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Web Tracking: Tracked Links Containing Anchors or Hashtags (#) Are Broken (Doc ID 2186006.1)

Last updated on DECEMBER 23, 2022

Applies to:

Oracle Eloqua Marketing Cloud Service - Version 10 and later
Information in this document applies to any platform.

Symptoms

Tracked links that have anchors or contain a hashtag (#) character are broken. When an anchor is included in a tracked URL, Eloqua shifts the anchor code to the end. This means that the anchor/hashtag information appears after any parameters, if included, and after the elqtrackid query string. 

Expected Behaviour

The ?elqTrackId= query string should be appended to the end of the URL

Actual Behaviour

The ?elqTrackId= is getting added before the anchor/hashtag (#)  code in the URL

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Create a responsive email asset (see note below for non-responsive assets)
  2. Add this to some text as a hyperlink (ensure that the checkbox for Add tracking for untracked external pages is ticked):
      

    Changes

    This issue is caused by the location of the # character within the URL. Because the # character was originally used at the end of a URL to indicate an anchor, when it is placed in the middle of the URL - it causes a conflict when Eloqua attempts to add external website tracking elements to the email.

    Eloqua interprets the # character as an anchor tag. Today, however, the # character can also now be used in the middle of a URL on AJAX-based pages since changing the hash can be detected using JavaScript and allows the visitor to use the back/forward button without actually triggering a full page reload.

    When the # character appears at the end of a URL, it is often used as an anchor to jump to an element with the same name/ID. Eloqua interprets this character to indicate the end of a link and, therefore, will automatically insert the tracking parameters before the #.

    Cause

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    In this Document
    Symptoms
    Changes
    Cause
    Solution
     Link Shortener
     Manually Change the Tracked URL
     Related Reading
    References


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