Do Visitors Read Link Urls?, Moderator Randy's data says probably not Options

[El Jaybee]

In a reply to a question about dynamic URLs (http://www.highrankings.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=36503) Moderator Randy wrote

" ... never seen any data that would support the idea that the url address has a large or even small bearing on conversions."

It made me think of an argument, er, sorry, a discussion I had with a colleague (we're British, so we don't call them co-workers (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smartass.gif) ) about full URLs versus tinyurl.com URLs.

I thought it was a similar (if a little off-topic, sorry) and I think interesting question.
The question is this.
When sending an email newsetter, we don't include much content itself, not much more than a teaser and links to a web page (for various reason, we think this is a good idea) that holds the newsletter. The URL can end up being one of those ugly multi-line affairs that don't always work when clicked, because of line-breaks. So I suggested we use tinyurl.com to create a "pocket-size" click-friendly link. My colleague says that "people won't trust that tinyurl.com URL because they don't recognise it as part of my website."

What do you think?
I'm happy to accept an answer that says "find a more appropriate forum." (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Randy]

With email clients you're dealing with a bit of a different issue many times El Jaybee. So there are a couple of things to consider.

• Are you going to visually display one url address in the email, but the link will be pointing to another? If so, this is going to cause issues where some will simply not visit the link. The why can get pretty complicated, but at an absolute minimum most halfway decent email clients these day will throw up an ominous warning if the linked text visually to one domain and the actual link goes to another.
• Some Anti-Virus systems will override the above described links completely, on the theory that if the emailer cannot point to the correct url address they're probably up to no good. And rightly so the vast majority of times.
• Regardless of all of the above, if you use a tiny url address it's going to at the very least cost you a bit on the Branding side of the marketing equation. Not so much from people who get your newsletter and simply read it, but from people who get and read your newsletter and may link to your site based off of the url they get in the email.

If it were me and I was dealing with some of those long urls that break in email, I'd set up a little system on my own domain that's similar in many ways to tiny url. Meaning the link in the email would be to my base domain name, a short page name and a single variable. Then have the id contained in the variable be related back to the real page on my web site to perform a bit of redirection magic. The same end effect without any of the potential drawbacks.

[El Jaybee]

No, I am not doing a phishing-like misleading link, just using plain text email interface so nothing hidden, just a text URL.

You imply that my colleague's view is a better one than mine, despite your comments about URLs in the other topic and the similarity of the circumstances.

But I am totally convinced by your points. I'm sure you are right and I was wrong. I'm not technically smart enough to do what you suggest but as this is a very new newsletter, I can simply move the newsletter page to the root of the domain instead of burying it n layers down, so the emailed URL will be simply domain/filename.html and retain the branding that customers will trust.

Thanks for being the "cardboard analyst."

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/notworthy.gif)

[Randy]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/hysterical.gif) I always loved that one. Cardboard Analyst. Use cardboard analysis myself all the time in fact, even if I end up never asking the question anywhere.

For those who don't know, the Cardboard Analyst phenomenon refers to times when you have to use a different part of your brain to figure out to to ask a question, and turning on this analytical side of your brain --or some little something in someone's answer that has to do with nothing to do with the actual problem-- leads your own brain to provide a solution.

Amazing organ the brain. Wonderfully unpredictable in fact.

That said, please don't rely exclusively on anything I do or say El Jaybee. All I'm doing is sharing my personal experiences. And I'll be the first to admit I don't get anything close to heavily involved in email marketing. It's just not my cup of tea. I do know from the technical side of things that the breaking of urls in an email url is a definite issue, as is how different email software processes them. So the shorter the better normally if you want them to be a real link.

[Drizzlebot]

It's just not my cup of tea.

You know what's not my cup of tea? Coffee
















I'll see myself out...

[1dmf]

I guess you could always use redirection of somekind (depedent on web server), especially if your file structure is important.

So the url you display in the email, can be short and sweet, but instead of the displayed (for example : http://www.yourdomain.tld/newsletter.html ) page really exisiting , you 301 redirect it to the physical url.

[torka]

That's what we do with links in our direct mail sales pieces and customer newsletters. Keeps the URL short and on our domain but still allows me to place the pages physically where it makes sense to me within our folder structure for the purposes of file maintenance.

--Torka (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mf_prop.gif)