Link domains & link control

Every tracked link in a campaign is a short link on a link domain. By default that’s a shared platform domain; adding your own domain makes links branded, improves deliverability, and — because it’s first-party to your site — lets the web pixel tie a texted contact’s on-site session back to them. Link control then governs what happens on the click: normally it redirects to your offer, but you can decide what to do when the link is expired, the visitor is a bot, the link has been clicked too many times, or it’s the wrong device.

Custom link domains

A link domain is a hostname you own that points at our link service. Short links are then served from it, e.g. go.yourbrand.com/aB3x.

Routing types

Type	Link looks like	Use when
Path (default)	`go.yourbrand.com/aB3x`	The normal choice — one subdomain, links on its path.
Subdomain	routed per subdomain of the domain	You want the whole domain (and its subdomains) handled by the link service.

Add a domain

Adding or provisioning a domain requires the Integrations permission (org.integrations). Anyone who can view campaigns can see the configured domains.

Add the domain

In Settings → Integrations → Link domains, add the hostname you want to send links from (e.g. go.yourbrand.com). It starts inactive — the setup flow is add → point DNS → verify → provision, and it doesn’t go live until that finishes.

Point DNS at us

Create the CNAME record shown for your domain at your DNS provider. This is what makes your hostname resolve to the link service.

Check DNS

Click Check DNS. This resolves the hostname and confirms it points here. If it still resolves elsewhere, it tells you what it found so you can fix the record. (DNS changes can take a few minutes to propagate.)

Provision SSL

Once DNS matches, Provision issues the TLS certificate so links load over HTTPS. When that succeeds the domain goes active and campaigns can send on it.

Tracked links over the API

Campaigns and flows shorten and track links for you. The single-send endpoint POST /v1/messages does too — pass a destination_url and it mints a tracked short link (the same kind a campaign makes), places it in the message, and records clicks. The short link goes where you put a {link} token in body; if there’s no token, it’s appended to the end.

curl -X POST https://api.verbose.cx/v1/messages \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer as_live_…" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
        "to": "+15551234567",
        "body": "Your order shipped! Track it: {link}",
        "destination_url": "https://acme.com/orders/abc123"
      }'

The response returns the short URL that went out:

{
  "message": { "id": "…", "status": "sent" },
  "link": {
    "short_url": "https://go.yourbrand.com/aB3kR9pX",
    "short_code": "aB3kR9pX",
    "destination_url": "https://acme.com/orders/abc123"
  }
}

Clicks on that link are tracked like any campaign link, and {click_id} anywhere in destination_url is filled in at click time.

Choosing the domain

The short link is built on one of your link domains.

Omit link_domain and it uses your workspace’s newest active domain — the simplest integration never has to name a domain.

To pick a specific one (when a workspace has several), pass link_domain — a domain id, name, or hostname:

{ "to": "+1…", "body": "… {link}", "destination_url": "https://acme.com/x", "link_domain": "go.yourbrand.com" }

List the domains available to the workspace with GET /v1/link-domains:

curl https://api.verbose.cx/v1/link-domains -H "Authorization: Bearer as_live_…"

{
  "link_domains": [
    { "id": "b3001e05-…", "domain": "go.yourbrand.com", "name": "YourBrand", "active": true }
  ]
}

Only active domains build working links. If the workspace has no active link domain, a send with destination_url returns an error rather than sending an untracked link — add and verify a domain first, or drop destination_url to send a plain message.

Link routing rules

By default a click redirects to your offer. Link routing rules (in the campaign or link-domain settings) let you decide what happens when it shouldn’t — so a click is never a dead end and never wasted. Each rule answers one question:

Situation	What you can do
Expired link	Send the visitor to a fallback URL instead of a dead “link expired” page.
Bot / scanner	Divert automated clicks (link scanners, crawlers) away from the offer so they don’t burn a click or pollute stats.
Click cap	After a link has been clicked N times, send further clicks elsewhere.
Device	Route by device — e.g. send desktop clicks somewhere different from mobile.

Order is fixed and deliberate, most-certain fact first: expired → bot → click cap → device. An earlier rule decides the click; a later one can’t rescue it. So the order is the policy. Scope precedence — narrowest wins. A rule can be set at the campaign, tenant (workspace), link-domain, or global level; exactly one applies, resolved campaign → tenant → link domain → global. Two rules never stack.

Click-quality controls

The platform can divert a small sample of clicks to check traffic quality (bots slipping through, broken redirect chains, junk from a network). Two modes:

Measure & forward (default, conservative) — the sampled click still reaches your offer via a measurement hop; the recipient converts as normal.
Divert — the sampled click stops at our check and does not reach the offer.

Divert withholds real clicks from a real offer, so it costs conversions. It’s meant as a short, small-percentage check on a specific campaign — not a standing setting. Every diversion is recorded so the decision can be reviewed.

How links connect to the pixel

When a recipient taps a tracked link and lands on a page that runs your pixel, the link service appends a ?vcx= click id to the destination (only for hosts you’ve registered as pixel origins — never to third-party offer URLs). The pixel reads it and ties that browser session to the exact contact you texted, so their on-site behavior can trigger flows. See Identifying visitors.

Get started

Guides

Link domains & link control

Custom link domains

Routing types

Add a domain

Tracked links over the API

Choosing the domain

Link routing rules

Click-quality controls

How links connect to the pixel