Following up links in e-mails

What can be tracked from e-mails?

By monitoring e-mail marketing campaigns, it is possible to analyze how many clients and/or potential clients react to a certain e-mail message by clicking on links within the e-mail. In addition to seeing how many click on the provided links, you will naturally also see how these readers navigated once they arrived to the website and how long their visit lasted.

It is not possible to determine how many opened the e-mail, merely how many of the recipients clicked on the e-mail links.

Tracking file attachments or file links in e-mails

The procedure for tracking file attachments (pdf, doc, etc.) is different than that of tracking regular pages. File attachments and their downloads cannot be tracked directly, but it can be done by placing the file behind a link instead of in an attachment. Read more about tracking online files »

Requirements for tracking e-mail links

1. The Snoobi tag has been installed on the link's target page

Make sure that the landing page of the e-mail (i.e. where the link takes the visitor) has the Snoobi tag installed on it. If not, then the Snoobi tag has to be installed to the landing page first.

If it is not possible to install Snoobi onto the page (which can be the case if the link leads to some other company's website, for example), execute the link tracking by using Snoobi's URL redirection page. Read instructions for using the redirect page »

2. Ad identifier is added to the e-mail link's address

Each e-mail or newsletter that you send should use links that contain an additional identifier, which enables tracking. The identifier doesn't affect the website's appearance, the visitor will arrive to the landing page as usual. The identifier is typically either ?ad=xxx or &ad=xxx

Examples of target addresses with suitable identifiers

http://www.companyname.com/index.php?lang=1&ad=newsletter_january_2011
http://www.companyname.com?ad=campaign_kids
http://www.companyname.com?ad=2011_email_invitation

Replace the example address with the link's target address.

Instead of the bolded example identifier, make up a descriptve identifier that Snoobi can pick up on. Bear in mind that the identifier is visible also to the e-mail recipients, so choose something neutral.

Should the identifier begin with ?ad or &ad?

Look at the link's target address. If it contains one or more question marks, then use &ad. Otherwise use ?ad.
Examples:
Correct: http://www.companyname.com/index.php?language=english&ad=email
Incorrect: http://www.companyname.com/index.php?language=english?ad=email

Supported characters

Avoid using special characters (ä, ö, é, ü), spaces and foreign alphabets. Different e-mail programs can interpret special characters in different ways (some encode them), which makes it much harder to identify the correct shape for the identifier in later steps.

Image 1. Adding a tracked link into an HTML e-mail

Tracking several different e-mail links

If the e-mail contains many links to different pages, use a different identifier for each link. Unique identifiers enable you to analyze the links' results individually (as two separate ads.

When you want to track links that are a part of the same e-mail or the same campaign, a good practice is to form the identifier from one shared part and one unique part. Examples:

http://www.company.com/?ad=fall_brochure_download
http://www.company.com/?ad=fall_brochure_buy_now

3. Testing the new target address

Check that the link still works after you've added the identifier to its address! The test can be done simply by opening the new target address (with identifier) in your browser window. The tracking will work if the identifier remains visible on the browser's address bar after the page has finished loading!

If the link / target page stops working when you try to load it with the identifier, removing or adding a slash / sign from the identifier may sometimes help. The slash is often needed if the target page has an address that ends in a folder, e.g. http://company.com/folder/?ad=xxx. No slash should be present if the link leads to a file.

4. Replacing the links original address with the new address

After testing, take the identifier and add it to all e-mail links that you wish to track. Use a different identifier for each link if you want to be able to differentiate the results between the links.

When composing the e-mail, you can choose whether to embed the link as HTML (see image 1) or send it as a text only format.

5. Editing Snoobi's advertisement settings

Image 2. Adding the identifier into Snoobi's Advertisement settings

Identifier

Copy and paste the identifier that you have chosen, but also add percentage marks in front of (and sometimes also after) it, e.g. %ad=xxx% .

The % signs around the identifier are way of telling Snoobi to pick up on the identifier no matter where in the address it is located. The ad results will not show up in Snoobi if you leave out the first percent mark from the identifier settings. The latter percent mark can be left out if the identifier is the very last thing in the address.

Please note that the identifiers %ad=email% and %ad=email_2% would cause a merger of two ads because of the latter percent mark. To avoid this (assuming the ad identifier is at the very end of the address), leave out the latter percent mark.

Ad name

Choose a descriptive and easily identifiable name, making it clear which e-mail or newsletter this ad concerns. The name will only been seen by those who have access to your Snoobi report. For example:
Newsletter: Hints for choosing the best camera, Dec 2010
Fall campaign 2010: For new members

It is useful for the name to contain information about the e-mails purpose, target group, related campaign, date or subject.

Are all links within the e-mail tracked?

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 e-mail signature or logo usually contains a link to a website, which normally does not contain any identifiers. A visitor might choose to click these links instead of the ones that are tracked, which makes it impossible to determine the visitor's origin. This can be averted by adding an identifier such as ?ad=signature to the link in the signature or logo as well.