FAQ: PURLs

---

What is a PURL?

A Personalized URL or “PURL” is a unique web address that is personalized to an individual customer. Typically formatted like johnsmith.mywebsite.com, or www.mywebsite.com/johnsmith, PURLs create a highly targeted, “one-to-one” URL experience for each individual customer and prospect.

PURLs are commonly used as a destination from direct mail, email or other direct marketing campaigns, leading end-users to a highly personalized landing page/experience. PURL technology allows you to customize landing pages by mapping variable placeholders to your customer data set to the content displayed on the landing page itself.

PURLs and personalized landing pages are known for generating much higher conversion rates, often as much as 400% over non-personalized landing pages.

What is the difference between PURLs and GURLs?

PURLs are Personalized URLs that lead to landing pages that are personalized to the customer. PURLs are formatted to include the customers or prospect’s name, e.g. johnsmith.myoffer.com. PURL technology is one-to-one, meaning one Personalized URL for each customer or “target”.

GURLs or “Generalized URLs” are URLs that lead to landing pages that are not personalized and are one-to-many, meaning a single landing page for all visitors, e.g. www.mywebsite.com. GURLs are not personalized to your customer data, but like a PURL, they can feature forms and other elements to allow you to gather information from visitors.

What can I personalize on a PURL?

Both the PURL and personalized landing page it leads to can be fully personalized.

The Personalized URL can be personalized both to the campaign and each individual customer or prospect. Using a personal lending example, the URL selected might be www.myautoloan.com. Then, this URL is converted to a PURL in the platform and customer names are appended making the final PURL customized to become johnsmith.myautoloan.com. PURls can be further customized by format, e.g. johnsmith.myautoloan.com, or www.myautoloan.com/johnsmith as well as case (Proper, UPPER, etc.) along with other formatting options available.

The landing page can be customized using any field in your customer or prospect data set. This data is mapped using variable placeholders that display in your content on the landing page. This can be used for basic personalization like greeting the customer or prospect by name but can also extend into much deeper personalization including eligibility, approval amounts and more. Bottom line, if it is a field in your data it can be displayed on your PURL/landing page.

But we don’t stop there, using our platform you can also setup advanced conditional content rules that will swap out images or show/hide entire content blocks depending on what applies to each individual customer.

Can PURLs have multiple pages?

Yes, PURLs/personalized landing pages can have multiple pages. These additional pages can be used in a variety of ways including progressive audience profiling (multi-step forms), additional content pages (microsites) or simply to serve up confirmation pages. Each page can feature a custom design and can be personalized with your customer or prospect data set, or even response data the customer/prospect provided on the initial page (e.g. a form they filled out).

How are PURLs typically used and are there different types?

While there are a myriad of applications and use-cases for PURLs, they are often used in direct marketing campaigns. PURLs are Printed on direct mailers, embedded in email campaigns and included in nurturing programs to name just some of the ways marketers are leveraging PURLs to drive customer engagement.

To give you a clearer idea of the two most common applications of PURLs:

1. Campaign-Based – These are PURLs/Landing Pages that are focused on a specific campaign and are typically a single-use. Once a prospect or customer has visited their personalized landing page and responded/converted, the PURL has done its job and is no longer needed.

Customer Portals – PURLs are also commonly used as ongoing customer destinations or “portals”. Think of signing up for an account at your local bank. The bank may provide you with a PURL that will live with you for the lifetime of your account. You can go to this personalized portal to get updates, enroll in new programs or products and manage your overall customer experience.

For how long are PURLs active?

A typical, campaign-based PURL is active for 90 days or 10 clicks of the PURL. You can extend the life of your PURL (for customer portals or other uses) by changing the status in your account, or by contacting customer support and requesting the expiration date be updated. Note that additional fees may apply.

Do I need to know HTML to create personalized landing pages?

No, you don’t need any special skills to create a PURL. If you can make a Power Point or Google slide deck, you can make a PURL and personalized landing page.

Using our WYSIWYG Landing Page Designer, you can design, create, build and launch your own PURLs without knowing any HTML or ever having designed a landing page before. Beyond that, we offer hundreds of pre-built templates for you to choose from. Once you’ve selected a template, you can customize it using the WYSIWYG editor and have a landing page ready to go in minutes for your upcoming campaign.

I already have a domain; can I use that for my PURLs?

Yes, you can use an existing domain for your PURLs. However, we don’t recommend using URLs that are already in use for your website or other corporate destinations. This is for two main reasons, 1) to create a more targeted URL focused on the campaign itself (e.g. johnsmith.myautoloan.com instead of johnsmith.carltonmazda.com) and, 2) so there is no need for unnecessary approvals from corporate IT or management that can slow down setup. 

How do I setup my domain for use with PURLs?

Configuring your existing domain is simple and easy. All you need to do is to point the DNS to our servers and you’ll be good to go. For more specific instructions, go to Technical Docs and open our DNS Configuration Guide.

Can I setup a secure login or code for my PURL?

Yes, PURLs can be configured to require visitors to enter a code, email address or some type of user verification information in order to access their PURL. This data would be included in your mailing file and automatically appended to the file you’ll receive back for your printing and mailing.

Are PURLs expensive to use?

No, PURLs are not expensive to use. In fact, the increase in response/conversion PURLs provide make the one of the highest ROI generators (e.g. lowest cost per conversion) in any marketing campaign.

Like any media, the level of complexity plays a role in the overall cost, but a few things to consider are:

1. PURL costs are very minimal in comparison to direct mail or other “hard” media costs.
2. PURLs are transaction-based, so you purchase incrementally and pay as you go.
3. PURLs generate extremely high ROI when properly implemented in marketing campaigns
4. Personalized Landing pages can be cloned and easily reused for multiple campaigns (amortizing already low costs)

Considering their low cost (pennies) we recommend you try using PURLs in your next campaign and see how they boost your response and engagement rates so you can see for yourself.