We're thrilled to announce a newly updated integration plugin with Bit.ly URL shortener. This replaces the current core plugin, which is not working since 2020 and will be removed in Mautic 5.0.

The new plugin is also based on a core modification that introduces a service to make Mautic integrable with any URL shortening service.

In the end, using the new plugin available soon on the Mautic Marketplace will allow our Mautic users to shorten links in SMS, which has a huge cost value knowing the SMS length limit.

A single SMS message technically supports up to 160 characters, or up to 70 if the message contains one or more Unicode characters (such as emoji or Chinese characters).

Bit.ly original communication

Most Bit.ly API users should have been receiving the following original message since 2020.

We've updated our API to v4 (version 4), and it's important that you're connecting to Bitly using this latest version, because all old versions will stop working when we shut them off on March 1, 2020.

Impact on current core Mautic plugin

Mautic Community users currently using the existing plugin already noticed it is not working anymore. Knowing this, the Mautic Community Product Team has decided to remove the existing plugin from Mautic core on the next major version, Mautic 5.

How to install the new plugin

You will find two options to install the plugin; using composer, or downloading and installing manually the plugin in your Mautic installation.

1. Run composer require webmecanik/mautic-bitly-bundle
2. To install the plugin manually, grab the code from this link which is available under an Open Source license.

Get news about this integration and/or contribute to it!

If you're interested in learning more about the Mautic Bit.ly plugin and how it might evolve over time, you should ‘Star’ or ‘Watch’ the Github repository containing the plugin.

You can also contribute to it by reporting Issues, suggest your improvements by proposing Pull Requests to it, or Sponsor the project. Maintainers will consider your highly valuable contributions.

Thank you for your continued support and we look forward to bringing you more exciting updates in the future.

Who is behind the Mautic Bit.ly Plugin

Webmecanik is a Mautic Community partner based in France. The Mautic Bit.ly Plugin is 100% compatible with a standard Mautic Community installation. The second main community contributor for the last 5 years (see Community contributions reports for 2020, 2021, 2022), you can follow them on LinkedIn and read more of their marketing automation tips on Webmecanik's blog.

Norman Pracht is the General Manager at Webmecanik and Mautic Community Product Team Assistant.