Create a Webhook

Use webhooks to be notified when a link is clicked.

Bitly's webhook endpoints can be configured in the web application or programmatically using webhook endpoints.

Configuring webhooks from the web app provides a user interface for configuring webhook endpoints.

Authentication

Bitly supports API Key & HTTP Basic Auth for posting the webhook. You'll need to post the query parameter as part of the callback URL.

Example API Key:

https://yourapp.domain/webhook?key=abc123

Example basic auth:

https://user:password@customer.domain/webhook

Bitly also supports using OAuth 1.0 when creating or updating your webhooks via the API. This functionality is not yet available in the web application. To utilize this feature, you will need to add the following fields to your request body. Our documentation has also been updated.

oauth_url: www.youroauthurl.com
client_id: yourclientid
client_secret: yourclientsecret

On all subsequent webhook events, we will then attempt to call your OAuth service to retrieve a token, which will be appended as a header on all responses in the form of Authorization: Bearer {token}. Please note that we expect your OAuth service to follow standard OAuth 1.0 conventions. Currently we are only supporting grant_type of client_credentials. We will assume a token is expired if we receive a 401 response when sending the webhook payload, and we will attempt to retrieve a new token.

Response format

Bitly sends webhook responses, formatted in JSON, over HTTP as HTTPS POST requests. We'll send the payload to the URL that you enter into your account settings in Bitly.

The payload

A Bitly webhook payload will include the following information with each click event:

Event ID which unique identifies a single click
Date and time of click
Long URL
Parameters passed through from long URL (if available with your subscription)
bitlinkID (short link and associated data)
Country where the link was clicked
Referrer
Device type
Account and Group ID related to this link
Webhook ID that an event is related to
(Optional) Tags associated with the link

To include tags in the payload, add the following field to your request body when creating or updating a webhook:

fetch_tags: true

Enabling tags may result in delays to the payload delivery as we gather the data internally. The tags feature is only available when utilizing our API, and is not yet available in our web application.

Here's an example:

{
    "event_id": "42f14eec-d1dc-11ea-8bbb-080027c1cea9",
    "datetime":"2019-12-20T07:54:54+0000",
    "url":"https://long.url.net/wiki/spaces/longer/data/665092146/",
    "bitlink":"write4plebs.com/pendorama",
    "passed_params":"",
    "country":"US",
    "referrer": "direct",0
    "device_type": "Desktop",
    "webhook_guid": "W0123456789",
    "organization_guid": "O1234567890",
    "group_guid": "B0123456789",
    "tags": [
        "tagA",
        "tagB"
    ],
    "references": {
        "bitlink": "https://api-ssl.bitly.com/v4/bitlinks/write4plebs.com/pendorama",
        "group": "https://api-ssl.bitly.com/v4/groups/B0123456789",
        "organization": "https://api-ssl.bitly.com/v4/organizations/O1234567890",
        "webhook": "https://api-ssl.bitly.com/v4/webhooks/W0123456789"
    }
}

Webhook errors

Bitly will make multiple attempts to send a payload if the first attempt fails. After failing multiple times, the webhook will be automatically deactivated and an email will be sent to all your account administrators notifying you that there's a problem.