Ugly tracking links in email: alternatives
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Last week I raised the issue of ESP tracking URLs looking downright ugly and potentially depressing your CTR.Some kind readers/vendors commented or wrote in with their alternatives. All of them are an improvement on URLs like this...
http://www.esp2v.net/dfg35465788883777458885866888g
If your ESP is a nominee for Ugly Tracking Link 2009, show them this post and see what they can do for you.
Use a branded subdomain of the ESP's tracking domain
Here, the ESP creates a subdomain of their tracking domain for each sender. So the above tracking URL can now look like this:
http://mycompany.esp2v.net/dfg35465788883777458885866888g
Use your domain with Javascript tracking at the destination page
This technique comes from AWeber. They give senders a bit of web analytics code (Javascript) to add to their website pages. Links in emails pointing to the sender's domain then get a query string added to the end, so they look something like this:
http://www.mycompany.com/page.html?aw_m=123457&aw_l=09875
You get to keep your original link URL and the analytics script on the website takes care of the click tracking.
AWeber's Justin Premick told me, "They're still longer than if you weren't using tracking at all, but at least they're at your domain and not an ESP one."
"While it only allows you to do this for pages of your own site (not any 3rd-party sites you may link to in your emails), it's a step up from the standard ESP-domain tracking link."
Let the ESP use a subdomain of your domain
This is how my own newsletter works and was proposed to me by Pure. You setup a subdomain of your own domain for use in your marketing emails. In my case:
news.email-marketing-reports.com
Then modify the nameservers so that the ESP is in control of that subdomain and can use it for tracking purposes. My "news" subdomain is associated with my ESP's nameservers, who then modify the A, MX and TXT records appropriately to allow tracking and authentication. (I don't understand that but your ESP or IT staff will.)
All the links would then look something like this:
http://news.mycompany.com/link.php?mId=A83096916&tId=7744870
Let the ESP use a dedicated emailing domain
A variation on the above is to actually create a domain solely for sending email from and put that under the ESPs control so they can use it for tracking.
A separate domain and sending infrastructure for marketing emails is sometimes done for deliverability reasons anyway.
Any delivery problems caused by your marketing efforts (even the most ethical programs can end up on an occasional blacklist) don't impinge on your normal business email.
So your links might look like this:
http://www.mycompanynews.com/link.php?mId=A8309&tId=7744870
Put the tracking code in the subdomain?
All four of the above are practical solutions available at at least one ESP. I've not seen this last alternative anywhere, but it was suggested to me by a friend.
Instead of a named subdomain for the ESP's use, you use a wildcard so that any subdomain not specifically defined by yourself (like www.) is now controlled by the ESP. Then the ESP uses the alphanumeric link tracking code as a subdomain.
The advantage is that you can now display the full URL of the landing page, like this:
http://ASD439868.mycompany.com/100_dollar_coupon_here/
This doesn't look good if the alphanumeric tracking code is too long, but my friend assures me that relatively short codes still offer enough variations to cope with even the largest database requirements (and that longer codes are simply down to technical inefficiencies, not need).
Any technical folk care to comment on the viability of this technique?
Any more suggestions or comments on this topic and the pros and cons of each URL approach are most welcome.
More on design | Tags: email marketing, url design, CTR, landing pages
Permalink | February 20, 2009 | 8 comment(s)
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8 Comments:
Yes the URL should not be written in some coded of numbered form as they realy looks ugly....instead we should use a sub-URL as the name of the topic...this really help visitors to know what this page offers...
Nice post anyways/....:)
By 
, on
22 February, 2009
As you mentioned, "longer codes are simply down to technical inefficiencies, not need".
None demonstrate this better than the many URL shortening services, of which tinyurl.com may be the most famous.
About time ESP's and email marketing software developers used the same techniques as those services, and embed them within their applications?
By 
Vinny, on
24 February, 2009
Thnaks Vinny. I do wonder if we've just accepted long tracking codes because they've always been long. Not because they have to be long.
By , on
24 February, 2009
Or even "thanks" (too early for correct spelling)
By , on
24 February, 2009
This issue should only affect text versions of your email. Obviously you're embedding the URL in a graphic or HTML for the graphical version.
Or if I'm doing a HTML email that is text, I'll code it like this:
http://www.markscompany.com/10_dollars_off/
But for text versions (which not many of our subscribers get), I've always been concerned about the ugly URLs...
Thanks
Mike
By , on
25 February, 2009
Agree Mike that the problem is more obvious with the text version. But I think there's still a (smaller) impact with HTML links, too. Some people do look at the destination URL when hovering their mouse over a link or image.
Mind you, it's still conjecture: I'd love someone to do an A/B test comparing "ugly" and "clean" URLs.
By , on
26 February, 2009
Pure can also do the javascript amend for analytics software as well as the branded tracking.
I use their url builder for Google analytics and paste the tracking code into their Link appended and all of my links will then be tracked in Google.
I can even use custom data link the email address so I see individuals' actions!
- - -
also for the plain text versions, if you include a view on-line link to go to the full trackable html version (same html from the html email, same link as the online link in the html) plain text people can see the email in its full glory and you get your tracking.
By captaininbox, on
03 March, 2009
Analytics integration is always great. One word of warning for people, though. The terms of service for Google Analytics forbids its use to "track or collect personally identifiable information of Internet users" I'm not sure how that relates to tracking individual's post email click behavior, but perhaps someone has enough legal understanding to clarify that.
By , on
03 March, 2009
Comments closed during migration to a new blog platform in early May
