Way back in March, I talked about how you have to be careful when using click tracking or URL wrapping. If you're not careful, I explained, you can end up with your mail being caught in anti-phishing filters.
Valued client Joshua Fruchter posted a really good question in the comments section. He writes: "Hmmm...doesn't this mean that the mechanism used to track clickthroughs may signal "phishing" - that is, all the links in an email are wrapped in a redirect URL (e.g., http://cl.exct.net....), but then you end up at a different destination. Can you maybe reassure me (others) why the URL for clickthrough tracking doesn't present an issue?"
My apologies for the delay in response on this, Josh. It's been on my "follow up blog post" to-do list for ages.
Anyway, your question is a very good one, and you're definitely not the first person to ask about this. Allow me to take a moment to clarify exactly what I think you need to watch out for.
What I'm referring to is links where you write out the website URL in plain text. Like this: Visit my website at www.yahoo.com. THAT, when used with click tracking/URL wrapping, increases that risk that your message will be perceived as a phish.
INSTEAD, link to your website like this instead: Click here to visit my website.
How you word it doesn't matter as much as making sure you don't write out your website domain. That way there won't be any opportunity for conflict - there won't be any issue where there's a domain in the text that doesn't match the domain you're actually linking to.
Valued client Joshua Fruchter posted a really good question in the comments section. He writes: "Hmmm...doesn't this mean that the mechanism used to track clickthroughs may signal "phishing" - that is, all the links in an email are wrapped in a redirect URL (e.g., http://cl.exct.net....), but then you end up at a different destination. Can you maybe reassure me (others) why the URL for clickthrough tracking doesn't present an issue?"
My apologies for the delay in response on this, Josh. It's been on my "follow up blog post" to-do list for ages.
Anyway, your question is a very good one, and you're definitely not the first person to ask about this. Allow me to take a moment to clarify exactly what I think you need to watch out for.
What I'm referring to is links where you write out the website URL in plain text. Like this: Visit my website at www.yahoo.com. THAT, when used with click tracking/URL wrapping, increases that risk that your message will be perceived as a phish.
INSTEAD, link to your website like this instead: Click here to visit my website.
How you word it doesn't matter as much as making sure you don't write out your website domain. That way there won't be any opportunity for conflict - there won't be any issue where there's a domain in the text that doesn't match the domain you're actually linking to.
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