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A
Anonymous
March 7, 2014
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track anchor links in email

  • March 7, 2014
  • 2 replies
  • 2250 views
Hello,

We have a table of contents in one of our newsletters. It's a set of thumbnails that link to articles at the bottom of the email (then link to the acutal content online). I want to be able to track the anchor activity. Is there any way in Marketo to rack the anchor link performance?
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Hey Phil,

It's been a while since I've tested them (and you may already know this), but for starters, anchor links have not historically worked reliably across all email clients.  That's not a reason to avoid them altogether, but you definitely have to "proceed with caution" when using anchor links in email.  They aren't a substitute for making your emails shorter and more targeted so that it's easier to prioritize the right content to the right recipient.

That said, I don't think it's possible to track clicks to email anchor links.  I haven't tested this, but I would guess that Marketo doesn't even encode these links for tracking, since they aren't referencing an http:// or https:// URL in the href tag.  Anchor tags, by design, don't call a server in order to deliver content (like a landing page) - they describe behavior that takes place client-side within the browser or email client.

In a browser environment (e.g. on a landing page), it's possible to "tell" your server that someone clicked on an anchor link by calling a javascript event when the anchor link is clicked.  That's not an option in email, however.

Hope this helps!

-patrick

2 replies

Veronica_Holme4
Veronica_Holme4
Level 9
March 8, 2014
Hi Phil - just kind of thinking out loud here - have you tried building a smart list in the program where the trigger is 'Clicks Link in Email" and you choose the email, add a link constraint and specify the anchor links you wish to track? I have not done this personally, however theoretically there should not be any difference between tracking these links as opposed to other types of links that are clicked in emails. All links that are not specified as "do not track" should have the Marketo tracking.
A
Anonymous
Accepted solution
March 8, 2014
Hey Phil,

It's been a while since I've tested them (and you may already know this), but for starters, anchor links have not historically worked reliably across all email clients.  That's not a reason to avoid them altogether, but you definitely have to "proceed with caution" when using anchor links in email.  They aren't a substitute for making your emails shorter and more targeted so that it's easier to prioritize the right content to the right recipient.

That said, I don't think it's possible to track clicks to email anchor links.  I haven't tested this, but I would guess that Marketo doesn't even encode these links for tracking, since they aren't referencing an http:// or https:// URL in the href tag.  Anchor tags, by design, don't call a server in order to deliver content (like a landing page) - they describe behavior that takes place client-side within the browser or email client.

In a browser environment (e.g. on a landing page), it's possible to "tell" your server that someone clicked on an anchor link by calling a javascript event when the anchor link is clicked.  That's not an option in email, however.

Hope this helps!

-patrick
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