In composer there are several types of links that you can include in your email.
URL
If your link type is a URL you'll need to include the URL destination. Optionally, you can set the target to open in the same or a new tab, determine if the link is tracked, and if you want to turn on or off conversion tracking.
Click-to-view
By default, a click-to-view in browser link is included in the preheader information of the email. You can disable this default and create a custom link.
Use a default click-to-view in browser link
Disable the default for individual users
- As an admin, go to Settings > User management.
- Click the user's name.
- Expand the Mailing and landing page settings section.
- Under preferences, clear the Default click to view link at top of mailing option and save.
Disable the link on individual emails
- Open an email.
- On the Email Settings tab, clear the Show 'Click to View in Browser' link at the top of this mailing option and save.
- Go to Settings > User Profile.
- Under mailing & landing page preferences, clear the Default Click to View Link at Top of Mailing option and save.
Create a custom click-to-view in browser link
- Disable the default Add click-to-view link in email details.
- Add a link bar, button, or insert a link.
- Set up a link, choosing the Link type Click to view.
- You can include a link that shows content in HTML, text, or on another web page.
Pro tip: We don't recommend that a click-to-view link be used with date sensitive relational table data.
Enter the email address and the subject line for the email type link. You can add personalization to the email and subject lines. When the contact receives the email and clicks the email link, the pre-designated subject line is included in the reply.
Note: When a contact clicks an email link, it is not tracked. Campaign does not track email links because the links do not hit the servers.
Unsubscribe
Unsubscribe or opt-out links allow your contacts to unsubscribe from future emails. When contacts unsubscribe from emails, they are opted out of the associated list or added to the master suppression list, depending on your organization's settings.
If the system is in maintenance mode, the opt-out is captured and processed when the system comes out of maintenance mode. Typically, this processing occurs within 24 - 48 hours in compliance with requirements of applicable laws, rules, and regulations, including the requirements of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003.
It is a best practice to always include an unsubscribe link in your email. By default, an unsubscribe link is not included in your email, you must add one. However, an organization administrator may require an unsubscribe link for all emails by selecting the Opt Out Link Required to Send setting in Organization settings.
- Opt-out to page: To use an Opt-out (To page) link, you must create a set of web forms, one of which is an opt-out form. Associate the forms with the same database as the email. When contacts click this type of link, they are taken to the opt-out web form and must submit that form for the opt-out to be registered.
- One click: Creates a link to unsubscribe. When contacts click submit, they are opted out and see a confirmation screen.
- Custom: If you handle opt-outs with a form on your own website, you can add the website URL and use an custom link to redirect a contact to your website. When contacts click this link in your email, they are directed to a standard opt-out confirmation form. When they enter their email address, they no longer receive any of your emails. You must ensure that the opt-out is registered in the database, which you can do manually by using a list/database import or XML API call.
- Email: When contacts click a email unsubscribe link, a new email message is opened by their default email clients. The email message is pre-populated with "Unsubscribe" as the subject and an email-specific and and contact-specific email address in the reply to field. Reply handling processes this type of opt-outs regardless of whether you use the reply handling feature.
Telephone links
Telephone links allow your contacts to automatically dial a phone number linked within an email. When the contact clicks on the link, their device will call the linked number. The telephone number for the link should be formatted [+] [country code] [telephone number including area code].
Warning: Telephone links do not work consistently across all devices and browsers. Some devices do not have phone call capabilities. Some email services, such as Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook, do not support telephone links.
SMS links
SMS links allow your contact to click on a link within an email to their text message app. The link will automatically prefill the receiver number with the linked number and include a preset keyword within the sender box. The SMS number for the link should be formatted [+] [country code] [SMS number including area code].
Warning: SMS links do not work consistently across all devices and browsers. Some devices do not have SMS capabilities. Some email services, such as Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook, do not support SMS links.
WhatsApp links
WhatsApp links allow your contact to click on a link within an email to a WhatsApp number. The link will automatically prefill the receiver number with the linked number and include a preset keyword within the sender box of WhatsApp. The WhatsApp number for the link must include a country code.
