Most campaign links have a natural end date: the flash sale finishes, the early-access window closes, the contest deadline passes. Giving a link an expiry date records that end date in the app, so a finished campaign stops cluttering your active links and can trigger automation the moment it wraps up.
Setting an expiry date
While creating a link, tick Set expiration date and choose a date and time. Times follow your store’s timezone.
Two things are worth knowing before you set one:
It is a paid-plan feature. On the free plan the checkbox is visible but greyed out, next to a link to upgrade.
It is fixed once the link exists. Editing a link covers its name and private note only, so there is no way to extend, shorten or clear an expiry date afterwards. Decide the date before you press Generate Short Link.
What happens when the date passes
Inside the app, the link is treated as finished:
Its status becomes Expired - A red Expired badge replaces the countdown badge in the links table
It leaves the Active view - It drops out of Active and out of the Active Links figure at the top of the page, and appears under the Expired filter
Its page says so - A banner on the link’s own page gives the date it expired
Shopify Flow hears about it - If you have built a workflow on the Short link expired trigger, it runs at that moment and carries the link’s lifetime click total. The Shopify Flow article covers what you can build on it, and Settings > Integrations lists every trigger.
Its click history stays - Everything the link recorded remains in Analytics
It stops redirecting - Visitors following the old URL get a “not found” response rather than reaching the destination
What visitors see afterwards
An expired link stops redirecting. Anyone who still has the URL — from an old email, a screenshot, a printed card — gets a “not found” response instead of being sent to the destination.
That is deliberate: a link you gave an end date to should not keep quietly sending people to a finished sale. If you would rather visitors land somewhere useful after the campaign closes, point the short link at a page you control and change that page’s content when the offer ends, instead of setting an expiry date.
Deleting a link is different, and stronger: it frees the short key for reuse and removes the link’s click history with it. Expiry keeps the record; deletion removes it. If you only want the URL to stop working, let it expire.
Good uses for an expiry date
Flash sales - A 24-hour offer, a weekend-only promotion, a holiday special that ends on a set date
Early access - Subscriber or VIP windows, influencer previews, pre-launch access
Time-boxed discounts - Black Friday links, a seven-day welcome offer, a birthday promotion
Event links - Webinar registration up to the event, contest entry up to the deadline, pre-orders up to launch
Seasonal campaigns - Summer collections, back-to-school, a Valentine’s gift guide
In each case the value is the same: your Active view stays down to links that still matter, and the expiry event can kick off a workflow — emailing yourself the final click count, for instance — without you remembering to check.
Practical tips
Give yourself a buffer - If a sale closes at midnight, set the expiry an hour later so late clicks are not marked finished before the offer really is
Think about your audience’s timezone - The date you pick follows your store’s timezone, not the visitor’s
Say the deadline out loud - “Offer ends Friday at midnight” in the post itself does more work than the expiry date does
Check the numbers before you clean up - Review a campaign’s clicks and referrers in Analytics before deleting the link, because deletion takes the history with it
Next Steps
Learn about Creating Links with all options
Track performance with Click Analytics
View historical data in Analytics