Links in email defaulting to post.website.com - why?

Anonymous
Not applicable

Links in email defaulting to post.website.com - why?

I create an email with a link which works when I copy it into my browser. I hyperlink a CTA in my email with that link but when I test the email by sending it to myself (not a sample, as a real email) and click the link, it goes to post.bofifederalbank.com instead of bofifederalbank.com. This happens for any URL starting with this domain.

Anyone know why this is happening?

7 REPLIES 7
SanfordWhiteman
Level 10 - Community Moderator

Re: Links in email defaulting to post.website.com - why?

post.bofifederalbank.com is your branding (email link tracking) domain, so every link will be rewritten to first go to this domain (that's how tracking works) then will be redirected to whatever the original URL was.

Can you post an example of a rewritten link?

Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Links in email defaulting to post.website.com - why?

So I try to link here within the email: https://bankofinternet.bankenrollment.com/

And when I click it in the sent email it goes here: http://post.bofifederalbank.com/a0200X00uJ0400hALYSjd8c

And it takes me to this page (attached)

SanfordWhiteman
Level 10 - Community Moderator

Re: Links in email defaulting to post.website.com - why?

I'll be researching this in a little while and will post back.

SanfordWhiteman
Level 10 - Community Moderator

Re: Links in email defaulting to post.website.com - why?

The original link in the email and its rewritten equivalent are both what you should expect.

The link http​s://originalpage.example.com should be rewritten to http​://trackingdomain.example.net/<uniqueid>. When somebody hits the tracking domain, their hit is logged, and then they're immediately redirected to the original page. Again, this is standard behavior w/Marketo.

And there's nothing fatally wrong with the DNS domain(s) at this point in time in my tests.  (There is a minor misconfiguration on Marketo's side that's outside of your control.)

However, if you saw that DNS error earlier today on the tracking domain post.bofifederalbank.com, that strongly suggests that either your nameservers or one of Marketo's nameservers were having transient problems earlier. If this recurs, please post back here right away

Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Links in email defaulting to post.website.com - why?

The DNS error has been showing since last Friday and is still showing. Support has told us that at first glance it looks like our branding domain is properly set up so I'm confused what the error is.

SanfordWhiteman
Level 10 - Community Moderator

Re: Links in email defaulting to post.website.com - why?

But have you checked these links from outside your company/home network? 

Because from my location and tracing from the root DNS servers, this does currently look OK.

Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Links in email defaulting to post.website.com - why?

Just did and it loads fine.  I am reaching out to our internal IT team to help us resolve. Thanks so much for your guidance!