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SMS link shortener

Overview

Using full-length web links in your SMS messages can quickly diminish your 160 character limit, leaving less room for content. The SMS link shortener allows you to control the length of web links within SMS messages by using the cordialLink Smarty URL modifier.

Shortened links will expire after 30 days of being generated. Users visiting an expired short link will see a Link has been expired browser message.

If you use a third-party tool for link shortening in SMS messages, Cordial is unable to track clicks or revenue attribution.

Configuration and usage

The SMS link shortener must be set up to use your domain name when generating links. Please contact your Client Success Manager for assistance with setting up your preferred SMS link shortener domain name.

1. Once set up, begin using the SMS link shortener by applying the following URL format to your SMS links:

{cordialLink href="https://example.com/your/full-length-link-here" data-crdl-key="test" shorten="6"}

2. The above example will generate a shortened version of the link with a six-character short key directly after your registered domain name, s.cordial.com In this case:

https://s.cordial.com/SzybHK

3. The link shortener works with links passed as variables. Depending on where your variable is scoped, you may need to include a default link value. In this example, we are shortening a link that will be passed as an external variable we defined in the automation template API call:

{$extVars.TrackLink|default:'https://cordial.com/'|shorten:6}

You can control the length of the resulting short key by changing the modifier value to any number between 6 and 25, depending on the available space your message content can accommodate.

5. For best results, preview your SMS message before sending to ensure the content and shortened links fit neatly into the text box, or to check content distribution across multiple text boxes if more than 160 characters are used.

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