Tracking PDF Web Views

[Katherine_Cree1]

I followed this article: https://blog.teknkl.com/stop-using-direct-download-links-unless-you-like-losing-tracking/ and am having some troubles with my smart campaign. Hope you can help! When I use the trigger "visits web page" contains "pdf link," it doesn't track my views. I've tried contains "the Marketo URL," but that doesn't work either. When I do "clicked link in email" contains "pdf link," I populate on the list. Can you tell me what I'm doing wrong?

Testing Link: https://go.snowsoftware.com/Covid-Ungated-Resources-Page---Prospects_PDF-Tracking.html#https://go.sn...

Screenshots attached of smart campaign smart list, flow, and activity log of the test.smart listflowactivity log

[SanfordWhiteman · Accepted solution]

Hi Katherine,

First, nicely done on the rollout of the code! And also good job on URL-encoding, too many people forget that and break their links.

I think the problem is you're trying to match the Visit Web Page on the URL-encoded form, though. Try it with the decoded form (i.e. with spaces instead of %20).

[Katherine_Cree1]

That worked! THANK YOU SO MUCH! 

[Katherine_Cree1]

Hi again,

We seem to be running into an issue with links being 'case-sensitive' and URLs being 'sanitized.' Have you run into this issue? 

For example: 

https://go.snowsoftware.com/Resources-Page-PDF-Tracking.html#https://go.snowsoftware.com/rs/377-PWR-... works but 

https://go.snowsoftware.com/resources-page-pdf-tracking.html#https://go.snowsoftware.com/rs/377-pwr-... doesn't work; it redirects to the home page instead.

[SanfordWhiteman]

Nothing's being sanitized here? Not sure what you mean by that.

URLs are in fact case-sensitive by default.  Except for the hostname (go.snowsoftware.com in your case) and the protocol (https), two URLs that are different in case are different URLs.

What' s misleading that some webservers do a case-insensitive lookup on the path and/or filename instead of rejecting the request. But that doesn't mean that all webservers do, and it's still a different URL.

In your case, the path segment "377-PWR-208" is case-sensitive, and you can't use "377-pwr-208" interchangeably.

[SanfordWhiteman]

I wrote up this post which gives more background: https://blog.teknkl.com/design-studio-urls-are-case-sensitive-like-all-urls/

[Katherine_Cree1]

Hi again! 

Our team is looking to redirect our URL to a now gated URL.

When I try to create the redirect, it doesn't work. Is there an issue with "redirecting a redirect"?

Original Link: https://go.snowsoftware.com/Resources-Page-PDF-Tracking.html#https://go.snowsoftware.com/rs/377-PWR-...

New Link: https://go.snowsoftware.com/Webinar-for-IT-Cost-Management.html

Thanks in advance,

Katherine

[SanfordWhiteman]

You can't build individual redirects for full URLs w/hash, or w/query string for that matter.

Redirects only work on hostname + pathname: example.com/path/to/page.html.

(Note this is a Marketo restriction, not a restriction on redirects in general.)

[Ashley_Bland]

What if your redirect landing page does not work?

[SanfordWhiteman]

Not sure what you mean?