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Link shortening in social posts

Last updated: April 19, 2024

Available with any of the following subscriptions, except where noted:

Marketing Hub   Professional , Enterprise
Legacy Marketing Hub Basic

HubSpot automatically shortens your link URLs when you publish social posts through HubSpot to save space, track clicks, and create simple links for your audience.

  • By default, HubSpot shortens all links shared within social posts to 23-character hubs.ly, hub.li, or hub.lu tracking link. This link cannot be previewed in the social tool and will only display once the post is published. 
  • HubSpot automatically adds tracking parameters to URLs (utm_content, utm_medium, and utm_source) to track traffic metrics back to the original post. Custom tracking URLs are not supported in social posts published through HubSpot. 
  • While some social networks track multiple interactions with a post as a click, HubSpot only tracks direct clicks to the shortened URL as a click.
  • As an alternative to HubSpot's link shortener, you can purchase a branded short domain on Bitly and connect your Bitly account to HubSpot.
  • The 280-character limit for X posts includes URLs, so if you are including a link, your effective character limit is 257.
    • The character count within the social publishing tool will automatically adjust for the shortened link once a URL is added, but the link itself will not appear shortened until your post is published.
    • Images also count as links for this purpose, so including an image in your post will also use 23 characters.
  • If you downgrade or cancel your HubSpot account, all shortened links in your existing social posts will continue to work. 
Please note: HubSpot will always automatically shorten links shared within social posts using the hubs.ly, hub.li, or hub.lu domain unless you have connected your own Bitly account. The automatic link shortening cannot be turned off.
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