A short link in a text that opens the app.
Texts have a tight character budget and high intent. A short link opens the app on the thing the message is about, or the store if the app isn't there, and credits the action to the message.
- Who runs it
- Marketers, product
- Time to set up
- Minutes, after the SDK
- Plan
- Free, Growth for your own domain
A short link, filled per message.
Make a link with the destination and campaign. Your messaging tool fills any per-recipient part. On Growth, your own domain keeps the link short and recognisable, so it doesn't read like spam.
- Custom slugs from Starter, your own domain from Growth.
- The campaign tag says which message each tap came from.
The tap opens the appointment, ready to confirm.
On a phone with the app, the link opens it on the appointment the text was about. Without it, the store, then the same screen after install.
- Works on iPhone and Android.
- No browser login between the text and the action.
Actions completed per message sent.
SMS click rates are already high. What changes when the link opens the app is how many people finish what the message asked: confirm, pay, view. Your app sends that action as an event, credited to the message.
- Taps, app opens and completed actions per message.
- Compare messages and send times.
One-time setup, then it's all yours.
Your developer adds the LinkTrail SDK once and routes on the link's path when the app opens. After that, every message you send works without a release.
LinkTrail.onLink(link => {
// link.customData = { cmp: "reminder-24h", action: "confirm" }
router.navigate(link.path, link.customData);
});The full walkthrough: SMS campaigns: a short link that opens the app, not the browser
SMS is the channel people actually read. It's also the one where a link is most likely to be tapped on a phone that already has your app installed — and, by default, most likely to open the mobile browser instead. Add a character budget that punishes long URLs and you have a channel that is both your highest-intent and your most quietly broken.
What problem does this solve?
Every SMS link should be short enough to fit, branded enough to look safe, and smart enough to open the app on the right screen — or the store, then the screen — depending on the phone that taps it. And it should attribute, so you know which messages produced which actions.
How do you set the links up?
A custom domain keeps the link short and recognisable; a message that says 'tap this random-looking link' gets treated as spam by the recipient, whatever the carrier thinks. The slug or the payload carries the destination and the campaign. Your messaging tool fills any per-recipient part.
{
"deepLinkPath": "/appointments/{{appt_id}}",
"customData": {"cmp": "reminder-24h", "action": "confirm"}
}What's different about SMS?
- Character budget: every character of URL is a character of message you don't get. A custom short domain pays for itself here alone.
- Trust: recipients judge links by the domain. yourapp.com reads as you; a generic shortener reads as phishing.
- Carrier filtering: some carriers throttle messages with unfamiliar short domains. A branded domain on a consistent sending number is the durable fix.
- Intent: the tap-to-action window is minutes, not days. Smart routing has to be instant; an interstitial page is a lost user.
What about transactional messages?
Same link, same routing, different attribution question. A delivery update or appointment reminder isn't a campaign, but the link still needs to open the app on the right screen. Tag it so it reports separately from marketing, and you'll learn something most teams never measure: how much app engagement transactional messages drive.
Which metric should you watch?
In-app completion of the action the message asked for — confirmed, paid, viewed — as a share of messages sent. SMS click rates are already high; what changes when the link opens the app is the completion rate, and that is the number that justifies the per-message cost.
Which teams own an SMS campaign?
- Growth marketers
- Mobile product teams
Which LinkTrail features does an SMS campaign need?
- Smart routing
- Custom domain
- Custom short slugs
- Deferred deep linking
- Per-link campaign and creative tagging
SMS link questions.
Why do SMS links open the browser instead of the app?
A plain link opens in the mobile browser by default. A smart link opens the installed app on the right screen, or goes through the store and then to that screen for people without the app.
Why use a branded domain for SMS links?
It keeps links short in a tight character budget, recipients judge links by the domain — a generic shortener reads as phishing — and some carriers throttle messages with unfamiliar short domains. Custom domains are a Growth-plan feature.
Should transactional SMS use deep links too?
Yes. Delivery updates and appointment reminders use the same links and routing; tag them so they report separately from marketing, and you'll see how much app engagement transactional messages drive.
If you're doing this, you'll probably want these.
Email links
Opens the app if it's installed, the store if not. No more newsletter links opening in Safari on phones that have the app.
Short links for TV, radio and podcasts
A link people can remember and type. Branded, short, and counted per show or spot.
Cart recovery
Win-back emails and texts that open the saved basket, ready to pay.
Make your first SMS link.
Free for your first 5,000 users. No card, no sales call.