Vertical Response – How can a subscriber update his or her profile?

Vertical Response only includes an ‘unsubscribe’ link in their emails by default. The ‘forward to a friend’ link is not enabled by default, but can be added. I have a number of custom profile fields that subscribers can fill out on the Optin form, and I want to include a link in the email where the recipient can update this information. It turned out that this “update profile” link is a missing feature. But there is a work-around. Here is how this can be done.

First it is important to note that the (popup) Optin form accepts querystring parameters in the URL. You can insert a link in the email that has the email address “merged” as a parameter, as in:

http://oi.vresp.com/?fid=12345abcde&email_address={EMAIL_ADDRESS}

The fid parameter is the form id and yours will be different. Take the front portion of the URL with this parameter from the embed link that VR generates for the Optin form (e.g. with the “Button Only” option), then add the remainder from above, i.e. &email_address={EMAIL_ADDRESS}.

When the recipient clicks this link, your Optin form will pop up (assuming that you created one and the form id is valid). VR has replaced the merge field with the recipient’s email address when the email was sent. However, because this email address is already known by the system, the Optin form is not displayed. Instead, the subscriber is served the following message:

Hi, you’ve already signed up with this e-mail address.
Your Current Mail Status: Opt-In
If you’d like to view or edit your current profile, please click here, and we will email you a link to your personal profile page.
We email this link to you to ensure that only you have access to your profile page

From here it takes one more click to receive the email, and in the email there is another link with a hash value that takes the user to a version of the Optin form that is populated with the current information.

So now I place a link at the bottom of my email that says “Update your profile”or something along those lines. It takes the user 3 clicks and opening an email until that can be accomplished.