Oct 4, 2011
Linking to Conditional Content from a MailChimp Campaign
We’ve had some customers ask if they can send a MailChimp campaign with only part of the content in the actual email, and include a link to the full version of the campaign, hosted by MailChimp. The answer is yes: You can do that with merge tags.
Though we typically recommend hosting your own conditional content offsite and linking to that from your MailChimp campaign, there’s a way to create a “Read more” link that directs subscribers to your campaign archive page with the full content.
Essentially, what you can do is hide the full article and article descriptions between conditional tags, in order to only display certain information in certain areas within your newsletter. So if the whole article is a little too long to send in a newsletter (or you’d just prefer to send a teaser), you can add a conditional tag to include a summary in the email, and another conditional tag to include the entire article on your archive page. It’s easier than it sounds. Place your tags like this:
Article Title
Here’s the part of your email you want in the campaign itself.
*| IFNOT:ARCHIVE_PAGE |*
READ MORE
*| END:IF |*
*| IF:ARCHIVE_PAGE |* Super Cool Article!
Here’s the full text of your article. It can be a little longer than usual, because your subscribers already clicked to read more.
*| END:IF |*
Now that you’ve got the structure for the content set up, you need to direct your subscribers to the archive page so they can actually read all that content you worked so hard to prepare. To create a “Read more” link that goes directly to your archive page, copy and paste this code into the source of your email:
<a href=”*| ARCHIVE |*”>READ MORE</a>
Make sure to include the “Read more” link in ONLY the summary of the article and between the conditional merge tags. Otherwise, you’d have a link to your archive page on your archive page, which would make your readers’ brains hurt.
Here’s an example of what those tags look like in a MailChimp template:
And here’s what a teaser campaign looks like:
Finally, here’s what the campaign archive looks like when readers click the “Read more” link.
It’s that simple. Keep in mind that this trick works best for single-story campaigns. If you want to get fancy with your “Read more” links, then we recommend hosting your conditional content elsewhere.
Posted By
Will Castillo
Great Tip Kate! Thank you!
I’d like to add one detail: It works great when you have only one article in your newsletter, but If you have several summaries on it, using just the ARCHIVE merge tag will be frustrating, because all links will take the visitor to the beginning of archive page. So if you want to take the reader straight to the article being linked, you’ll need to add an anchor to your content AND the Read More link.
10.06.2011
Neil
Will,
Do you have a simple example? I’ve been trying to add anchors but with little success.
Many thanks, Neil
10.12.2011
Lauren
I am looking for the same advice! Thanks!
10.12.2011
Will Castillo
Hey,
This is a slightly modified version of Kate’s example. I hope it helps!
<a name=”TopicTitle1″></a> First Title
Article excerpt for article 1.
*|IFNOT:ARCHIVE_PAGE|*
<a href=”*|ARCHIVE|*#TopicTitle1″>Read More</a>
*|END:IF|* *|IF:ARCHIVE_PAGE|*
Your Super Cool Long Article 1!
*|END:IF|*
…
<a name=”TopicTitle2″></a> Second Title
Article excerpt for article 2.
*|IFNOT:ARCHIVE_PAGE|*
<a href=”*|ARCHIVE|*#TopicTitle2″>Read More</a>
*|END:IF|* *|IF:ARCHIVE_PAGE|*
Your Super Cool Long Article 1!
*|END:IF|*
10.12.2011
Tom
Is it possible to close the read more after reading it so revert back to the initial view
11.24.2011
natalie
I’m looking for the same possibility as Tom – to be able to have also “read less” button
Also, for a multiple “read more” buttons – is it possible to expand only one article not all at once? And to do it inside the e-mail without opening a new window?
03.16.2013
John
Hi Natalie, The “Read More” really works as a link to the full text of the email that’s available in the Email Archive. To add things in like “read less” or to drop down the additional text within the email client would require javascript which just won’t work well in an email. You can read a little more detail about it here: http://eepurl.com/gYZl That being said, you could include the shortened versions of your articles at the top of your email so your readers can see glimpses of everything you’re sending at once and then include the full text of the articles at the bottom of your email. You’ll just need to setup anchor links so that when they click “read more” it’ll skip them to the right location in the email. If you need a little extra help our support chimps can also give a helping hand at: http://mailchimp.com/chat
03.18.2013
Racsh
Hi Guys! this is a great tip for mailchimp. Any idea if it is possible to readmore an article that will link only that article?not the whole newsletter but only to that article?
03.26.2013
John
The “read more” links as described in this article are built using conditional merge tags to limit the content if it’s not the campaign archive or show all the content if it is the campaign archive so it’s a bit of an all or nothing scenario in this case. That being said, you could include snippets of your article within the campaign and then create a “read more” link that actually links directly to the full article on your website. You could also include snippets at the top of the email and turn your “read more” links into anchor links that link to the full version further down within the email. In the second option you’d want to be careful not to add too many large articles so they don’t get clipped by email programs, but it is an option. The following short article and video will describe how to setup a link to an external website if you’re not familiar with that: http://eepurl.com/hcx6 and creating an anchor link within the email is very similar except you’ll click on the “anchor” icon and the anchor point will be within your email.
04.01.2013