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It's a process breakdown, either manual or automated. Marketing teams tend to use a tagging worksheet like this[1] when creating new emails. They're just told t

by cosmie 7y ago

It's a process breakdown, either manual or automated. Marketing teams tend to use a tagging worksheet like this[1] when creating new emails. They're just told to put all links through that process, and the topic of tel links don't really come up. I've handed off dozens of link generators like that to marketing and account management folks, and never thoguht to add any checking for tel links in the logic or to surface that edge case in the instructions. So if they're going through the motions they were told to, but don't fully understand why (and don't QA properly) this is what you end up with. Could also be a system using the same logic of surfacing every <a> tag link for tagging before deployment (based on the utm names, there's at least some type of semantic logic to the naming that indicates a person was involved at some level and knew it was a phone number they were tagging). [1] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xDl9GdpuWB9kzXzWxKj3NYt392T6l6Tq9e89Yieg8AM/edit#gid=0 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xDl9GdpuWB9kzXzWxKj3...

lxcfan 7y ago
To add to the parent: Most major marketing automation and email marketing tools are going to add these links automatically in the email builder. Most WYSIWYG email builders built into these tools are pretty painful to begin with, and especially so when content with links is copied from one tool to another. (Think of the poor marketing person being given various blurbs in Word, Gmail, etc. and told to make a functional email out of them while having to use a shitty WYSIWYG.) Beyond that, most marketers I know have absolutely zero input into what email platform they use. Many organizations are stuck using antiquated, broken tools (I'm looking squarely at you, Eloqua) because of complex existing integrations they have set up. I don't see this changing any time soon. Few marketing orgs have the IT budget and/or on-staff knowhow to fix this problem. Nor are they likely to be aware of it. Nor, for that matter, are they likely to prioritize it over the many more pressing things they could be fixing that more directly affect revenue.

by cosmie 7y ago

lxcfan 7y ago

To add to the parent: Most major marketing automation and email marketing tools are going to add these links automatically in the email builder. Most WYSIWYG email builders built into these tools are pretty painful to begin with, and especially so when content with links is copied from one tool to another. (Think of the poor marketing person being given various blurbs in Word, Gmail, etc. and told to make a functional email out of them while having to use a shitty WYSIWYG.) Beyond that, most marketers I know have absolutely zero input into what email platform they use. Many organizations are stuck using antiquated, broken tools (I'm looking squarely at you, Eloqua) because of complex existing integrations they have set up. I don't see this changing any time soon. Few marketing orgs have the IT budget and/or on-staff knowhow to fix this problem. Nor are they likely to be aware of it. Nor, for that matter, are they likely to prioritize it over the many more pressing things they could be fixing that more directly affect revenue.