Many Liveclicker elements allow to include a clickthrough URL. Here are some options to make the most of this feature.
Dynamic URL
A great way to personalize your email content is to include Custom fields that you have set up in your account and create dynamic clickthrough URLs.
When doing so, the ESP tag will get automatically replaced by the actual ESP value before the user is sent to the destination URL. This is especially useful to track your clickthrough URLs.
Example:
Let's say you have your Subscriber ID Custom field configured with the ESP tag "%%uid%%"
You can then use the ESP tag to define a LiveImage, LiveTimer, etc. with a clickthrough URL by adding it to the URL extension, like so:
http://www.example.com/landing.asp?user=%%uid%%
This means that the tag %%uid%% will take the same value as in the embed code.
For Example: If the tag was populated with the value user123, upon clicking on the element, the URL will take the same value and look like the following: http://www.example.com/landing.asp?user=user123
Note:
Take into account that when you populate the Custom field to personalize a URL for an element, the URL should be encoded.
When you personalize an element's clickthrough URL or the source URL for a LiveScrape, information is being passed from your ESP to our platform, through an ESP tag. That ESP tag will be later used to compose a URL.
On the Internet, some characters are not valid in URLs and need to be encoded.
For example: https://www.mysite.com would be okay to use.
But https://www.misite.com?test=https://misite2.com would not be okay to use since everything that is in the query string (parameters) should be encoded.
Instead of adding these tags manually to your clickthrough URLs, you can request through your account manager or Liveclicker support to have a set of fields/tags applied to every clickthrough automatically. Once set up, Liveclicker will do this for every embed code generated.
Important note: ESP personalization is not possible for fallback clickthrough URLs.
Using Mobile Deeplinks in Clickthrough URLs
Liveclicker allows you to configure the destination of a clickthrough to be a mobile deeplink into an app. Mobile deeplinks are URLs that the mobile device will interpret as an instruction to launch the app if it is installed and go to a specific location within the app. If it is not installed yet, in general the link takes you to a location where the app can be downloaded and installed.
However, mobile deeplinks can be OS-dependent, in which case you should use Liveclicker targeting rules to configure the various locations.
Note: Before you get started, please note the following:
- Not all deeplink URL formats are supported by default in the Liveclicker user interface. This is done to protect users from entering invalid clickthrough URLs. If your deeplink is not being accepted in the clickthrough URL input box, please reach out to your account manager or the support team. Your account can be then be enabled to accept more URL formats.
- Liveclicker does offer the ability to detect device and operating system to deliver different link versions on Apple and Gmail clickthroughs. Unlike Apple and Gmail content (this is not easy because of Apple and Gmail's limitations), Apple and Gmail clickthroughs can be targeted with the entire Liveclicker targeting suite. With this feature, you can target content and links separately for Apple and Gmail. You can read more about this feature here.
1. If we take the LiveImage wizard for example, you would first configure all of your alternate images with different mobile deeplink clickthrough URLs.
2. Next, in the targeting rules, create device dependent rules for each type of deeplink.
Example:
To configure a deep link into the eBay app to view item 12345, you would want to set three rules:
- If the user's OS is iOS, configure the clickthrough destination to be eBay://launch?itm=12345
- If the user's OS is Android, configure the clickthrough destination to be eBay://item/view?id=12345
- By default, configure the clickthrough to be the usual web address of the item: http://www.ebay.com/itm//12345
Important note: Deeplinking is not possible for fallback clickthrough URLs.
Separate content and clickthrough targeting for Gmail and Apple
As Apple and Gmail block certain information, it is often difficult to use targeting rules based on device, location, mail client and so on. Showing specific content in Gmail or Apple, based on this type of targeting rule, is almost impossible and the default will always be displayed.
However, Liveclicker has introduced a functionality, specific for Gmail and Apple, that allow to separate the targeting rules applied to the content from the targeting rules for the clickthrough. As a result, at the opening of the message the recipients will see the default version, however, they will nevertheless be able to see a device specific version when clicking through.
For more details on this, please check the Targeting topic.
