Create and use PURLs

A PURL is a personalized URL, such as jane.yourcompanyname.com, that you can provide to contacts to access a personalized version of your page. This can be an effective marketing tactic as people appreciate the individualized attention and are more likely to remember the URL.

PURLs essentially send each visitor to the same page, but they use contact information to personalize text for each visitor (e.g., Jane might see “Welcome, Jane!” and John would see “Welcome, John!”).

Table of contents

Don’t force HTTPS — so you can use PURLs
Add PURLs to assets
• Add PURLS to OntraMail messages
• Add PURLS to raw HTML emails
Create PURLs in form settings
• Create “Page two”
• Create “Page one”
Add PURLs to WordPress

Don’t force HTTPS — so you can use PURLs

PURLs pass your contacts’ information through the URL. PURLs only work on HTTP pages and not HTTPS. This type of personalization is best for thank you pages that don’t contain sensitive information.

Here’s how you publish your pages so you can use PURLs:

• From your page editor, click .
• Add your domain and check the “Don’t force HTTPS on this page (so that I can use PURLs)”.



• Click .

Add PURLs to assets

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PURLs are automatically generated by Ontraport; you simply add them via a merge field when you’re creating the email or WordPress post. You can use PURLs for any page that has been published through Ontraport.

Add PURLs to OntraMail messages

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• Select an existing message that you’d like to add a PURL to, or go to Contacts → Messages →  → New Email → Start From Scratch.
• Click + Add Block → Text and select a text block.
• Click into the text block and hover over the area where you would like to add your PURL. Click Edit.
• Click  and  scroll down to the PURLs section. You’ll see a list of the Ontraport Pages you’ve created.
• Select the page you’d like to send visitors to. This will automatically generate PURLs for each contact sent the message, and it will merge the PURLs onto the email. PURLs populate as raw links with your contact’s name in the URL; however, if you only want the contact’s name be displayed when the page is visited, you can use a hyperlink or a button for your PURL:
  1. For a hyperlink: Add the text you want to display and highlight it.
     • Click  → Ontraport Page → Select Page, and choose your page’s name.
     • Click Insert Link.
  2. For a button: Click   → Button → select your button design.
     • Hover over the button and click Edit.
     • Click Enter Link URL → Ontraport Page → Select Page, and choose your page’s name.
     • Click Insert Link.
• Click  on your block settings.
• Complete your message and click.

Add PURLs to raw HTML emails

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• Select an existing message that you’d like to add a PURL to, or go to Contacts → Messages →  → Raw HTML Email Editor to create a new one.
• Click Insert Merge Field and scroll down to the PURLs section. You’ll see a list of the Ontraport Pages you’ve created.
  1. If you want to change the text of your link, start by adding the merge field for your PURL to the message twice. There will be two merge fields next to each other.
  2. Click  .
  3. Replace the spaces within your merge fields with “%20.” (e.g., [PURL_My%20Page] )
  4. Replace the brackets with angled brackets, < →.
  5. Add a forward slash (/) after the opening angle bracket (<) of the second PURL. Your merge field should appear like this: <PURL_My%20Page → </PURL_My%20Page →.
  6. Enter what you want your link to say between the two PURLs.
  7. Click . You will see that only the text for your link appears in the message body.
• Complete your message and click .

Create PURLs in form settings

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A common use case for PURLs is to connect a lead capture page to a personalized thank you page.

When you link two pages in the “Send contacts here” section of a form’s settings, you can pass contact information from the form to the corresponding page.

You can only add published pages in your form settings, so we recommend working in reverse order. Create and publish your second page first, then create your first page. In the steps below, we will refer to these pages as “Page one” and “Page two.”

Create “Page two”

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We’ll start by creating “Page two” first:

• Create “Page Two” first by clicking Pages → .
• Click Start From Scratch or select a template.
• Name your page, edit the design of your page.
• Click .
1. Add your desired URL then click.

Create “Page one”

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Now that your second page is published, you can select it from your form settings on “Page one.”

• Create “Page Two” first by clicking Pages → .
• Click Start From Scratch or select a template.
• Name your page, edit the design of your page.
• Click → Lead Capture Forms → click on the form you want to use.
1. Or create your own form.
• Hover over your form block and click → Form Settings.
• In the “Send contacts here” section select your second page from the “Use this landing page” dropdown.



• Click → .
• Click .
1. Add your desired URL then click .

Add PURLs to WordPress Pages or Posts

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You can also add PURLs to your Ontraport-hosted pages on WordPress.

• Integrate your WordPress site with Ontraport if you haven’t yet.
• Log in to the admin seat of your WordPress site.
• Click Pages or Posts → Add New.
• Click  → .
• Click the Merge Fields dropdown, and scroll down to the PURLs section.
  
• Click on the name of your page to add the PURL.
  1. To hyperlink your PURL, follow the steps above, then click   → Edit as HTML.
  2. Wrap the PURL merge field with the HTML href attribute as shown below:
     1. <a href=”[pilotpress_field name=’PURL_My Page’]”>Click Here</a>.
  3. Click   → Edit visually.
• Click .