How can I use anchors in an email?

Anonymous Blackbaud User

Use of anchors in email is not recommended, as many email MUA's don't support it, and it has no translation into plain text.

Instead, we would recommend to clients that they set up the equivalent content to the email in PageBuilder, and put links at the top of the email that go to named anchor points on that page (or even different pages). That way, not only is it widely compatible, but they get click through tracking on the links.

In order to provide links to named anchors in an email message follow these simple steps for each link to be created.

After creating the anchor itself, ex: <a name="bottom" > at the location in the message that you wish your anchor links to be directed:

- with the cursor in the edit pane where you wish to insert the link, click the links drop down menu

- select email messages from the list

- search for your message in the list of messages. if you have select "allow web viewing of messages" at the campaign level you will be able to find your specific message in the list of messages

- click "Options" in the Actions column

- when the Options window pops open, enter the name of the anchor in the "Enter Additional Arguments" field. ex: #bottom

- click "Insert Link"

- a window will pop open requesting the "Text for the Link," this will be the clickable text in the body of the message. enter the text and click ok

+ your new link to the anchor in your message will be inserted

example of the link created by the links dropin:

<a href="http://www.mycharity.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=1001.0#bottom">bottom<a>

Hints:

after creating a link like this you can use the same link over and over replacing the #anchor_name to specify the anchor to which the link directs users. the base link is valid for the entire message

if creating these links with the wysiwyg turned off you may find that your links are inserted at the bottom of the message by default. simply select the link and cut/ paste it into the appropriate location

links to anchors created in this manner will be rendered as trackable links in the message that is sent. when a user clicks on the link to an anchor in the message a record of the action will be recorded for the user

clicking on these links will direct users to your website to view the message as a webpage allowing you to deliver further content to them through the page wrapper and other links there