Custom Domains for Short Links

Take advantage of your highly-recognizable brand and increase conversions while saving characters in SMS messages using Airship-shortened links with a custom domain.

You can replace Airship’s standard airsp.co or airsp.eu domains for shortened links with your own custom short link domain. To take advantage of a shortened, custom domain, you must:

  1. Register your short domain name with a Domain Name Registrar.

    Your custom short link domain can include a subdomain, but it cannot include a path.

    • Supported: https://my.site.co
    • Not Supported: https://mysite.co/path
     Note

    While your custom short link domain cannot contain a path, the links that you use in your messages can, of course, contain paths.

  2. Host your domain. Airship supports custom short link domains using HTTP and HTTPS.

  3. Implement a redirect configuration applicable to the web server you use. This document contains instructions for a few common web servers.

  4. Contact Airship Support to enable your custom short link domain.

When you send an SMS/MMS message from Airship with link shortening enabled:

  • Your end users will receive a shortened link, e.g., http://mysite.co/abcd1234.
  • Your domain must forward http://mysite.co/abcd1234 to https://airsp.co/abcd1234 or https://airsp.eu/abcd1234 (depending on your Airship data center).
  • Airship will handle the final redirect to the full URL that you provided in your original message, e.g., http://myfullsite.com/longURL?query=1234.
sequenceDiagram Airship->>Audience: Send SMS with shortened link Audience ->>Custom Domain: Clicks custom link Custom Domain ->> Airship: Forwards custom domain to airsp.com or .eu with request_uri Airship ->> Airship: Resolves short link to original URL

Nginx Server Configuration

Use one of the following configurations to redirect your custom short link domain to Airship. The request_uri appended to your custom short link domain — e.g., https://mysite.co/abcd1234 — passes through to Airship’s short link domain — e.g., https://airsp.co/abcd1234. Airship then resolves the shortened link, redirecting the user to the original link in your message — e.g., https://myfullsite.com/deals?cart=4321id=0987lkjh.

HTTP-only redirect:
server {
    listen 80;
    
    location / {
      return 303 https://airsp.co$request_uri;
    }
}

HTTP and HTTPS redirect:
server {
	listen 80;
	    
    location / {
        return 303 https://airsp.co$request_uri;
    }
}

server {
	listen 443 ssl;
	ssl on;
	ssl_certificate 	/etc/nginx/ssl-certs/airsp.crt;
	ssl_certificate	/etc/nginx/ssl-certs/airsp.key;

	location / {
		return 303 https://airsp.co$request_uri;
	}
}

Apache Server Configuration

Use one of the following configurations to redirect your custom short link domain to Airship. The request_uri appended to your custom short link domain — e.g., https://mysite.co/abcd1234 — passes through to Airship’s short link domain — e.g., https://airsp.co/abcd1234. Airship then resolves the shortened link, redirecting the user to the original link in your message — e.g., https://myfullsite.com/deals?cart=4321id=0987lkjh.

HTTP-only redirect:
If the mod_rewrite module is enabled, add the following lines to your sites-available/000-default.conf file.

<VirtualHost *:80>
	... other .conf code...
	<Location />
		Redirect 303 https://airsp.co%{REQUEST_URI}
	<Location>
</VirtualHost>

HTTP and HTTPS redirect:
In your sites-available/default-ssl.conf file, add a Location directive block containing the following:

<VirtualHost _default_:443>
  ... other .conf code...
  <Location />
      Redirect 303 https://airsp.co%{REQUEST_URI}
  </Location>
</VirtualHost>

In your sites-available/000-default.conf file add the following two lines. This assumes that the mod_rewrite module is enabled for your server.

<VirtualHost *:80>
	... other .conf code...
	<Location />
		Redirect 303 https://airsp.co%{REQUEST_URI}
	<Location>
</VirtualHost>

Microsoft IIS Configuration

Use the following configuration to redirect your custom short link domain to Airship. The request_uri appended to your custom short link domain — e.g., https://mysite.co/abcd1234 — passes through to Airship’s short link domain — e.g., https://airsp.co/abcd1234. Airship then resolves the shortened link, redirecting the user to the original link in your message — e.g., https://myfullsite.com/deals?cart=4321id=0987lkjh.

  1. Click Default Web Site.
  2. In the Feature View, click URL Rewrite.
  3. In the Actions panel, click Add rules….
  4. In the Add Rules dialog, select Blank Rule and click OK.
  5. When defining the Rewrite Rule, set the following:
    • Requested URL: Matches the Pattern
    • Using: Regular Expressions
    • Pattern: [^/]*$, which matches the request URI through the end of the regex string
    • Ignore Case: unchecked
    • Action Type: Redirect
    • Redirect URL: https://airsp.co/{R:0} where {R:0} specifies the request URI
    • Append query string: unchecked
    • Redirect type: See Other (303)