Short URLs
Lob’s Short URLs allow you to take a long URL from your website or landing page and create a personalized, shortened, and trackable URL to display on your direct mail creative. For example, if you have a landing page destination URL for your mail campaign like:
using Lob's URL Shortener, you can transform this URL to a custom short URL of your choosing like lob.st/mail. The shortened URL will still point the end user to that full destination URL above, but will make it easier for a user to digest and type in their browser when receiving the direct mail piece.
Lob’s Short URLs can be accessed and created in both the Dashboard and within the campaigns flow directly.
In the dashboard, navigate to the “Creative” navigation item, then click Short URLs. Here you will see all Short URLs you have created with Lob.
To create a new short URL, click the Create button at the top right of the page.
Within the Short URL creation flow, you’ll see:
Title
The title you can give your Short URL to easily find and select in the future. E.g. You’ll see this title to select in the campaign flow if you want to use the short URL in a campaign.
There are no character limits for the title
Destination
This is the full URL that you want to send users to that should be shortened. In the example above, this is where you would put a URL such as https://www.lob.com/product/integrate-target?utm_source=direct-mail&utm_medium=summer-2024&utm_campaign=promo
There are no character limits for the destination URL
Shortened Display URL
Domain
The default domain uses Lob’s built in subdomain “lob.st” which allows you to simplify create a short URL off of as long as that URL is available and not being used by others.
To customize and personalize this subdomain, you can click to Manage Domains from the Short URLs main page above and create a custom domain to then select and use in this URL creation flow.
Back-half
This is the path that you would like users to see on their mail creative, which then would redirect to the full destination URL above. Using the above example again, this is where you would have lob.st/mail. In this case, lob.st/mail would be what you add on your direct mail creative copy to then be printed. When users type lob.st/mail in their web browser, it would then redirect to the full destination URL.
There are no character limits for the back-half URL
Metadata
For future analytics and easier searchability, we allow you to add metadata to your Short URLs. If you want to categorize your Short URLs in any way to then access more easily at a later point in time, metadata allows you to add multiple a tag names and values.
Manage custom Short URL domains
Within the Short URL main page, click the Manage Domains button at the top to enter the Short URL domain details page.
Here you will see all of the custom short URL domains you have created and linked to Lob.
To create a new custom Short URL domain, click the Add a New Domain button at the top.
To link a domain, add your primary or subdomain in the Domain field in this modal. If there’s ever a time when the subdomain, for example, becomes inaccessible or deprecated, you can enter an Error Redirect URL. The Error Redirect URL should point to a domain that will be more stable such as your primary home page, so if a user in the future types the URL in a browser they’ll be redirect to your home page.
When you create your custom domain, the status of the domain will be Inactive by default. To set as active, you’ll need to look your domain provider to Lob by following the steps below:
Activating your new custom domain
When you create a new domain in the Lob dashboard with the steps above, you’ll need to configure your DNS settings so that it works with our platform. Follow this simple guide to ensure your domain is set up correctly.
Configuring your new domain
This is for when your domain is not being used for any purpose other than for short links.
1. Sign in to your domain registrar's website (e.g. Cloudflare, GoDaddy, etc.)
2. Locate your DNS settings.
Find the DNS settings or DNS management section within your account. See the documentation below for your registrar if you need help.
3. Create an A Record.
Add a new DNS record with the following details:
Host: @
Type: A
Value: 207.174.61.1
TTL: You can leave this at the default setting. Common defaults are 3600 seconds or automatic.
Note: Some domain registrars do not allow `@` as a value for the host. If so, leave the field blank.
4. Save your changes
Ensure all changes are saved to make your DNS record active.
5. Wait for domain activation.
Domain activation can take a few hours. Once the status changes to “Active,” your domain is ready to use for shortening links.
Configuring subdomains
Note: If your main domain is already in use for hosting a website, directly pointing it to our service could result in unwanted behavior, such as users being redirected unexpectedly from your main site. To avoid this, set up a subdomain dedicated to short links.
