How do SMS Coupon URL Link Previews Work on Mobile Devices?

Written by Nate

Updated 4 years ago

How do SMS Coupon URL Link Previews Work on Mobile Devices?

Some mobile devices are capable of displaying previews for links contained in SMS messages. When messages that contain a URL are received on these devices, they may be rendered in the messaging application with a preview of the linked page. This behavior is controlled from the phone or its software, and can not be affected by Coupontools or the carrier.

The SMS protocols were created prior to smartphones or mobile internet use becoming common, and specifications for handling URL and link previews were not included. Any changes or differences in how SMS messages are displayed from device to device are controlled by each device and its software.

Link Preview Behavior on iOS

There are multiple factors that affect whether an iPhone shows a preview for a link received in a message, and what the preview looks like:

Is the sender saved in the recipient's contacts list?

According to our testing, iOS will only render a preview for links sent in SMS or MMS if the sender is saved in the recipient's contact list. Otherwise, the URL will be displayed in the body of the message.

Is the URL at the very beginning or the very end of the message?

iPhones will only display a link preview if the URL is at the beginning or the end of the message. iOS will not render a preview for a URL in the middle of a message, or even just surrounded by periods or quotation marks.

Is there only a single URL in the message, or multiple?

iPhones will only display a link preview if there is one URL in the message. A preview will not be displayed if there are multiple URLs in the same message.

iMessage vs. SMS

You might notice that messages sent between iPhones may render different previews when the message contains a URL, compared to SMS sent to that iPhone from Coupontools or from a non-iOS device. This is because iOS uses different link preview behavior for iMessages than for standard SMS or MMS.

By default, iPhones use iMessage when sending to other iPhones, instead of SMS or MMS. iMessage is an Apple messaging system which is separate from SMS. iMessage uses your phone number as an identifier, but the messages are not sent using the SMS or MMS protocol.

On an iPhone, you can check whether a specific message thread is using iMessage by looking at the color of your "send message" button, as well as your sent messages. iMessage displays outgoing messages in blue message bubbles, while SMS or MMS are displayed in green.

Android Phones:

No all the Android Phones carry the preview visualization system. This is available only from version 3.2 of the Android messages app.

1) The first requirement is that the link must be at the beginning or at the end of the message. Remember that all messages have this function yet. If the hyperlink is placed in the middle of the text message, a preview will not be displayed.

Remember, if the hyperlink is followed by just one word or a full stop, the link preview won’t appear in the message.

2) To ensure that the link preview displays correctly, the hyperlink needs to contain the protocols http:// or https://. The domain name or type of link doesn’t matter, but it must contain the necessary http at the beginning of the web address. Our embedded coupon urls automatically have https://

3) The third requirement to be able to visualize the preview is avoiding adding more than one link in the same message. If there are two links or more, the preview visualization system will not be available.

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