What is a PURL?
PURL is an acronym for Personal, or Personalized, URL. A Personalized URL – Technically “Personalized Uniform Resource Locator” is a unique web address generated for a specific target of a marketing campaign. The unique web address leads to a landing page or mini site for the target consumer. Direct mail and email marketers find value in PURLs because the uniqueness of the web address (https://bobjones.domain.com) enables individual, precise tracking of lead response. PURLs also generate higher conversion rates than your standard landing page because the PURL page content is personalized and more targeted.
How do PURLs work?
Marketers can generate PURLs by uploading targeted lists and mapping them into specialized online software. Common sources of lists include list brokers, data providers and CRM (or DRM in the case of automotive dealer marketing) systems. Next, the list is merged with a specified domain to form a PURL for each individual on the list. In order for PURLs to render properly, some technical domain specifications must be modified by your webmaster. A more simple and straightforward path is to use a vanity URL as the base of your PURL. To make it simple, PURL software that incorporates vanity URL search and purchase features can take care of your technical settings automatically. The PURL generation process will usually use 2 columns (most commonly First Name/Last Name) from the targeted list and will merge them together to create a unique URL. De-duplication and PURL export logic are typically standard features of the software as well.
When using PrimeNet to generate your PURLs for your campaigns, you won’t need to worry about any of this ‘extra’ software, as we have a team of data experts who are happy to handle it for you.
For more information on PURL generation, please feel free to give us a call.
