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Short Links for Email Marketing: Why and How to Use Them

By Middlewr Team··4 min read
Short Links for Email Marketing: Why and How to Use Them

Your emails contain dozens of links — CTAs, product pages, social profiles, unsubscribe buttons. But most marketers only know their overall click rate. They don't know which specific link in which email drove the most traffic, on which device, from which country. Short links change that.

A short link replaces a long, messy URL with a clean, branded one that tracks every click individually. Instead of guessing which CTA works, you know.

Email platforms tell you the open rate and overall click rate. But they rarely break it down per link. When you use a unique short link for each CTA, you get granular data: how many people clicked the hero button versus the footer link, which product link got the most interest, and where subscribers drop off.

Cleaner, more trustworthy URLs

Long URLs with UTM parameters, tracking pixels, and query strings look suspicious. A URL like go.yourcompany.com/spring-sale inspires more confidence than a 200-character string with encoded parameters. Clean URLs improve click-through rates because people trust what they can read.

When every link in your emails uses your custom domain (go.yourcompany.com), your brand stays visible even before the subscriber clicks. Over time, recipients recognize and trust your branded short links — they know where the link will take them.

Change destinations without resending

Made an error in a link? Product page moved? With a short link, you can update the destination URL after sending the email. The short link stays the same, but it redirects to the corrected page. No need to send a follow-up email with an apology.

Best practices

Don't reuse the same short link for multiple buttons. Create a unique short link for each CTA so you can compare their performance. If your email has a "Shop now" button at the top and at the bottom, use two different short links to see which position drives more clicks.

Tag each short link with UTM parameters — source, medium, and campaign at minimum. This ensures that Google Analytics attributes the traffic correctly and you can cross-reference your email click data with your website analytics.

A good pattern:

  • utm_source=newsletter
  • utm_medium=email
  • utm_campaign=spring-sale-2026
  • utm_content=hero-cta (or footer-cta, product-card, etc.)

Use a branded domain

Ditch generic short domains. Use your own custom domain for short links. It reinforces brand trust and avoids spam filters that sometimes flag generic shortener domains.

Your email platform gives you campaign-level metrics. Your short links give you link-level metrics — per-link clicks, geographic distribution, device breakdown, and referrer data. Use both together for the full picture.

What to track

With short links in your emails, you can measure:

  • Click-through per link — Which CTAs and links get the most engagement
  • Device breakdown — Are your subscribers opening on mobile or desktop? This affects landing page design
  • Geographic data — Where are your most engaged subscribers? This can inform send time optimization and content localization
  • Bot vs. human clicks — Email security scanners and preview bots inflate click counts. Link tracking with bot detection gives you accurate numbers

How to set it up with Middlewr

Here's a concrete workflow:

  1. Create a short link — In your Middlewr workspace, create a new link. Enter the destination URL (your landing page, product page, etc.)
  2. Add UTM parameters — Fill in the UTM fields directly in the link creation form. Middlewr appends them to the destination URL automatically
  3. Use a custom domain — If you've set up a custom domain, your link will use it by default (e.g., go.yourcompany.com/spring)
  4. Copy and embed — Paste the short link into your email template, wherever you'd normally put a long URL
  5. Send and monitor — After sending, check your Middlewr analytics dashboard for per-link click data in real time

Repeat for each link in the email. Each gets its own short URL and its own analytics.

Ready to try it? Create a free Middlewr account →

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