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Shortening URLs and Tracking Links
Shortening URLs and Tracking Links

Turn even the longest URLs into text-friendly tiny links. Then you can track who’s clicking your links and who isn’t.

Lisa Willey avatar
Written by Lisa Willey
Updated over a week ago

Our built-in link shortener lets you turn even the longest URLs into text-friendly links. This will save you lots of characters so you can get more info in your messages. Send links to sites, videos, downloadable content, or apps. By using our link shortener, you'll be able to track links too.

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This step-by-step video will show you everything you need to know to successfully shorten and track your links.

What Is Link Tracking?

When you send a link (that was shortened with our URL shortener) we give you the ability to track the overall click-through rate. You can also segment your subscribers based on who clicked and who didn’t.

Using the URL Shortener

1. Go to New Campaign on the left-hand panel. Give your message a name, and type your message.

2. Copy and paste your link into the message body, and click the button that says Shorten URLs. Your link should now be wrapped in brackets with “url=“ at the beginning. After you hit send, the link will be shortened.

3. Take a look at the character count. It will reflect the number of characters taken up by the tiny link, not the original URL.

4. Now, just select the list(s) you want to send to, click Next, and then Send campaign.

5. Your campaign is off! Your link will be magically transformed into tiny links on your subscribers phones.


Note: You can also manually shorten your links by writing [url=__] with your link included after the equal sign.

Viewing the Click-Through Rate

To view how many people clicked on a link in your campaign, go to Campaigns on the left-hand panel. Click the campaign you want to view the data for. The URL will appear at the bottom alongside with the number of clicks. 

Take things a step further by creating segments based on click behavior.

Wait a Minute—I Clicked Shorten URLs, and My Link Doesn’t Look Shorter?

Your links won’t shorten in the message composer. After you click send, they will appear as tiny links on your subscribers' phones. 

Here's what you'll see in the message composer:

And here's what your subscribers will see on their phones:

My Link Doesn't Work

If you copied the shortened link on the preview screen into your browser and got a 404 error, don't worry. This link is just for display. The actual link will be converted and shortened as soon as you send the campaign message.

The right way to test is to send a test campaign to yourself. You can then tap the link from your phone.

Note: For those using a Canadian number, carriers won't support our link shortener if the text is sending to a contact also using a Canadian number. In those cases, a full link starting with https will be accepted.

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