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About Using Hyperlinks (HREF) in Treatment Templates

Siebel Marketing can perform a special processing task for HTML-based emails and Web treatments. A URL address entered directly into the body of an HTML template, such as http://www.mycompanyname.com, is not recognized as a hyperlink by the HTML parser. The generic HTML syntax for a hyperlink is:

<a href="target url">highlighted text or picture</a>

The link includes both the URL and the anchor, which is the text or image that appears in the template and links to the URL. Thus, to create a link to the URL http://www.mycompanyname.com and display the web site as the text in the message, you must enter the following:

<a href="http://www.mycompanyname.com">MyCompanyName Web Site</a>

Using this method, Web treatments, response forms, and product items are replaced differently in HTML templates from the way they are replaced in text templates. The following list describes the default method for processing hyperlinks:

• For Web treatments, Web surveys, and product links, Siebel Marketing creates the hyperlink so that the hyperlinked text is the Web treatment name, Web survey name, or product name such as in the following reference:

  <a href="[Web Treatment: 10% discount offer]">10% discount offer</a>

  For more information, see Personalization Items.

• For Response forms, Siebel Marketing creates the hyperlink so that the hyperlinked text is the same as the Response forms description in the Response Types view. The hyperlinked text for a response form can be modified in the Response Types view, where, for each response form, a description field represents the value used for highlighted text.

These default methods for processing hyperlinks in Siebel Marketing can be modified. You can put an asterisk (*) before the tag to tell the application that you are manually defining the hyperlink format in the HTML body. The asterisk tells the application not to create the hyperlink.

For example, instead of inserting [Web Treatment: Great Discount], the marketing manager can enter the following:

<a href="[*Web Treatment: Great Discount]">Whatever I want to highlight be it text or picture</a>

In this case, Siebel Marketing replaces the Web Treatment with the proper URL but does not create the HREF syntax. You can then create a Web treatment link, product item link, and response form link with any text or picture you want.