Inserting a Hyperlink in a Mailer

See Also

Permissions Required

Manage Templates - To create, edit, and delete Templates.

You can insert a Hyperlink into a Mailer to enable the recipient to access a specific Web site.

Example   You are composing a Mailer to be used in a corporate Image Building Campaign. The recipients of the Mailer must be able to access the Web site of WorldWaves from the Mailer. You can insert a hyperlink.

You can perform this operation only in Mailers whose Template Type Property is Email.

You can personalize a hyperlink by inserting Properties in it. This is useful when you want the same hyperlink to open different Web pages for different Targets.

Example   WorldWaves periodically sends Mailers to its shareholders, updating them on the value of the stocks they own. This information is available on the corporate Web site of WorldWaves. The stock details for each shareholder are stored on a separate Web page. Each such Web page has a unique identifier attached to its URL. When composing the Mailer, you can insert the hyperlink http://www.worldwaves.com, and customize the hyperlink by inserting a custom Property named ID at the end. When the Mailer is dispatched, the values are merged. Each Target views the hyperlink containing the merged ID. When a Target clicks the hyperlink in the Mailer, the Web page for that Target is displayed.

To Insert a Hyperlink in a Mailer

1.  In the Mailer window, select the Edit tab in the Message tab.

2.  In the Message area, type the Hyperlink.

- OR -

Type some text and select it. This is the text that the recipient can click to access the Web site.

Example   Type "Campus Management" and select it

3.  From the Insert menu, select Hyperlink. The Insert Hyperlink dialog box is displayed.

4.  In the Enter URL field, type the contents of the URL.

Example   http://www.campusmanagement.com.

5.  Select Use URL for Unsubscribe or Preferences check box, if you want the inserted hyperlink (Web page URL) to be the destination page that is displayed when a recipient clicks the Unsubscribe or Contact Preferences link in a mailer.

When a recipient clicks the link on a mailer (campaign or interaction email), the appropriate page (unsubscribe or preferences) is displayed. Clicking the Unsubscribe button on this page, dissociates that recipient from the sender's email (or alias).

The Contact Preferences page allows the recipient to manage their contact preferences for that specific campaign mailer.

Example   Type the text "Click here if you wish to unsubscribe from this mailing list." in the Message area, and hyperlink the word "here" with the URL http://www.worldwavesuniversity.com/Unsubscribe.html.   Now, select the Use URL as the Unsubscribe option check box. When this template is used to send mailers to targets or contacts, the recipients can click this link (the text "here", in this example) to view the Unsubscribe page, from where they can choose to remove their email address from the sender's mailing list.

6.  Click Insert Properties.

The Insert Properties dialog box is displayed. The List of Properties area lists the base Object and Target Objects, their associated Properties, and Properties of the Objects related to Contact and Target.

7.  Select the required Property, and click Insert.

Example   WorldWaves is launching a sales promotion offer, with different rates of discount being offered to residents of various states. Information relating to the discount schemes available in various states is stored on separate Web pages of the WorldWaves site. You want the residents of each state to view only the information relevant to that state. You can personalize the hyperlink by inserting the <<State>> Property in it. When Targets click the link in the Mailer, the relevant Web page is displayed. For example, when a resident of New York clicks the link, the Web page http://www.worldwaves.com/NewYork is displayed.

8.  Click OK.

The Hyperlink is inserted at the cursor position in the Mailer message.

Things to Remember

•   You cannot insert properties into an hyperlink that is associated with an image.

•   In the Insert Hyperlink dialog box, if you copy and paste a URL, or type a URL, the system automatically inserts a forward slash (/) at the end of the URL (for example, http://www.worldwaves.com/).

To delete this forward slash, go to the Source tab and make the necessary change.

•   When editing or creating a hyperlink, if you specify the URL without all the protocol identifiers (for example, if you specify www.worldwaves.com instead of http://www.worldwaves.com), then the system automatically prefixes such URLs with "about:" (for example, about:www.worldwaves.com).

In such instances the hyperlinked URLS are not tracked.

•   If you have upgraded to the current version of CampusNexus CRM, and your existing campaign mailer templates include hyperlinked URLs with inserted properties, then you must ensure that these inserted properties are manually deleted and re-inserted before using them.