Social
To allow your contacts to visit you on social media add a Social link to an image or text.
Anchor links
An anchor is a link in your email or landing page that allows recipients to jump to another location in the email.
You can add anchors to the block, but not individual text lines. If you want to add anchors to individual text lines, multiple text blocks are recommended.
File download
Use the File download link if you provide a central location for delivering files through emails. This option allows you to update files in real time.
- Insert a PDF or other file type into emails that can be opened or downloaded directly from the content library when a contact clicks a link in the email.
- Update the same file after the email was sent. Contacts who click the link after the initial email open the most recent content library file.
- Replace the file with a new file after the email was sent. Contacts who click the link after the initial email open the new content library file.
Add a link
To add a link to your email in the drag-and-drop composer:
- Highlight the text or image in your email that you want linked.
- Add the Insert a link icon. The Link properties dialog box appears.
- Enter a unique name for the link, not longer than 256 characters. The link name is used for tracking.
- Select the link type that you want to insert.
- Choose tracked and conversion.
- Click insert.
Note: To add an opt-out to page link, you must first create and publish the opt-out form landing page or web form.
- Enter the protocol for the link. This protocol must match the protocol that is used on your server (except mailto). If you're not sure about the protocol, use HTTP.
- Use HTTP for all links unless there is a specific reason not to.
- Use Secure HTTP (HTTPS) only when the link destination supports HTTPS and security is required. You must have a security certificate in order to use this option.
- Use FTP to link to files that users can download from an FTP site if HTTP does not work.
Note: Most browsers and websites support the use of HTTP for downloading files. Test the HTTP option first (by using the Preview function when you create the site) before you select FTP.
- Enter the URL for the link, for example: www.ABC-Co.com
- Optionally, add personalization. Personalization does not appear in the message, but it can be used for individual tracking on your website and in reports.
- Select how you want the target window to appear.
- To open the link in a new window, select New Window ( _blank). The original window remains open.
- To open the link in the top frame of the same window, select Topmost Window ( _top).
- To open the link in the same window, select Same Window ( _self). This option is the same as not having a target.
- To open the link in the parent of the frame set when nested inside another frame set, select Parent Window ( _parent).
When you create a link in an email, the system automatically adds an underscore and a number (for example 'bikes_1') in the link section. It also increments that number if that link is used multiple times. However, when you import the same links as HTML, the system does not add the underscore and a number after the name.
Edit existing links
In composer, go to the link manager to edit the link. Edit the link name, type, URL, target, and tracking.
If you are using the HTML editor you can edit links in the editor or in the link manager.
Change the name of a link
All links are tracked by their name. If you don't name your link when creating it, a name will be assigned.
It's important to understand that any name that you provide applies to all links with that same URL. To separately track two links that go to the same page, change the name that is associated with the individual links.
Personalize link names
You can personalize a link name by using %%LINK_NAME%%. This link personalization code requires that you turn on site analytics.
For example:
%%RECIPIENT_ID%% %%MAILING_ID%% %%MAILING_NAME%%
To turn on site analytics for one of the providers, go to Settings > Administration > Organization Settings > Integration.
To apply link name personalization on your URL, do one of the following steps.
- In your site analytics settings, set it up as Append string for links.
- When you edit the link, select Insert Personalization.
- Manually append %%LINK_NAME%% in your link URL.
Track your links
To track links to pages within use the clickstream link. This link type tracks the link activity and appends the mailingID, recipientID, jobID, and reportID. To see the conversion tracking data in the single email report, use clickstream links on a single link.
In Campaign, there are two ways to track links.
A tracked link is used to track and report on users who follow the link to a product page on an external site. The tracking ends here.
A clickstream link also tracks and reports on users who follow a link to a product page on an external site or landing page, but a clickstream link then follows the sequence of clicks that are performed by the users while they browse a website or an landing page.
While a tracked link shows only as a click in reporting, a clickstream shows two places in your reporting. For the clickstream type, you see both clicks and clickstream. The clicks are the actions that are performed when a recipient clicks a clickstream link in the email. The clickstream reporting includes the sequence of clicks the recipient took after they opened the destination website or landing page.
