Advertising and messaging media is classified either as ‘clickable’ or ‘non-clickable’. Most common media for advertising is still non-clickable.

Corporate messaging to customers is usually on media which is clickable.

Corporate messaging

Within clickable media, some media are ‘hypertext’ and others are not. E.g. all messaging on SMS and most messaging on chat applications like WhatsApp, Slack etc. is non-hypertext.

What this means for corporate messaging is that the target URL for the customer is the same as the one being shown in the message e.g.

Campaign Tracking Parameters

When companies use public URL shortening services, the URLs they send are indistinguishable from the ones which a phishing attacker can also generate. On top of this, it is virtually impossible for a user to type them by hand. Read More

Most other media for corporate messaging is ‘hypertext’. This includes email messages and web pages among others. On hypertext media the actual link may be different than the one being shown to the user where the user is expected to click.

A different URL hyperlinked on a visible link has been the source of most phishing attacks. The unsuspecting user clicks on the deceptive link, which covertly redirects them to a phishing site.

Security cautious users prefer to type the URL by hand instead of clicking on them.

Most companies are still using vulnerable methods for customer communications.

3u.gg Branded URL Shortener Solution

3u.gg offers a branded URL shortener solution. It starts with a small prefix that identifies your organization e.g. fnb.3u.gg/---- (assuming your org is called First National Bank)

End users clearly identify the first few letters as your org and 3u.gg as the standard mnemonic URL shortener. The front space is all your to make your own ‘Corporate URL strategy’. Typical important and repeated short URLs can be just a character or two e.g. fnb.3u.gg/mfa for the Multi-Factor Authentication links on the corporate website.

If the communication is on hypertext media, the user can still avoid clicking the link and just type by hand. (ps: Mnemonic URLs even tolerate many mistakes which users may make while typing by hand.)