Not Every GURL Needs PURLs
December 4, 2017   Dave Lewis

We all just want to be sure everyone knows what we offer. First, a three-sentence education on URLs: OK – got it?  We love PURLs at SnailWorks because when a prospect goes to an offer using a PURL we can customize the landing page for them, prepopulate forms on the landing page, and – best of all – we can know that they were there – we can track them.  By definition, though, PURLs need to be typed by your prospect.  Ewww!  That’s work.   Also, most PURLs have more than a name to allow for duplicate names, so now my PURL may become DaveLewis107.MailMeetsTheWeb.com.   We try to counteract some of these negatives by short, easy to type and remember domain names, and other shortening techniques.   But still, our prospects are more and sophisticated and they may just skip the whole PURL thing and just type in the GURL part of their PURL.  Of course, a response is better than not a response, so we’ll take it, but they won’t get to see all of the magic personalization we had cooked up just for them – and we won’t know they were there so that can follow up. What’s a marketer to do? Well, don’t abandon your landing page – it’s still the best way to direct a prospect directly to your offer.  We have found a couple of ways to improve engagement with a PURL.  Our favorite is the offer code or entry code.   In this case, don’t even give your prospect a PURL – just give them a fun-to-type GURL – let’s say www.Your-Profits.com.  But, because your offer is very special, it’s only fair that they enter a code to take advantage of the offer when they get to your landing page.  You can include this code on the mail piece: “Go to www.Your-Profits.com, and enter your custom entry code XP122 to get your free whatever!”  (By the way, if your offer is not worth typing in a code to get it, maybe you need to reexamine your offer.) The GURL will actually take them to a “nursing” page designed for little more than them typing in that code.   Once the code is in, we’ll know exactly who they are and we can serve up a full PURL experience – and track them.  Using alpha numeric codes allow for very short, easy-to-type codes. Coordinating other marketing channels is another way to get the benefits of PURLs without all the typing.  If you can coordinate an email with your direct mail, you can include all of that wonderful PURL data right in that “click here” button. When you work with SnailWorks on your next campaign, we’ll work with you to choose the optimum domain and PURL structure to get the best response.  Your GURL may not need a PURL to be its best…

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