Connecting links to actions
Now you create the mailing you wish to use to find out about recipients’ interests. It is structured just like any other mailing, but contains two trackable links connected to the two actions created in the preceding chapter. Further information on creating a mailing is contained in chapter "Mailings - Sending out newsletters". This example assumes that the relevant mailing already exists. All you need to do is to insert two trackable links and connect them to actions.
1. | Create a new mailing as described in chapter "Mailings - Sending out newsletters". Click on the Content tab and open the email text entry dialog by clicking on the Text version link. Insert two links into the text, writing out the address as follows: http://www.my-company.com/cars and http://www.my-company.com/travel. Please note the URLs must, in fact exist, otherwise recipients will receive an error message when clicking on the link in their browser. Moreover, the text version should include a unique description to precede the link; link addresses are converted into a sequence of numbers when sending. Click on Save to store your entries. |
Fig. 8.39: The email text features two trackable links.
2. | Open the Trackable links tab by clicking on it. The system displays a list with the two links inserted in the previous step. Click on the first link to edit it; in our example it refers to cars. |
3. | In the contents area, the system now displays the entry dialog for the selected trackable link. As a Description, you could enter text like, for instance, Track interest in cars. However, it is the Action drop-down list which is crucial. Clicking on the arrow displays all defined actions. Select the action Interest_Cars +1. Save the new settings by clicking on the Save button. |
Fig. 8.40: The drop-down list is used to connect a link to an action.
4. | For the second trackable link, proceed as described in steps 2 and 3. The action to select this time is Interest_Travel +1. This concludes the connecting of trackable links to actions. Further information on links within email text can be found in chapter "Using trackable links". |
Now you can test and send out your mailing as described in chapter "Testing and sending a mailing". As soon as a recipient clicks on either of the links in the email, the OpenEMM starts the action connected to the link and causes the browser to call up the original URL. Without further effort on your side, recipients can now modify their own profile in the database. The following chapter explains how to utilize the data collected in this way.
Fig. 8.41: This is what the text mailing looks like in a recipient’s email client.