Why Short Links Improve Email Marketing (And How to Use Them Right)

Every email marketer obsesses over subject lines. Open rates get all the attention. But once someone opens your email, the real battle is getting them to click — and the links you use matter more than you think.

Long, parameter-stuffed URLs buried in your email aren't just ugly. They can actually hurt your deliverability, reduce click-through rates, and make your campaign data harder to analyze. Short links fix all three problems.

The Click-Through Problem

Picture this: you've crafted the perfect email. Great subject line, compelling copy, clear call to action. The reader's cursor hovers over your link. But instead of a clean URL, they see:

https://yoursite.com/products/annual-plan?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=february_promo_2026&utm_content=main_cta&ref=em_feb16

On desktop, that link text might be hidden behind a button. But on mobile email clients — which account for over 60% of email opens — links sometimes display as raw URLs. And a URL that long screams "tracking link" to readers who've learned to be suspicious.

Short links look trustworthy. y.hn/feb-deal is clean, readable, and doesn't trigger the same skepticism.

Deliverability: The Hidden Cost of Long URLs

Email spam filters analyze everything in your email, including URLs. Here's how link structure affects deliverability:

URL length and complexity. Spam filters flag emails with excessively long URLs containing many query parameters. It's a pattern commonly associated with phishing emails. While it won't automatically land you in spam, it contributes to your spam score.

Too many different tracking domains. If your email contains links from your domain, your ESP's tracking domain, a separate analytics platform, and an affiliate network, spam filters notice the domain sprawl. Consolidating through a single short link domain simplifies this.

Broken link reputation. Some URL shorteners have been abused by spammers, which means their domains carry poor reputation. This is why choosing the right shortener matters — you want a clean domain with no spam history. y.hn maintains strict anti-abuse policies specifically to keep the domain reputation clean.

How Short Links Actually Boost Clicks

Beyond aesthetics and deliverability, there are practical reasons short links increase click-through rates in emails.

1. They Work Better in Plain-Text Emails

Not every email is HTML. Transactional emails, personal outreach, and some newsletters are sent as plain text. In plain-text emails, the full URL is visible. Compare:

Check out our new pricing: https://yoursite.com/pricing?utm_source=email&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=pricing_update_feb2026

vs.

Check out our new pricing: https://y.hn/pricing

The second version is cleaner and more inviting to click.

2. They're Easier to Preview

Most email clients show a URL preview on hover. If the preview shows a short, recognizable domain followed by a readable slug, people are more comfortable clicking. If it shows a query-string nightmare, they hesitate.

3. They Survive Copy-Paste

Subscribers forward emails and copy links into messages. Long URLs with special characters sometimes break when pasted into Slack, Teams, or other messaging platforms. Short links don't have this problem — they're simple enough to survive any medium.

4. They Give You a Second Layer of Analytics

Your ESP (Mailchimp, ConvertKit, whatever you use) tracks opens and clicks. But short link analytics give you additional data:

• Geographic breakdown of clickers
• Device and browser information
• Click timing patterns
• Referrer data (did someone forward your email and the recipient clicked?)

With y.hn, you see all of this in a real-time dashboard, complementing your ESP's built-in reports.

Best Practices for Using Short Links in Emails

Use custom slugs that match your campaign

Don't use random character slugs in emails. y.hn/x8k2m looks suspicious. y.hn/feb-deal or y.hn/pricing looks intentional and trustworthy.

Keep UTM parameters in the destination URL

You still want UTM tracking. Create your full UTM-tagged URL, then shorten it. The UTM parameters travel with the redirect — they're invisible to the reader but visible to Google Analytics.

Full URL: https://yoursite.com/pricing?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=feb_promo


Short link: y.hn/feb-deal

Use different short links for different CTAs

If your email has three links (header, inline, footer), give each one a different short link with different utm_content values. This tells you which placement drives the most clicks:

• Header CTA: y.hn/feb-deal-h (utm_content=header)
• Inline CTA: y.hn/feb-deal-i (utm_content=inline)
• Footer CTA: y.hn/feb-deal-f (utm_content=footer)

Don't shorten your unsubscribe link

Leave compliance-related links (unsubscribe, preferences, privacy policy) as-is. Shortening these can raise spam filter flags and erode subscriber trust.

Test your links before sending

This sounds obvious, but: click every short link in your test email to make sure it redirects correctly. A broken link in an email sent to 10,000 subscribers is a painful mistake.

Comparing Shorteners for Email Use

Not all URL shorteners are equal when it comes to email marketing. Here's what to look for:

y.hn checks all these boxes. The domain is just 4 characters (one of the shortest available), custom slugs are supported on all plans, and the infrastructure is built for reliability.

A Practical Email Workflow

Here's how to integrate short links into your email marketing process:

1. Write your email as usual in your ESP

2. Create UTM-tagged destination URLs for each link

3. Shorten each URL using y.hn with descriptive custom slugs

4. Replace the links in your email with the short versions

5. Send a test email and verify all links work

6. Send the campaign

7. Monitor results in both your ESP dashboard and y.hn analytics

It adds about 5 minutes to your workflow and gives you significantly better data and cleaner emails.

The Bottom Line

Short links in emails aren't just about aesthetics. They improve deliverability, increase click-through rates, survive forwarding and copy-pasting, and give you richer analytics. The few minutes it takes to shorten your campaign links pays for itself in better performance data and higher engagement.

Try y.hn free → and see the difference in your next email campaign.