For clickstream links to work and report properly, you must have tracking enabled and the proper code inserted into the HTML of each page that you want to track. The reporting information displays under the Advanced Tracking metric in the single mailing report.
Link character limitations
A URL cannot exceed 2048 characters while a link name cannot exceed 256 characters. When tracked links and conversion links are used, additional items are added automatically. If you are using the integration function for site analytics, which will append a string of attributes for all tracked hyperlinks, it’s going to be a different based upon what you are adding.
- An untracked link cannot exceed 2048 characters.
- A tracked link cannot exceed 2048 characters.
- A tracked link with site analytics enabled will depend on the site analytics and values used. This can be a range of values that can be unique for each mailing, for instance, if using Google Analytics, 50 characters will be added just for the utm parameters, then additional characters will be added based on the values of those parameters.
- A conversion link will add 94 characters to the URL as parameters, so 1954 characters remain.
- A conversion link with site analytics enabled will depend on the site analytics values and also the addition of 94 characters appended to the URL.
- A DLL link will also be determined on if any site analytics are used as well as the length of the link name and type of link (regular, personalized, or conversion clickstream). At least 103 characters will need to be used but this number can rise based upon the values in the link.
Troubleshooting
No opt-out link provided
When the link to an opt-out page is a regular tracked link, your email will not fulfill the opt-out link criteria. As a result, you might see one of these errors:
- Mailing does not contain an opt-out option
- No opt-out link provided in HTML body
- No opt-out link provided in text body
To resolve, you need to include an opt-out type link, such as:
- Opt out (to page)
- Opt out (one click)
- Opt out (custom)
- Opt out (mail)
If you want the system to not display the warning, set up a URL as your Custom opt-out link in the org settings:
- Go to Settings > Administration > Organization settings.
- Click to expand Opt out/Suppression settings and click Edit.
- Click Add. Provide a URL and a description.
When you send your email, you can declare which custom opt-out link to send with the email (if you have an 'Opt out (custom)' type link). You declare which link to use on the Delivery options page of the send experience. You can follow the same steps for your email's text version.
Opt-out form isn't available to select
What if the opt-out form that is associated with the contact source for your email doesn't show as an option or the link type web form doesn't show when you create an opt-out link?
Verify the following items:
- The opt-out form is not associated with a different contact source. Verify that the contact source in your landing pages site is the same as the contact source in the settings.
- The opt-out web form is published. Only published forms appear as an option.
- The link type is set to Opt-Out (To Page). The Web Form link type pulls only opt-out web forms.
Custom opt-out link goes to error page
This error occurs when you add a custom opt-out link under Settings > Administration > Organization Settings > Opt Out/Suppression Settings, but don't include http:// or https:// as part of the URL. Campaign doesn't force you to add the protocol like it does when you create a URL in an email directly. In this case, the system doesn't know whether to use https://,http:// , or ftp://.
If your organization has more than one custom opt-out link set up, its possible a test send might not display the correct opt-out link. The best way to test your custom opt-out link is to do a live send to a query of the parent database that contains the addresses that you want to receive the test email.
You are not charged for live sends to a list of 25 or fewer contacts, so you can include up to 25 internal users on your live test query.
- Create a live test query that contains only your email address and others within your organization to whom you would typically send test emails.
- When you are ready to test your email, choose the live test query that you created as the contact source.
During the send process, your query receives a true "live" version of your email for testing so that you can see exactly what your contacts see. If still don't see the correct opt-out link, the issue is because of one of the following reasons:
- Your opt-out is not set up in your opt-out settings under organization settings. If this is the case, add your opt-out to the settings and ensure that you have a valid URL and unique name.
- You didn't select the proper opt-out link at send time. To avoid this mistake, verify that the proper link is selected on the Hyperlinks tab. You can also verify on the On to Send screen under delivery options.
If you verified all of this, performed a live test, and the link is still not correct, contact support.
Note: File download is not yet supported in a text block.