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Display Message (HTML)

Updated
The Display Message feature allows a contact to click a link to see the full HTML formatted message.  The images are automatically enabled, the display is tracked, and all subsequent clicks are tracked as click-throughs to the campaign.

To include a Display Message Link

  1. Go to CONTENT > VIEW TEMPLATES to display the Templates page.
  2. Click "Create new template", or select a template to edit and display the Create / Edit Templates page.
  3. If a new template, enter a Name and Subject.
  4. Enter your message content into the Plain Text and/or the HTML tabs.
  5. Click ADD TAGS. The Dynamic Content Tags form will display within the page.
  6. From the Display Message listbox in Step 1, select either 'Display Message(HTML Version)' or 'Display Message(Plain Version)' depending on the format of the content you are adding to the template. The tag in Step 2 will change to reflect the selected option.
  7. Click HIGHLIGHT TAG in Step 2.
  8. Either right click on the highlighted text and select COPY from the menu, or press the CTRL+c keys on the keyboard to copy the link.
  9. In the template content, click to select the format tab into which you wish to include the link.
  10. Paste the link in the desired location. Either right click in the Body field and select PASTE from the menu, or press the CTRL+v keys on the keyboard.
  11. In your HTML content, you may also wish to include the following at the top of your Template:

<!-- If you are seeing this message, it is because your email client cannot properly display HTML. Click on the following link to display the message in a browser window: %%DISPLAY_MSG%% -->

  1. Click CREATE or SAVE to save the template.

When the Template is deployed, the Display Message tag or link will change to a full URL that will allow the contact to view your HTML email in a browser. 

This feature does not work with the List Test feature because campaigns are only created when lists are run. To experiment with its use, create a new list and associate it with one of your existing templates. Then, use the batch subscribe feature to sign yourself up and then run the new list.

Manually Adding Display Message Link

In versions prior to 8.0, you must manually create the Display Message link.  To manually create a link in your template to direct contacts to the HTML version of your content, enter the tag %%DISPLAY_MSG%% or manually type the full URL and format the link as follows:

http:// [siteURL]/dm?id=%%SUBSCRIBER_ID_TAG%%

Where [siteURL] is the URL for your system. 

For example, you may add something like the following at the top of the HTML version of your template:

<a href="http:// [siteURL]/dm?id=%%SUBSCRIBER_ID_TAG%%">View in a browser window</a>

Or the following at the top of a your Plain Text content:

To view an HTML version of this message, click here: http:// [siteURL]/dm?id=%%SUBSCRIBER_ID_TAG%%

When the Template is deployed, the Display Message tag or link will change to a full URL that will allow the contact to view your HTML email in a browser, and the tag %%SUBSCRIBER_ID_TAG%% is automatically replaced with an encoded version of the contact ID and campaign ID - both of which are used to dynamically recreate the page.

Page Title

The Display Message page is displayed in a browser window. The browser title bar displays whatever title is defined in the HTML code within your content. If you notice that the Browser title bar shows an error or unwanted text, you can define a title to display within your template. To do this, include the title you would like to display within the following tag:

<title></title>

For example:

<title>Special Offer from our Partners</title>

Reporting

Display Message tracking events are reported in several locations including the Campaign Details Overview, Report Wizard, Event Wizard and Scheduled Event Wizard, and the Campaign Statistics report in the Standard Report Library.  Each report contains some combination of the following data available for the Display Message tracking events:

 

Name Definition

Display Message Total

Total number of clicks on the Display Message link

Display Message Rate

The number of Total clicks divided by the Total Messages Delivered (Messages Sent - Hard Bounces) for this campaign

Display Message Unique

The number of unique contacts that clicked the Display Message link

Display Message Unique Rate

The number of Unique clicks divided by the Total Messages Delivered (Messages Sent - Hard Bounces) for this campaign

Security

Security ramifications must be considered for a feature like this since a web page is created that could potentially reveal personal information about your contacts. However, these risks are low for the following reasons:

  • The ID tag created is encrypted and non-sequential, so it is difficult to create a program that sits in a loop and attempts to display content.
  • You control the amount of information displayed through the design of your template content.
 

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