How to Create Short Links for Twilio SMS

Sending bulk SMS is an effective way to communicate with customers via messaging. It is applied by media companies, enterprises, and consumer brands for a variety of purposes, such as entertainment, alerts, reminders, notifications, and marketing. For example, it could be an order status, a unique link to a personal account, a link for sale, or just a website URL with detailed information.

Twilio is the SMS software that is widely used on the market. Due to its excellent documentation, easy onboarding, mature helper libraries, and reasonable pricing, Twilio stands out from the competitors.

However, some things could go wrong while texting customers.

SMS with Generic Domains are Blocked

SMS messages with a long URL could cause an issue. Since SMS messages are limited to 160 characters, and sending multiple messages at a time is expensive, shortening services come in handy. Twilio offers automatic URL shortening, which is advised, as a long link with query strings does not make for an attractive SMS message. The functionality could work as expected, with query string parameters being preserved with URL shortening. However, some telcos might block messages with a Twilio domain.

For example, the telecommunication company Verizon is blocking any SMS messages with URLs shortened by Twilio’s URL shortener service. It’s pretty standard practice for carriers to block those types of messages. The failure is not in Twilio’s spam filter; they have no control over it; it’s something the carrier partners have in place in their systems.

It could be any telecommunication provider that blocks a generic domain. Twilio shows that the SMS is completed successfully; however, the customers never receive the message. Twilio isn't aware the message is blocked, but you still get charged on their end.

Here’s a solution

Short branded links in contrast to generic ones are trustworthy, so no provider will block the SMS messages.. In order not to end up with spam, create a branded domain that suits your brand to text customers.

Short.io provides Twilio and Zapier integration for bulk SMS to a group of recipients or multiple groups of recipients all at once. With Short.io, you send a brief text and a short branded link with the customized slug to the list of needed contacts. Branded domains gain increasing recognition and trust from the audience.

Using Short.io and Twilio you'll wind up with:

Sending unique short URLs is also possible with Short.io and Twilio

Say you need to send a unique link to each customer, for example, so that they can track their order. Each SMS has to contain a unique link to a web page with the order status.

Twilio doesn’t have a built-in URL shortener for plain SMS, so we recommend using the Short.io API. First request to shorten a URL, then use the result when sending the SMS with the Twilio API.

Learn how to integrate Short.io and Twilio for safe bulk SMS marketing.

What did you learn?

• twilio short link for sms messages
• sms marketing software
• sms mobile marketing
• short links for sms

Read also:

• How To Create A Perfect URL Slug
• SMS Marketing vs Email Marketing
• 3 Ways Short.io Integrates with Slack