There is a lot of hype surrounding Personalized URLs these days, but what’s the reality behind the hype? Do these applications deliver on the promise? “Personalized URLs: Beyond the Hype,” the fourth in Heidi Tolliver-Nigro’s Marketer’s Primer Series, addresses this question.

Personalized URL applications have a wide variety of uses, including sales prospecting, customer surveying, event registrations, information dissemination, and obtaining customer and user feedback. But while these applications have generated a lot of success, they have generated a lot of disappointment, too—primarily because of a lack of realistic expectations.

This reports provides a no-nonsense look at the role of personalized URLs and 1:1 printing in increasing the effectiveness of companies’ marketing programs. It looks at key application categories, “best in class” case studies, lessons learned over time, and best practices for optimizing their use.

The report’s author argues that one of the reasons that many personalized URL applications have struggled is that personalized URLs (including PURLs, RURLs, and other -URLs) need to be seen as merely a vehicle for response. These campaigns must adhere to the best practices for all 1:1 (personalized) printing campaigns rather than relying on the personalized URL, itself, as the primary motivator of response.

The report includes analysis of nearly a decade of personalized URL case studies from around the industry, with a list of best practices drawn from common denominators among the most successful programs.  Notable were the use of multiple media to reinforce the message and the utilization of additional elements, such as over-sized postcards or lumpy mail, to drive response—even more than we tend to see in non-personalized URL 1:1 (personalization) programs.

For more information on this and the other Marketer’s Primer Series Reports, visit the Digital Printing Reports website. Other reports in the series include “Digital Printing: Transforming Business and Marketing Models,” “1:1 (Personalized Printing): Boosting Profits Through Relevance,” and “Web-to-Print: Transforming Document Management and Marketing Models.”

I’m used to looking at the case studies from digital press and personalization software suppliers for the marketing effectiveness of 1:1 printing, but as “green” continues to gather steam as a hot marketing angle, I’m starting to rethink how I position this information.

This morning, I repositioned a case study from AutoNation and DME that many in this industry may already be familiar with.

In this study, DME overhauled its 1:1 printing workflow to enable AutoNation to eliminate its need to inventory and warehouse pre-printed offset shells that were subsequently personalized using black-and-white overprinting. Using XMPie’s PersonalEffect software, DME changed its workflow so that each campaign is single project, even though each campaign involves multiple brands and dealers. The business rules for composing the individualized offers are programmed independent of the design. All elements become data-driven variable objects instead of static fields. Thus, instead of using pre-printed stock, AutoNation’s campaigns are now printed, as needed, using plain, unprinted paper. The results were impressive. Responses to its direct mail pieces went up 35%. Revenues were up 65%.

But in this environment — so hot for green — these may not end up being the most compelling results. Consider the “green” impact of this switch. AutoNation no longer must warehouse pre-printed stock for different dealerships and brands.

Consequently, it also saves …

• the carbon footprint and resources used to pre-print each set of shells
• the carbon footprint and cost of warehousing those shells
• the fuel costs of transporting them.

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