Forum Discussion
Link Alias Issues in Content Blocks
We have 16 different franchise brands that we market for individually. I have content blocks set up for all of our branded footers (multiple design options for each brand) that I use on every email. We were really excited to have content blocks so we could easily update standard footer elements and links without having to update it on all of our live emails for every brand (there are hundreds), but it seems that building all these content blocks will still not be useful for making universal updates bc if I change a link, I still have to go into every single email of every live canvas and campaign to retype the link alias name - a very tedious an unnecessary process that essentially defeats the purpose of the content blocks in the first place.
Does anyone know if it's possible to specify the link alias name in the HTML of my content blocks (or even just in my HTML email templates) for the UI to recognize the alias name automatically so I won't have to manually name the same link in every email? I know that aliases are unique to each email, but this is not useful at all when we have standard links that are on all emails that I'm naming the same thing every time anyways. There has to be a better option than "all or nothing" on the link alias enablement bc we want to use it. But the benefits of the content blocks are being cancelled out by the link aliases. We put a lot of work into rebuilding all these templates/blocks for all of our brands when we migrated to Braze, so I really want to find a way to make it work.
Given that you manage 16 franchise brands with hundreds of live emails, here’s the recommended solutions:
Solution 1:
For major updates, consider using the Braze API for efficiency.
Embedding Link Aliases Directly in HTML
You can specify a link alias in your HTML content blocks by using the data-link-alias attribute. This way, Braze automatically recognizes and applies the alias when the email is sent. For example: <a href="https://www.example.com" data-link-alias="footer-link">Visit Our Website</a>Solution 2:
Use Dynamic Content in Content Blocks
Leverage Braze's Liquid syntax to dynamically generate aliases based on context (e.g., brand name, email type). Here's an example:<a href="https://www.example.com/{{brand_name}}" data-link-alias="footer-link-{{brand_name}}">Visit {{brand_name}}</a>
How It Works:
Replace {{brand_name}} with a variable that corresponds to the brand or franchise name.
This dynamically adjusts both the link URL and alias based on the specific campaign or brand.
Solution 3:
Use Global Variables or Custom Attributes to manage common links and aliases centrally:
Steps:
Create global variables in Braze to store standard links and alias names.
Reference these variables within your content blocks or email templates using Liquid syntax.
Example:
Define footer_link_alias as a global variable:
<a href="{{footer_link}}" data-link-alias="{{footer_link_alias}}">Learn More</a>I'm trying to add the data-link-alias directly into the HTML since that would allow me to make the updates without needing to involve IT. I made a duplicate copy of one of our footer content blocks and added the alias name to a few of the links, but it's not working with any of the adjustments I've made.
Here are the steps I've tried:
- Added data-link-alias="name" into the anchor tag in different locations like directly after the href"", before it, after the style elements, etc.
- I tried to remove the {{campaignn${name}}} liquid variable from the URL and manually type the utm_campaign parameter, just in case that was causing issues.
- When I noticed the alias was not being recognized in the campaign content editor under the link management tab, I launched the email as live campaign to myself. I sent it to my work email and personal email and clicked all the links I put the alias name on, but when I went back to view the campaign analytics, the link aliases still did not show up with data-link-alias element that I put in the HTML, even after deploying the campaign. It's still defaulting to the cblink_# name.
- I even tried changing the link ID number that Braze assigns to the link alias name (I knew that likely wouldn't work because they aren't the same thing, but I was really trying to exhaust all my options before giving up haha).
- I created two more duplicates of the campaign and changed various settings, like turning off in-line CSS, checking and unchecking the link aliases checkbox that enables the link tracking under link management on the campaign.
- No luck on any of my attempts to troubleshoot.
Could you take a look and let me know if you see any culprits? Here's a screenshot of the campaign analytics click tracking report showing that none of the aliases showed up as named in the HTML - and a screenshot of a couple of the links in the HTML of the content block. Only one of the links is highlighted in my screenshot, but both links in the HTML section shown have a data-link-alias appended.
Thank you! This is exactly what I was looking for! I'll test out some of the options and report back.
