Send different hyperlinks / URLs to each recipient

This article will show you how to add different and personalized links for each recipient of your spreadsheet.

1. Prepare your Google Sheets with the personalized links

In our example, we are sending purchase confirmations that contain the personalized links of the related product information pages.

1.1. List all raw URLs in a column of your Google Sheet

Open a spreadsheet, then add a new column header, for example, Product Link.

List the whole URLs of each product information page under this column, as shown below.

warning Make sure to insert the whole URLs, and not only the variable inside them (like the product ID), otherwise the marker field will not work (see Section 2.1.)

1.2. Personalize the raw URLs by adding the real product name (optional)

Instead of displaying the bare URLs to your recipients in your emails, you can add the product name on each link so that they look cleaner.

Click on a cell from your spreadsheet, then use the =HYPERLINK() function to insert a link (learn more about the HYPERLINK() function).

Here's what all our URLs look like in the end, in our spreadsheet.

If you have many links, you can also add the URLs and the product names under two separate columns, then use =HYPERLINK() function to refer to those cells.

1.3. Personalize the raw URLs by adding product codes (optional)

If you want to send personalized URLs which differ only in the product code part and the rest of the URL is the same, you can list the product codes in a separate column and build the URLs with the HYPERLINK() function.

First, list the codes in a separate column.

Create the URLs in the Raw url column by using the formula =HYPERLINK("<URL>"&D2, in which you replace <URL> with the part of the URL that remains the same and D2 with the cell containing the first code. Keep the double-quotes before and after the <URL> part.

Create the final link in the Product Link column by using the formula =HYPERLINK(<cell>), where <cell> is the first cell from the Raw url column.

2. Send your campaign with personalized links to each recipient

2.1. Add a marker in your Gmail draft for the different links

info Learn more about personalizing your mail merge: 'Personalize your email content with markers'

In your Gmail draft, add the marker {{Product Link}} that matches the same column header from your Google Sheets.

warning

Do not add markers to URLs in the email draft. For example, the following URL https://www.my-e-commerce.com/us/en/products/{{Product Code}} results in sending incorrect URLs (without merging data from the Product Code column).

To dynamically create URLs with product codes or other variables, see 1.3. Personalize the raw URLs by adding product codes (optional).