Importing an Image Link as a Data Point for Email Use

[mnealer]

We’re in the process of importing MLS data into Marketo for contacts already in our database—things like listing addresses, statuses (just sold/just listed), pricing, etc. One of the data points we could include is a direct image link (hosted externally) for each property.

Has anyone used image URLs as a custom field in Marketo before?
If so:

• Can we reference that image URL in an email and have it display properly?

• Are there any best practices for dealing with variable image sizes or load times?

• Any gotchas we should be aware of when using this approach in dynamic content?

Would love to hear if this is a viable path and how others have handled it.

Thanks!

[Michael_Florin · Accepted solution]

I would assume that this is a very common practise. And we did it both with image URLs in Custom Fields as well as in Custom Object fields. And it doesn't matter if that image is hosted in Marketo or outside of it.

Ideally the image that is referenced by that link is already in the format you want to display it. But even it is not you can still re-size it with HTML/CSS.

The only gotcha I can remember is that the path to the image should better not contain something like "ad" or so, otherwise browsers might categorize it in a way that prevents displaying it if add blockers are in play.