If you already own a domain and don’t want to register a new one, you can create a subdomain and use that to shorten links. A subdomain setup allows you to maintain brand consistency and save on registration costs. Here’s how to configure a subdomain:
Sign in to your domain registrar's website.
Use the same steps as above to locate the DNS settings for your domain.
Create a CNAME record for your subdomain.
Add a new CNAME record with the following details:
Host: Your desired subdomain. For example, if you want your short links to use `links.example.com`, enter `links` as the host.
Type: CNAME
Data/Points to: cname.short.io
TTL: You can leave this at the default setting. Common defaults are 3600 seconds or automatic.
Save your changes.
Ensure all changes are saved to make your DNS record active.
Wait for activation.
Just like a regular domain, your subdomain will be ready to use after a few hours.
Managing DNS records with specific hosting providers
If you need detailed steps on how to edit or add DNS records with your domain registrar, here are links to their official documentation for DNS management:
Troubleshooting
Domain propagation (the process of DNS records updating across global servers) can take up to 24 hours, though it typically happens within a few hours. If you are not seeing the status of your domain update to Active within the Lob dashboard, see the following troubleshooting steps:
Incorrect DNS Records: Ensure that you’ve correctly added the necessary A or CNAME records and removed extra or conflicting records.
Remove extra or conflicting DNS records: Delete any DNS records that might interfere with the proper setup of your domain/subdomain.
Domain Forwarding Issues: For some registrars like Namecheap or GoDaddy, you may need to disable domain forwarding.
If your domain is not active after 24 hours, please reach out to our support team.
Using Short URLS in your mail campaigns
Within Campaigns, you can add one short URL to your campaign. The short URL added to a campaign does not have to be unique to the creative and you may use the same short URL across multiple campaigns or creative. Note when doing this approach though, visits on that URL would be looked at in aggregate across all of the campaigns/creative. So if you would like to specify which campaign had visits, we recommend creating a short URL specific to that campaign.
Tag your campaign with a static short URL
Static short URLs can be added to a campaign to simply track URL visits for that campaign. Most commonly used with PDF creatives, static short URLs allow you to attach a trackable short URL to a campaign, so if the end recipient visits the URL that’s placed on your mail creative, the campaign will be associated with a visitor to that URL link. Note that for this functionality to work, the short URL tagged in the campaign must match the short URL on your mail piece’s creative.
To add a static short URL to your campaign, create a new URL in the dashboard or directly within the campaign flow on the Creative step. For any previously created short URL, you can select to add an existing short URL previously created within the Creative step of the campaign flow as well.
Map your short URL to a merge variable on your HTML creative
Lob can insert a shortened URL onto your html template using merge variables if you don’t want to add the shortened URL to your creative at the time of designing your creative. To insert and map your shortened URL to the html template variable, add your creative with merge variables in the Creative step of campaigns. Add your desired shortened URL to the campaign, and within the creative merge variable mapping section, select the merge variable where you would like the URL applied to. The shortened URL title should show at the bottom of the mapping variable dropdown field to select. We recommend creating a proof within your campaign before submitting to confirm the short URL applies in the correct spot on your creative and looks as expected before sending to print.
Short URL Analytics
Currently short URLs are tracked at the campaign level, not at the recipient level. This means you will be able to see that your “Summer 2024” campaign had 100 URL visits, but you won’t be able to know “John Smith” is one of the recipients who visited that URL.
You can view analytics for your short URLs in two ways: in the engagement tab within the mail analytics page of the dashboard, or within a campaign details page analytics. Both URL charts will show how many mail pieces were sent with a Lob short URL attached to it, and if a user visited that URL it will then show the total number of visit to that URL. The mail analytics page on the dashboard will allow you to see all short URL sends and visits in aggregate, with the ability to filter by various aspects like date range or metadata. The short URL chart within a campaign details page will only show the URL sends and visits within that campaign specifically, taking into account the date from when the campaign was sent to today. If no short URL was added to your campaign, you will see a placeholder showing no short URL was added instead of seeing the URL chart.
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