Tokenized Links in Email Not Being Tracked

Issue


Links placed into emails by a token are not being tracked and do not show successful click activity in the lead/person record.

 

 


Solution

When Marketo sends emails, you can think of building the email in 2 steps:

  1. Marketo searches the email code for "http" or "https" and wraps the tracking code around the URL
  2. Marketo inserts the values of {{tokens}} into the email.

 

If the {{token}} value is http://www.domain.com, that would be expected to not track because of the above 2 steps. After the {{token}} value is inserted, Marketo does not go back to wrap tracking code around http/https. The {{token}} doesn't look like a URL when the system applies the tracking code because the tokens don't pull the values in until the next step after.

The solution to tracking tokens is to place http:// or https:// on the outside of the token, like such:

http://{{token}}

That way, when Marketo builds the email, in step #1, the system recognizes the http and knows it's a URL. Then the tracking is wrapped around the http and the {{token}} as well. Then in step #2, the {{token}} value is inserted into an already-wrapped link.

Keep in mind is that if the {{token}} value contains http, but http is on the outside of the {{token}}, the link will break. Let's say the URL you want to insert is http://www.domain.com. You have to move the http:// out in front of the {{token}}, but you don't want to also have it inside the {{token}} as well or your link ends up being http://http://www.domain.com.

To get around this, you'll need to remember to take the http:// out of the {{token}} value.

{{http://www.domain.com}}

would instead be

http://{{www.domain.com}}