HubSpot Ideas

valleybox

vanity url capabilities for email hyperlink

The hyperlink in the emails I send in campaigns are really long and suspicious looking. The link should appear as it does in the html view in the edit window. From a cyber security stand point I would advice my staff to not click on these types of links as they look very suspicious. 

hubspot preview link.png

hubspot html.png

I understand this is actually a function of a security measure and analytics tool on hubspot's end. In order to gather the click information and to limit spam click data in the analytics hubspot add a javascript redirect to the links in your email. But perhaps you could add vanity url capabilities instead. More and more businesses will be training staff on cyber security awareness and when they hover over links like this hubspot users may see a drop in clicks. 

10 Replies
Shay
HubSpot Product Team

Thanks for posting, @valleybox! We're definitely aware of the concerns around the length of the tracking links at the moment. You're right in saying that it's there to help with tracking/protection/etc, but they could definitely do with being simplifed. One of the concerns we have with vanity URLs is that it introduces an additional redirect in between clicking the vanity URL > redirecting through the HubSpot tracking link > redirecting through to the original page, and we're a little worried about the added delay that that would cause on the visitors journey. 

 

Do you have thoughts on the impact that might have? Worth the tradeoff in your mind? Thanks!

AllisonAltus
Top Contributor

Yes we absolutely need something to change with the tracking urls. Our customers have given us feedback that they think the links look very suspicious and won't click on them.  I have found other platforms such asMailChimp use tracking urls but they are much shorter than hubspot's and don't look so suspicious. 

IndSights
Member

Just checking if there is any updates to this? I face the same issue as valleybox and have received feedback that the links look suspicious so users do not want to click through. Between the delay in tracking of vanity URL and email recipients not clicking my links or even unsubscribing, I think the former is the lesser of the evils. Any solutions yet?

valleybox
Member

I think the delay is worth the tradeoff of versus my business losing click throughs because savvy email recipients are deterred by a suspicious looking link. 

JensHooiveld
Participant

Yes, we definitely need this in order to keep email alive and clicking. I wouldn't trust these links too. And many people are trained to remove this kind of mail and/or mark as spam. 

I also agree that a short delay is better than no clicks. In combination with finding a way to make it shorter.

jaleonard19
HubSpot Product Team

Hi all - We are currently working on shortening our click tracking links. Couple thoughts-  

  • As pointed out these links do contain security measures and details to enable analytics/ reporting, so by nature they will be longer than vanity urls
  • In general, we have avoided a vanity url type behavior because that relies on a database that maps the vanirty url to the re-direct url. In the unlikely scenario of an outage on that database we air on the side of caution to avoid having issues with re-directs. 

All that said we have plenty of room to make the click tracking link shorter/ more efficient. @valleybox can you give me an idea of what you think an acceptable length is from security standpoint? 

 

I will update this thread with more details on length as we get more clarity on how much we can reduce the length of these click tracking urls. 

valleybox
Member

It’s not a length thing. It’s that the url doesn’t contain any readable words containing verbiage for what is about to open. 

Example: 

We sent out an email promoting our helpful wood crate cheat sheet.

The hyperlink says "this super helpful cheat "

but the url is "http:/ www.valleybox.com/e1t/c/*F1_vY8F6QNWW7sH4Yx1jKbjl0/*W8-vNPh5bRbQbW5p1Qm_8s8CqW0/5/f18dQhb0S9r49hP7Vb..."

 

I feel it should look like the link that loads once the page is opened which includes the blog and blog name. The rest of the code is pretty standard tracking code which shouldn't deter people who are aware of cyber security.  "https://www.valleybox.com/blog/buy-wood-crates-with-this-design-cheat-sheet?utm_campaign=Wood%20Crat..."

Acmevit
Member

Hello! I am afraid we have the same problem with links length. 

F.e. product pictures with link are non-accessible for most of our customers: (example) 

 

How it is in the email from Hub Spot:

 

https://hs-6839474.t.hubspotfree.net/e2t/tc/VVwvyY294Kf1W2cDm0H6bC73QW6mk3Cf4dmNf_N56dXj93lGnJV1-WJV...

 

How it should be: 

https://www.fristads.com/en/products/green-shell-jacket-4922-grs-black-129667-940

 

 

jaleonard19
HubSpot Product Team

Hi, folks, we invested in shortening the link length. In doing so we did see between a 30-40% decrease in link length. However, the links are not vanity links as defined by folks in this thread. As far as I can tell there are two parts to vanity links: 

 

1. Customers can leverage their own domains in the links. This is possible today follow the directions in this knowledge doc. 

 

2. The length of the link. While we did shorten the links they are still rather long. So why is this?

They are long because we are prioritizing availability over link length. Getting them meaningfully shorter would imply that the links are backed by a database. Meaning each time someone clicks on the links they are redirected through a service that HubSpot owns. We look up an ID, that is in the URL, in a database and return the correct link to re-direct the contact. Any database or service has the potential for some amount of downtime. In order to reduce the risk of your contacts not being able to re-direct to links embedded in emails, we do not back the links with a database. 

 

This was a conscious trade-off decision made since links are typically hyperlinked within emails. Should enough interest be generated here, we are happy to re-evaluate that decision. Hope this provides a level of transparency to everyone! 

ARose
Participant

I have also experienced issues with this and suggest a vanity url. As others have said on this thread, the long random hubspot urls come across sketchy and spammy. We recently moved over from MailChimp (questioning this decision currently) where they used the true URLs, and for 3 years we never had any issues (security, speed, click through rates, tracking or otherwise). Improving this should be a TOP PRIORITY.