Tailor-made web sites deliver the right content

Coordinating online and offline marketing efforts is a high priority for marketers today.  Many are turning to personalized URLs (PURLs) to increase response rates and bring digital advantages to traditional marketing channels such as direct mail and event marketing.

A PURL is an individualized Web page that often incorporates the name of the recipient within the URL (such as www.JohnSmith.offer.com) and is pre-loaded with that consumer’s personal data, including his address and phone number, purchase behavior and previous interactions with the product or service.  When a targeted consumer receives a call to action from a direct mail piece or other marketing channel, he is directed to his own personal landing page, which displays messages, offers and incentives tailored to that consumer’s data and history.  He can then interact with that information and respond to those offers online.

The result is a personalized program that creates a one-to-one dialogue with consumers while engaging them with more relevant content than a one-size-fits-all corporate web site.  PURLs also offer real-time information and activity tracking as the recipient navigates the site, which allows marketers to continually refine the content or offer to that specific individual.

One of the driving factors behind the popularity of PURLs is the fact that many consumers prefer to respond to direct marketing offers online.

“Research from the DMA [Direct Marketing Association] says that one out of three direct mail recipients preferred to respond online, in contrast to picking up the phone or walking into a retail location,”  says Dave Rosendahl, executive vice president of client services and operations for Irvine, Calif.-based marketing services provider MindFire Inc.  “It’s the marriage of the offline and online realm.  It doesn’t magically increase response rates, but when done intelligently, the results can be phenomenal because you’re tapping into the offline-to-online movement of the consumer.”

PURLs also create a personalized dialogue with the consumer that’s highly effective for marketers.  For example, a car company can reach out to existing customers by using a page that greets them by name, provides relevant information about the car they currently drive (including images of the exact model and color), and presents offers and incentives related to that car that draws them through the rest of the site.

That engagement helps drive response rates and overall campaign effectiveness, says Mark Wollney, vice president of digital services for Chicago-based Aspen Marketing Services.

“Of those coming from a direct mail piece in campaigns where we already know the customer, we’ve seen continuation rates as high as over 75% of users who come to the landing page and then continue on to the rest of the site,” he says.  “The number of pages seen is incrementally higher than other campaigns we’ve done without the PURL.”

Perhaps the biggest strategic advantage of these web pages is their built-in ability to measure and track consumer response and behavior in real time, Rosendahl says.  Marketers can see who is visiting their PURLs, how they are interacting with the landing page, what other pages they visit, which elements of each page they explore and how long they spend on each element.

“You can get some pretty amazing results in terms of the consumer information that’s collected,” he says.  “As the respondent interacts with the landing page, you capture additional information about him or her.  The ROI for that campaign therefore is very measurable, given that ability to track in real time.”

The ability to measure and quantify a campaign utilizing PURLs also allows marketers to refine and improve it faster than more traditional methods.

“Now marketers can use real-time information to make changes to the landing page and other areas of the site to more effectively engage users and increase conversion rates,” Rosendahl says.  “PURLs allow the marketer to quickly tweak text images, offers and layouts to optimize the user’s experience and boost interaction with the site.”

One concern surrounding PURLs is the fear some consumers may feel at having their names and personal information stored on the web, no matter how protected they may be.  But both Rosendahl and Wollney agree there are simple ways to allay those fears.

“You’re always going to have some people who feel that way,” Rosendahl says.  “But in certain situations where the demographic is likely to have that concern, the PURL can require a pass code when it pulls up the landing page, so the user has to enter a code to continue on with the rest of the experience.  That allays many of those concerns.”

Wollney says his firm is moving away from including the recipient’s name in the URL at all.  “As opposed to having the name as part of that URL, which some consider to be intrusive to the consumer, our campaigns have started to migrate more toward using a unique code to drive users to the web site; and then once they enter that code, it takes them to their personalized page loaded with their information.  We’ve seen very high rates of people entering their code, and then continuing on through the rest of the site this way,” he says.

Insiders don’t expect privacy concerns to slow down the use of PURLs because they are such an effective way for marketers to capture consumer information.

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