Unique URL Sent to Each User's eMail

Marketing
1

(I hope this is the correct group to post within…)

I am looking for a solution to automate an eMail to each registered user on our website with a generated unique URL. This URL is an invitation to an event and links back to our website.

Ultimately, we are looking for these requirements as well but for now just the eMail and URL generator is the goal:

  • Link is intended to only work once;
  • Used to log in the user;
  • Ability to view which users have or haven’t used their link;
  • Ability to switch the link back on after being disabled from first click.

Thanks for reading!

2

When you say that it is only for that one event. I mean, if I receive one of those e-mails and I click the link but I choose to do nothing about it just yet, I guess that I will have the chance to visit the page and sign up unless the event has passed.

It doesn’t make sense if it is not like that.

[quote=“nvrau, post:1, topic:100788”]
Link is intended to only work once;
[/quote] Well, I would program this functionality into the destination web page itself, me thinks.

[quote=“nvrau, post:1, topic:100788”]Used to log in the user;[/quote] A bit dangerous but that’s up to you. Again, this functionality should be built into your web page.

Any mass mailer will be able to tell you who opened your e-mail, clicked the link and /or shared with their FB friends or tweet it…

[quote=“nvrau, post:1, topic:100788”]
Ability to switch the link back on after being disabled from first click.
[/quote]Not sure what you mean with this.

Basically, you can have a list of people you want to mail (name, last name, e-mail address of course! and the personalized link. You would import that into your mailing program (MailChimp, Campaign Monitor, etc) and build your template.
As I said, any mass mailer software has the ability of telling you who opened the e-mail, which addresses are bounced and who shared the e-mail with their friends in FB or Twitter.
Also if the link was clicked (although you can easliy count that yourself by programming it into the web page)
The other features you want, that have to go into the web page itself and it is your own programming that will do the job

3

Hi molona, thanks for the feedback.

I realise this is a bit non-conventional. Our customer list is less than one hundred and we know them in the physical world, not just online. So the tool won’t send out eMails in-mass to unknown “customers”.

Regardless, the solution I am looking for will automate the creation of the unique URLs and associate them with the eMail accounts they are sent to. I am in need of this prior to using an online eMail service to manage the remainder of this process.

Any suggestion in that space?

4

that’s something you can do in your own script. You can use the customer name and use a hash function. The result will be unique

5

So maybe you record the customer’s name, hashed, as a field in your database.

Then when they get emailed, they get their code added to the url in the link, as such:

http://example.com/test.php?id=(your user’s unique hashed code)

When they get to test.php, you check the $_GET for the code, and run it against the database. If the code exists, pull the user’s info, do what you need with it, and if it’s single use, of course, remove the code from the user’s entry in the database.

That’s one of probably several ways to start, anyway.

1 Like
6

Hi jeffreylees,

Thanks for that! It sounds like a potential solution.

However, I’m not a programmer and thus I am looking for a ready to go solution/service/tool I can use to perform this action.

Cheers!

7

Using an email marketing tool like Mailchimp will accomplish a lot of this for you (tracking who’s clicked on links, how many times, etc) - but I know of no “out of the box” solution to do the things you want, most especially logging in a user. That would be entirely dependent on the platform they’re being logged in to.

1 Like
8

I’ll give you a star for this. I suspect I haven’t been clear enough :slight_smile: :star:

@nvrau I don’t know of any tool that will allow you to do exactly what you want. If you’re using a CMS such as WordPress, you may find events plugins that may get you closer but your case is very particular and, if this is a one time only thing, I wouldn’t even install one of those.

You’d be better off with a custom script. If you can’t do it yourself, you may find someone that will do it for you.

Try flippa.com or oDesk or elancer. It shouldn’t be expensive. Do be clear in your description and explanation to get a realistic quote.