- Embed Twitch, Facebook, and YouTube Videos
- QR Code
- Social Icons
- Sell Digital Products, and more
Starter Pack – $5/mo
- It includes all features of Free Pack, and the below ones:
- Device-based, Social Icon, and Lifetime Analytics
- Commerce Links Revenue
- Multi-factor Authentication
- Linktree Mobile App, and more
Pro Plan – $9/mo (30-day Free Trial)
- It includes features of Starter Plan, plus the below
- Global UTM Parameters
- Facebook Conversion API
- Google Analytics
- Zapier Integration
- MailChimp Connection, and more
Premium Plan – $24/mo
This plan includes features of Pro Plan, and the below additional features also:
- Customer Success Manager
- Onboarding Call
- Exclusive Content
- Data Export
- A free version
- Starter: $5/month
- Pro: $9/month
- Premium: $24/month
The paid plans give you additional features such as access to different link types, custom background, integrations with other marketing platforms, advanced analytics, the ability to add other admins, and more.
All in all, Taplink’s plans are slightly more affordable than Linktree’s comparable plans.
Beacons vs Linktree: Which is Best for me?
Your objectives and priorities will help in determining whether Beacons or Linktree would be the better choice for you.
When it comes to monetizing your social media accounts, Beacons is the most suitable choice and has been the go-to option for all influencers. The platform is designed for influencers and has powerful functionality for selling products, taking donations, setting up membership communities and more. It also has many additional paid features such as the all-in-one creator platform which allow you to access the email marketing platform and store features to sell directly from your link in bio page.
Additionally, the platform has themes that are certainly more appealing to some users than Linktree’s themes.
On the other hand, Linktree is a one-stop solution for influencers, brands, and other users as well. It still stands as the most well-established link in bio tool, and rightly so. For many users, featuring the most recognizable bio link tool on their social media is a top-priority.
However, all in all, both tools are very comparable in terms of their features, price and ease of use. If you are stuck deciding between the two platforms, try both out for free to determine which one feels best to you.
Claim your FREE Link in Bio domain here!
Related: Linkpop vs Linktree
