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Starkie

United Kingdom
7 Posts

Posted - Mar 01 2009 :  02:55:31  Show Profile  Reply
I was wondering whether it would be possible to set up a basic link tracking system to track when recipients click on website links in the email. I don't have a copy of MLK running on my pc at the moment to try this but could a personalised field (ie the email address) be added to the end of any embedded links with something like joe@bloggs.com" target="_blank">http://www.xequte.com/index.html&REFID=joe@bloggs.com so that I could then see how many recipients have visited an area of the website and who exactly has visited that area?

Or does someone know of another way of achieving what I'm looking for?

Cheers

Starkie

iammagi

USA
177 Posts

Posted - Mar 01 2009 :  02:55:31  Show Profile  Reply
quote:
Originally posted by xequte

Hi

Another way you could do it is to use the web forms functionality with a custom field in MLK.

You would need to create a cgi-form on your web site to which you can pass an e-mail address, which then sends you a message containing the e-mail address and the date/time of the click, e.g.


Nigel
Xequte Software
nigel@xequte.com
www.xequte.com



Sounds like it would be an easy little script for someone who knows cgi. I plead ignorance on that one. :) If anyone knows where a script exists or can put one together, PLEASE post it here if it's OK with Nigel or send it to my e-mail at poto3891@bellsouth.net

Warmest Regards,

Stephen
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xequte

7504 Posts

Posted - Mar 01 2009 :  02:55:31  Show Profile  Reply
Hi

Another way you could do it is to use the web forms functionality with a custom field in MLK.

You would need to create a cgi-form on your web site to which you can pass an e-mail address, which then sends you a message containing the e-mail address and the date/time of the click, e.g.

Subject: Visit From Newsletter Reader
------------------------------------------------------
Email: some@email.com
ClickDate: 17/6/2005

After sending the message the script would redirect to the relevant link for that click.


You would specify the link in your mail messages using the personalization field option to pass the e-mail address, e.g.

www.xequte.com/cgi-bin/clickredirect.asp?email=%EMAIL%


You would need to set up MLK to process web forms (View>Options, Web Forms) and specify that it should process your custom field, e.g. "ClickDate"

Because the e-mail address would already exist in the database, the ClickDate field would simply be updated with the most recent date/time that the user clicked through to your site.


Phew, that sounded much more complex than it actually is (should take less than twenty minutes to create the script and set it up). If you want to try it and you have any difficulties, please let me know.


It might be a good enhancement to add a ClickDate and ClickCount field to the MLK database and automatic processing of messages containing such data. We are open to feedback on that.

Nigel
Xequte Software
nigel@xequte.com
www.xequte.com
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Starkie

United Kingdom
7 Posts

Posted - Mar 01 2009 :  02:55:31  Show Profile  Reply
quote:
Originally posted by xequte

Hi

You would need to analyze the logs of your web server. There are many programs available to do that.




Nigel
Xequte Software
nigel@xequte.com
www.xequte.com


Yep, that's what I was going to do - that's the simple way. Perhaps someone with more experience of php/SQL etc could develop a way of tie-ing MLK's database to an online database and so more sophisticated tracking could be done? Does anyone know if this would be possible???

------------------------
David Stark
Marketing Manager
Scottish Opera
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xequte

7504 Posts

Posted - Mar 01 2009 :  02:55:31  Show Profile  Reply
Hi

You would need to analyze the logs of your web server. There are many programs available to do that.




Nigel
Xequte Software
nigel@xequte.com
www.xequte.com
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iammagi

USA
177 Posts

Posted - Mar 01 2009 :  02:55:31  Show Profile  Reply
quote:
Originally posted by xequte

Sure, you can do this with personalization fields.

e.g. specify the link as:

http://www.xequte.com/index.html&REFID=%EMAIL%

You can also use the Member ID field (unique to each user in a database):

e.g. http://www.xequte.com/index.html&REFID=%Field:MemberID%


You can find a button on the sending toolbar to insert the various personalization fields.



Nigel
Xequte Software
nigel@xequte.com
www.xequte.com



When someone clicks on that link where would the stats on the click throughs be found?

Warmest Regards,

Stephen
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xequte

7504 Posts

Posted - Mar 01 2009 :  02:55:31  Show Profile  Reply
Sure, you can do this with personalization fields.

e.g. specify the link as:

http://www.xequte.com/index.html&REFID=%EMAIL%

You can also use the Member ID field (unique to each user in a database):

e.g. http://www.xequte.com/index.html&REFID=%Field:MemberID%


You can find a button on the sending toolbar to insert the various personalization fields.



Nigel
Xequte Software
nigel@xequte.com
www.xequte.com
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