Following up a link attached to an e-mail.
By monitoring e-mail marketing campaigns, it is possible to analyze how many clients and/or potential clients reacted to a certain e-mail message. The response is measured by how many readers clicked themselves to the link provided in the e-mail and after that, how these readers navigated once they arrived to the website. Here are the instructions for tracking e-mails.
1. Make sure that the landing page of the e-mail (i.e. where the link takes the visitor) has the Snoobi tag. If not, then the Snoobi tag has to be installed to the landing page first.
2. An ad identifier must be added into the URL-address of every e-mail that you wish to be tracked. For example: http://www.companyname.com?ad=desired_name
Companyname.com is replaced with the URL address of the link's landing page. In place of “desired_name”, you can freely choose a name by which the visitor is identified to have arrived through an e-mail. However, we don't recommend the use of Scands (å, ä, ö) or other special characters (é, ü, spaces etc.).
Examples of descriptive ad indentifiers:
http://www.companyname.com?ad=email01012007
http://www.companyname.com?ad=campaign2007
http://www.companyname.com?ad=newproductsfall
Note that if there are one or more question marks in the URL address of the ad, then the & -sign should be placed before the identification tag instead of a question mark!
Example:
Correct: http://www.companyname.com/index.php?language=english&ad=email
Incorrect: http://www.companyname.com/index.php?language=english?ad=email
Image 1. Adding a tracked link into an HTML e-mail
Copy the URL address that includes the Ad Identifier into every e-mail included in the advertising campaign, which should be tracked. When creating the HTML message, the URL address can be embedded into the link as in Image 6, or it may be written into the e-mail as plain text (www.companyname.com?ad=desired_name) without any editing. The extra identification tag does not affect the looks or the operation of the landing page, since the visitor will be directed to the page normally.
If the link brakes due to the addition of the Ad Identifier, make sure that there is not a / -sign in front of the question mark (?) or et (&) -signs.
3. Login to your Snoobi account via www.snoobi.com. Choose Settings and from there, Ad Tracking.
Image 2. Adding an Ad Identifier into Snoobi's settings
Ad Identifier: Type in the ad identifier chosen in step 2 and add percentage marks around it (for example, %ad=desired_name% or %ad=e_campaign_Feb%). The visitor will be able to see the identifier.
Ad Name: Choose a descriptive and asily identifiable name that the e-mail will go by in the report. For example, Direct marketing 01012007 or Reseller campaign March 07. It is useful for the name to contain information about the purpose/receivers, date or the year, especially if the purpose is to be able to compare this campaign with potential future campaigns. The name will only been seen by those who have access to your Snoobi report.
When the ad name starts to appear in the Snoobi repor, then we know that said visits are stemming from their respective marketing campaigns. If you wish to observe different, multiple e-mail campaigns at the same time, it is possible to do so by giving them different identification tags. Giving campaigns different identifiers and names allows the campaigns to remain separate ads.
Links without Ad Identifiers cannot be tracked and these visitors will appear as having arrived to the site by typing the URL address. For example, the signature of an e-mail usually contains a link to a website, which normally does not contain an Ad Identifier. Visitor might choose to click this link instead of the one that does contain the Ad Identifier, which makes it impossible to determine from where this visitor has come into the site. This can be averted by adding an Ad Identifier such as ?ad=signature to the link in the signature as well.