SMS marketing has one of the highest engagement rates of any marketing channel — open rates routinely hit 90%+, and most texts are read within three minutes of delivery. But it comes with a constraint that no other channel has: 160 characters per message.
That's not a lot. And if your destination URL alone is 80 characters, you're already halfway to your limit before you've written a single word of actual copy.
Short links are the obvious fix. But there's a right way and a wrong way to use them in SMS — and the wrong way can make your messages look like spam.
The character limit problem, in real terms
A standard SMS message is 160 characters. If you go over, most carriers split it into two messages — and you pay for both. On a list of 10,000 people, that doubles your cost for every character over the limit.
Here's what a raw product URL looks like in a message:
"Hey! Our summer sale is live — get 30% off everything today. Shop now: https://www.yourstore.com/collections/summer-sale-2024?ref=sms_july&discount=SUMMER30"
That message is 180 characters. Costs double. And the link looks like it has tracking code on it, which some users find suspicious.
Now with a short link:
"Hey! Our summer sale is live — 30% off everything today. Shop now: links.yourstore.com/summer30"
That's 95 characters. Half the cost. Clean, readable link with your brand name on it. Same destination, same tracking.
Why generic shorteners (bit.ly, tinyurl) are a problem for SMS
Spam filters on major carriers (AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile) are trained to flag messages that look like phishing or scam texts. A common signal they look for: links from free public shorteners like bit.ly or tinyurl.com.
These domains are frequently abused by spammers. As a result, SMS messages containing bit.ly links have a noticeably higher rate of carrier filtering than messages with branded domains.
A link like links.yourbrand.com/offer includes your own domain name. Carriers treat it as legitimate business traffic. Your messages are less likely to get filtered before they even arrive.
How to set up branded SMS short links
You need two things: a domain (you probably already have one) and a link management platform that supports custom domains.
gometrify handles both the branded domain setup and the click tracking in one place. Here's the setup:
Connect your domain. Add a CNAME record in your DNS settings pointing
links.yourdomain.comto gometrify's servers. Full setup takes about 5 minutes — see our step-by-step guide.Create a tracked short link for your SMS campaign. Use an alias that makes sense for the message:
links.yourstore.com/summer30orlinks.yourstore.com/flash-sale.Paste the short link into your SMS copy. No more URL bloat. Your message stays under 160 characters with room for actual content.
Check the dashboard after launch. You'll see exactly how many people clicked, in what country, and on what device — all from SMS.
Set up your branded SMS links →
Adding UTM parameters to SMS links
For SMS campaigns, you also want to tag the destination URL with UTM parameters before shortening it. This lets Google Analytics separate SMS traffic from other channels.
Build your tagged URL first:
https://yourstore.com/sale?utm_source=sms&utm_medium=sms&utm_campaign=summer_flash_sale
Then create a gometrify short link pointing to that tagged URL. Your SMS recipient sees links.yourstore.com/summer30. When they click, they land on the tagged URL, and Google Analytics logs the visit as coming from your SMS campaign.
Now you have two data sources: gometrify's server-side click count (how many people clicked) and Google Analytics (what those people did on your site). Together, these give you a complete picture of your SMS campaign performance.
SMS tracking tips that most businesses miss
Create a different link for each SMS send. If you send Monday and Thursday, use separate links. Comparing them tells you which day your audience responds better.
Track reply rate separately from click rate. Some SMS recipients will text back rather than click. A high click rate with a low reply rate tells you the CTA is working. A high reply rate with low clicks might mean people have questions and your landing page should answer them more clearly.
Check device data in your dashboard. SMS is almost 100% mobile — so if your click data shows any meaningful desktop traffic, something unusual is happening (maybe people forwarded the text to a computer, or the link is being shared elsewhere).
Keep your alias relevant to the offer. links.yourbrand.com/j4f9q looks like it could be spam. links.yourbrand.com/sale looks like you meant to send it.