Act-On has a built-in Link Shortener for SMS. When you use it, your SMS message will include a custom short link that uses your Custom Marketing Domain. Each SMS Recipient will receive a different link that redirects to the URL you provided.
Act-On can also track individual SMS message clicks just like with Email.
Note: Act-On cannot track SMS clickthroughs on URLs that were not shortened. You MUST use the Link Shortener to track SMS click behavior.
How short is it?
The length of your Act-On short link will depend on the length of your Custom Marketing Domain and the Recipient ID, which is between 4-8 characters and randomly generated. The link will also have a Random ID for your URL, which will be 3 or 4 characters.
When including the other necessary text and characters of a complete URL, the short link will be a maximum of 24 characters PLUS your Custom Marketing Domain.
When the short link is created, Act-On inserts a placeholder for the maximum number of characters so that your SMS length always reflects the highest estimate.
Instructions
You will use the Link Shortener while you are creating an SMS Message.
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From the SMS Message Composer, click the link icon
- Insert the full URL you want to add to your message
- Accepted:
https://www.act-on.com - Not accepted:
act-on.com - Click Test this link to open as a new tab in your browser and confirm the URL is correct
- To use click tracking, select Enable Link Tracking. This is the default selection. De-select this option to disable tracking.
When using Link tracking, use a unique link for each SMS message sent, otherwise tracking & reporting will not work properly.
- Click Insert to add the URL to your message
Once inserted, the link will show a placeholder URL. When you send your message, it will be customized to a trackable link that is different for each Recipient.
- Example placeholder in SMS Composer:
https://success.act-on.com/l/JRp/XXXXXXXX - Example recipient URL:
https://success.act-on.com/l/JRp/XgZd