Why does my Mobile Commons shortlink show a 404 error when opened from an email?

Overview

Mobile Commons shortlinks (for example, lil.ms/abc1) send people to a destination you’ve set up. That might be a webpage, a form, or your phone’s messaging app with a keyword already filled in for opt-in links. Sometimes a shortlink works when you test it directly, and its QR code works too, but it returns a 404 error when someone taps it in an email. In most cases, the email platform has changed the link before it reaches the reader.

Common cause: tracking parameters added to the link

Many email marketing platforms add extra text to the end of links for analytics. For example, a platform might turn lil.ms/abc1 into lil.ms/abc1?contactid=12345. A shortlink has to match exactly to be recognized, so this added text can stop it from resolving, and the reader sees a 404 error.

This is a separate setting from click tracking. Turning off click tracking for a link won’t always fix the problem if the platform is still adding parameters.

How to tell if this is happening

1. Send yourself a test email that contains the shortlink.
2. Tap or click the link.
3. If you get an error, look at the address bar. If anything appears after the shortlink, such as ?contactid= or ?utm_source=, your email platform is changing the link.

How to fix it

1. In your email platform, look for the setting that adds parameters or web analytics tracking to links. In Salesforce Marketing Cloud, this is often the Web Analytics Connector or a link parameter setting.
2. Exclude the lil.ms domain from having parameters added. Excluding the whole domain covers all of your Mobile Commons shortlinks at once, so you don’t have to set it up link by link. Your email platform admin can help if you don’t have access to these settings.
3. If the link still fails, also turn off click tracking for that link.
4. Send another test email and open the link to confirm it reaches the right destination.

Tip: tracking clicks on a webpage destination

If your shortlink points to a webpage and you want UTM tracking, add the UTM parameters to the destination URL when you set up the shortlink in Mobile Commons. Don’t add them to the shortlink itself.

Good to know

• QR codes and shortlinks posted on websites or social media aren’t affected because the email platform doesn’t modify them.
• The shortlink itself doesn’t need to be changed or recreated.