Custom re-directs for known vs unknown email addresses

[Anonymous]

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

[SanfordWhiteman]

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.)

[Anonymous]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

[SanfordWhiteman]

Nope, there's no workaround. This is a firm technical barrier that's endemic to the way email and web browsers work.

Unless you use expiring links (which could still be forwarded as much as people want, until they expire) or pre-shared passwords (which of course can be forwarded around just as easily) a link will be usable by anyone who has it. This is true of all URLs, everywhere.

The only way you can provide a different experience is by requiring an existing associated web session. That's equivalent (very roughly) to having a page that's only available to logged-in users.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for your inputs Sanford, it is real deal breaker if there is no workaround. I will keep looking up ways to minimize potential loss of contacts.

[SanfordWhiteman]

I will keep looking up ways to minimize potential loss of contacts.

You can encourage people to use the Forward to Friend feature instead of clicking the "Forward" button in their email client.. perhaps incentivize them somehow if someone converts (if your business allows for that). But you can't force people to not forward URLs (and again, it's not a Marketo thing, it's true of all URLs).

[Anonymous]

This is what we have been using so far but it is not very fruitful since people find it easier to directly forward it to a bulk than click and fill-in. Unfortunately, we do not have model where we can incentivize the receiver or the one forwarding it out.

[SanfordWhiteman]

I agree, it's difficult to get people to use F-to-F.

But the mail app's Forward button can't be turned off, and that's just the way it is...

[Anonymous]

I was reading your posts on switch out token, template form topic and it occurred to me that if there is a way by which the form submit button can be tokenized or if the submit button URL could be redirected to the CTA link in the email from which it was sent out?

[SanfordWhiteman]

...or if the submit button URL could be redirected to the CTA link in the email from which it was sent out?

If the CTA link is the URL form, the submit URL (I assume you actually mean the success URL after the form is submitted) can't be exactly the same.

But the success URL could be based on some values in the CTA link, yes.

[Anonymous]

I will try to find my work around it, thank you again for your prompt responses and apologies for my delayed ones.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Sanford,

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

-Greg

[Anonymous]

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

[SanfordWhiteman]

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