Clicks Link in Email with Token Workarounds

[bbhenry-arria]

Hi everyone,

My company is sending people links to download content after they submit a form. I have a token used for that link, {{my.DownloadLink}}. The link is properly inserted into the email as https://{{my.DownloadLink}}, the content has the mtk_tok tracking present when I click on the link in the email, and that click gets registered in the person's activity log/fires off Clicks Link programs that are not link-specific.

What's driving me crazy is that I can't seem to trigger a smart campaign using Clicks Link in Email targeting this token...

• Link is https://{{my.DownloadLink}} doesn't work
• Link contains https://{{my.DownloadLink}} doesn't work
• Link contains {{my.DownloadLink}} doesn't work

Basically the only way I could get this smart campaign to fire is to use Link contains and then a part of the actual URL, like go.domain.com/rs/123-ABC-456/images/.

Is there a better way to do this, preferably in a "set-and-forget" way so all my team has to do is change the token value when cloning the campaign and everything will work as expected?

Thanks!

[Darshil_Shah1]

Well, Marketo doesn't resolve the tokens when used in the smart list (filters/triggers). The trigger doesn't capture and resolve the name of the token, it only captures the actual resolved text, i.e. the actual link. There's a idea regarding the ability to use the tokens in the SL here - if you wanna vote. 🙂

There's a probable workaround to use a # value appended to the end of the URL token and use the # value in the trigger with contains operator.

e.g., https://{{my.linkToSomepage}}#linkToSomepage

[SanfordWhiteman]

Adding the hash is definitely not recommended as that will break Munchkin tracking because the URL is incorrectly parsed. (Click tracking doesn't use Munchkin so it will still work, leading you to think the whole process worked.)

[bbhenry-arria]

Thanks for the info, wish I knew you couldn't use tokens in smart lists before wasting my day trying to get it to work! Gave my vote for the idea. I see it's been "under review" since August last year... here's hoping

[SanfordWhiteman · Accepted solution]

Set the id attribute on your links, then use the Link ID constraint:

This is a shockingly underused feature! All email CTAs should have a (unique) id.

[Darshil_Shah1]

Ohh gotcha! good to know, thank you @SanfordWhiteman !

[bbhenry-arria]

Thanks Sanford, this definitely makes the most sense - at least until Marketo lets us use tokens in smart lists!