Re: Custom re-directs for known vs unknown email addresses

Anonymous
Not applicable

Custom re-directs for known vs unknown email addresses

Hello everyone,

I need suggestions around building a campaign in which multiple links are sent in an email, the links are mostly to a PDF hosted on our main server and sometimes to a LP.

I wanted to know if there is a workaround so that whenever a known contact clicks the link he is directly taken to the URL, if not then the person should get a form to fill the details and upon submitting he can access the actual link to the PDF/LP.

Basically I want the known leads to access the link directly and capture information of the unknown ones and then let them access the original link.

Thank you in advance for your time and suggestions.

Harshit

17 REPLIES 17
SanfordWhiteman
Level 10 - Community Moderator

Re: Custom re-directs for known vs unknown email addresses

I wanted to know if there is a workaround so that whenever a known contact clicks the link he is directly taken to the URL, if not then the person should get a form to fill the details and upon submitting he can access the actual link to the PDF/LP.

Please move the thread to Products​ to continue.

(And your question doesn't exactly make sense. By definition, when somebody in your Marketo database -- the only people you can send emails to -- arrives on a webpage running Munchkin via clicking a tracked email link, their web session will be associated with a known lead. It sounds like what you really want is to force leads to be enriched to a certain level before showing the download link, not merely known.)

Grégoire_Miche2
Level 10

Re: Custom re-directs for known vs unknown email addresses

Hi Sanford,

Or maybe, the issue is about what happens when people forward the email to someone else ...

-Greg

SanfordWhiteman
Level 10 - Community Moderator

Re: Custom re-directs for known vs unknown email addresses

Maybe we'll get more info over in Products​.

Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Custom re-directs for known vs unknown email addresses

That is exactly my concern and the whole idea behind this, thank you sir.

Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Custom re-directs for known vs unknown email addresses

I have moved it to the correct category now, thank you. To answer to your concern, I do not want to force enrich leads in order to make them fit for a download. It is just that we need to put a gate for the people who are receiving our links via forwards and we are losing out on potential contacts, it wouldn't hurt to add people to our DB whom we know that they are already interested in our links and then we can nurture them further.

SanfordWhiteman
Level 10 - Community Moderator

Re: Custom re-directs for known vs unknown email addresses

If you send an email to someone who's never visited your website before and/or does not have an associated session, and they forward the email to someone else who's never visited your website before and/or does not have an associated, their visits will be indistinguishable.

The original recipient carries no identifying characteristics if they do not have an associated session.

If you wish to rely only on whether the lead has an existing associated session and never automatically associate them via link click, you can turn off mkt_tok on your links (the automatic association query parameter).

If you wish to associate people automatically but hope they click Not You? if their personal information isn't present, you can use Known Lead HTML (If Known Lead, Show Custom HTML in Form Editor).

Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Custom re-directs for known vs unknown email addresses

I will be sending it out to known contacts only, like I mentioned earlier I want to capture the information of the people who receive the link via "forwards". To break it down in simpler words I will be sending it out to contacts in my DB but few of the recipients might forward it to their personal list. I want to put some kind of validation check on my link such that the original recipients (who are already in my DB) can see the content of the link (PDF/LP) directly whereas the one who have received it later via "forwards" (not in my DB) have to fill a form and then they can access the content of the link. This way I will be able to have all the new contacts in my DB which have filled that particular form.

SanfordWhiteman
Level 10 - Community Moderator

Re: Custom re-directs for known vs unknown email addresses

I will be sending it out to known contacts only, like I mentioned earlier I want to capture the information of the people who receive the link via "forwards".

Please read my first sentence again.

The link does not change when someone forwards the email. It's been personalized for the original recipient. It stays personalized for that recipient, wherever it goes.

This is Email Tracking 101: links aren't "stamped" by the original recipient's inbox. When someone forwards it (including forwarding it to themselves!) the link is the same.  Thus the server can't tell who clicked it, in the absence of other correlating information. Such correlation can only come from an existing associated web session; with no web session, every click on that link is the same as any other.

Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Custom re-directs for known vs unknown email addresses

I get it now, thank you. This is why I wanted to know if there is workaround by including some 3rd party smart URL service or having the option of custom re-directs and that is why I posted the question here. I wanted to know if other seasoned marketers have faced such a challenge and if they have any workaround.