Use PURLs With Any Landing Page

Scott Brinker is a smart guy who tracks the marketing technology landscape. For the past several years he’s created the above supergraphic that lays out what’s happening in the marketing tech world. Here are the total number of marketing technology companies that Scott’s been following:

• 2011 – 150 Companies
• 2012 – 350 Companies
• 2014 – 1,000 Companies
• 2015 – 2,000 Companies
• 2016 – 3,500 Companies
• 2017 – 5,000 Companies

There’s a lot of good software out there, designed to solve just about every marketing problem imaginable – including software to build landing pages for marketing campaigns. Here are three of the more prominent systems that get mentioned when we speak with clients:

• WordPress – 75 Million, or 25% of all websites worldwide
• HubSpot – 23,000 + marketing software customers
• Unbounce – 14,000 paying landing page customers – over 250,000,000 landing page conversions

Given the success of these landing page building platforms, it’s not surprising that more clients are pushing back on the idea that they need to implement a new platform to get the benefits of personalized URL marketing. They want to use PURLs with any landing page system they have selected, for reasons way bigger than their direct mail tracking needs.

A Fundamental Change – Use PURLs With Any Landing Page

We recently pushed live a new release of Boingnet with a new campaign type that fundamentally changes the way that personalized url landing pages can be used by marketers.

Boingnet Audiences campaigns deliver the tracking and personalization of traditional direct mail PURL campaigns, while using landing pages built and hosted elsewhere.

No need to learn a new landing page system. No need to implement a new marketing automation platform.

You can now use PURLs with any landing page. We call it Boingnet Audiences.

It’s a revolutionary, disruptive new technology. We think it is so important, we’ve applied for a patent.

Have you spent tens of thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours setting up HubSpot? Now you can track your direct mail responders as PURLs drive them into HubSpot with personalized landing pages.

Does your agency develop WordPress or Unbounce landing pages for clients? Now you can overlay personalized content with CRM or 3rd party data, so your direct mail, email and web content is consistent and powerful.

You can even set up Audiences to drive direct mail recipients to e-commerce platforms like Shopify, Magento or WooCommerce. You can attribute sales of merchandise immediately to specific direct mail campaigns. Instant, immediate attribution, as sales occur.

Build A PURL Marketing Campaign In 10 Minutes

There’s a lot of fancy tech under the covers of Boingnet Audiences. While we get excited about nerdy stuff, our first customers think the coolest thing is you can build a cross-channel PURL campaign in less than 10 minutes. Why is this now possible? Because there’s no need to build a new landing page.

How It Works

Audiences is a new type of redirect campaign – a concept we pioneered years ago. Essentially, the PURLs that are generated in Boingnet “bounce”, or redirect the user from their PURL to a different URL in a matter of milliseconds. Boingnet records the fact that the recipient responded to the mail or email, and the URL they are being directed to takes over from there. That’s how you can use Boingnet Audiences PURLs with any landing page.

Audiences takes this simple concept much further.

Watch The April 2017 Release Webinar – See It In Action

Identify Pages To Track

Not only can we tell you a recipient has hit their PURL and been directed to a URL, but we can track their activity across an unlimited number of web pages at the destination system.

We can tell you what pages your direct mail audience goes to. How many pages they visit, how many times they go back. We can track Goal URLs – typically a thank you page or a purchase confirmation. In virtually any landing page system.

The first step is identifying the starting URL and your goal URL. Goal URLs that are reached will be counted as “Conversions” in Audiences Reporting.

Insert The Audiences Tracking Code

How are we able to track activity on all of these pages that live in other systems?

By dropping our industry standard JavaScript Tracking Code onto your pages. Exactly the same way Google Analytics™ does. Think of Audiences as Google Analytics™ for direct mail. Except Audiences keeps track of each campaign target, uniquely. There are no anonymous visits.

The tracking code works with a cookie to keep track of each recipient, uniquely. It reports back to your Audiences campaign everything that the recipient is doing on each page.

Learn More About Audiences Tracking Code

Set Up Personalization

Personalized landing pages convert better than generic landing pages. For obvious reasons.

Boingnet’s Variable Data and Variable Logic have long been considered the most powerful, yet easy to use, personalization tools for direct marketers.  We’ve created a point and click interface to create highly personalized experiences on PURL landing pages and email marketing that has been used in thousands of campaigns over the years.

Now you can use them in any landing page. Audiences has a “Pop Up” Variable Data and Variable Logic Builder, along with a WordPress plugin and a Chrome extension to help you set up personalization in your HubSpot, WordPress, Unbounce or other landing pages.

Here’s a few things you can do:

• Greet your audience by name. Like you experience when you visit a local store with a familiar owner.
• Pre-fill form fields. Research shows that people will fill in empty fields (like email address or phone number) when you give them a head start on the form.
• Personalize Call To Action Buttons.
• Show different text, images, videos or links to different segments of your audience.

Audiences will insert data from your Boingnet list into the pages you’ve personalized. Or, it will use content assets (like forms, images, etc) stored in HubSpot, WordPress, etc in logical expressions. You simply set it up in the page editor of your chosen landing page platform. Here’s a sample WordPress screenshot:

It takes minutes to set up high converting, personalized landing pages. In any modern landing page system.

Learn More About Audiences Personalization

Let The Analysis Begin

After you’ve tested and published your campaign, Audiences will keep track of each member of your direct mail list. Who responded online. What pages they visited. Whether they reached the goal URL and converted. You can slice and dice your campaign activity within the Audiences Dashboard the moment the first visitor responds to their direct mail.

The Game Has Changed

By de-coupling the PURL and the landing page, we’ve opened up a whole range of new possibilities for marketers.

The time and expense of setting up PURL campaigns has been slashed. Millions of existing landing pages can be used in conjunction with direct mail, with better tracking and personalization than any other system.

You can now integrate personal urls into your existing, or even your ideal, marketing stack.

If you do need new landing pages built for your personalized url campaigns, we still offer a best in class solution – Boingnet Personalized Campaigns.

But, if you’ve invested a whole lot of time and money into another platform – we’ve built a tool for you.

We’d love your feedback. Give us your thoughts, ideas and questions. We’d love to hear how you can use PURLs with any landing page in your direct mail campaigns.