How to Use Text-Based Personalization: Variables In The URL

When you click on a company’s video and you instantly see something specific to you, such as your name, company, or recent item you’ve purchased from them, wouldn’t you want to keep watching? This is because personalized videos boost engagement and drive action! With text-based personalization, you can insert details of your viewers' specific information directly within the video's messaging. In Mindstamp, text-based personalization can be added to your videos in a few ways. One way is to use the ‘Viewer Info Capture’ feature in Settings and another way is to access variables passed through the URL.

How Text-Based Personalization Using Variables Passed Through the URL Works!

Passing variables into your video through the URL is a powerful tool that can be used in email marketing or any other kind of customer relationship tactic that allows your viewers to have a personalized viewing experience right when they click to open your video. Any bit of data you know about your viewer, or any data previously gathered and stored from a landing page or previous interactive video, (name, company, etc.) can be added to the URL of your video and then be used in the video to personalize their experience.
‍

This option is best used when you already know the viewer’s information, such as a prospect that has requested a demo of your product and your sales team sends an email to them with a direct link to a personalized interactive video.
‍

For example, if a user purchased a specific product from your company, you can include a personalized text within the video when asking for feedback: “Hi {{NAME}}! How are you liking {{PRODUCT}}? Can you take a moment to rate it?”

Or if you have a past customer who you haven’t heard from in a while, you can send them a video link to a dynamic, personalized experience that when clicked displays a message within the video such as “Hi {{NAME}}, it’s been {{X MONTHS}} since your last purchase of {{ITEM}}. Let’s schedule a time to connect and discuss the options that might be right for you: [LINK TO SCHEDULE].”
‍

Here’s what the URL could look like if we want to replace {{NAME}} with your contact’s name, ‘Alex,’ and {{product}} with ‘Mindstamp’:
‍

https://video.mindstamp.io/watch/ZjtwnFJS?name=Alex&product=Mindstamp
‍

Copy and paste the link into an incognito window to see it in action ^. You could then copy and paste this URL directly into an email that you’re sending to Alex so when Alex opens the email, he’s greeted with his own name.
‍

The following steps walk through how your viewer can see their name (or other personalized information) using text-based personalization in Mindstamp using variables passed through the URL.

‍

How to Create Text-Based Personalization in Mindstamp Using Variables Passed Through the URL

1. To start, upload or link your existing video to Mindstamp’s interactive video platform. Check out this tutorial for more information on how to upload your video to Mindstamp.

‍‍

2. Head to the part in your video where you want to add this text-based personalization and click the ‘Add Text’ feature on the interaction bar. 

3. Add in the text you want your viewer to see along with the variable {{name}} where you want their name to appear. The variable {{name}} will be stored and will change based on the data you enter in the URL in Step 5.

4. This personalization can be used with other variables as well, not just someone's name. Again, it’s important to note that the items you use as variables should be information you already know about a specific contact (we recommend integrating Mindstamp with a CRM to ensure every piece of data you collect within your interactive videos can be used for future messaging). Wherever you want to substitute the data, choose a variable name and incorporate it between double brackets like this {{var_name}}, where ‘var_name’ in this case would be specific to your variable. So, if you were passing data in about a customer’s most recent purchase, you might add {{product}} to a comment like this:

‍“How are you liking {{product}}? Can you take a moment to rate it?”

‍

5. Once ready, Click ‘Publish’ on the right side of your screen. Then navigate to Share and click ‘Copy Link’.

‍

6. To personalize the URL of the video on a person-by-person basis, add in the variable that you want to be personalized using the template ?variable=data at the end of your video’s share link. Here you would change the text ‘variable’ with what is in the brackets from steps 3 or 4, and change ‘data’ to what you want to show up instead. In our example, we want the variable ‘name’ to be substituted with ‘Alex’, so we entered ?name=Alex to the end of the video URL:
   ‍
   https://video.mindstamp.io/watch/ZjtwnFJS?name=Alex‍
   
   

Now when you send this URL to your viewer named Alex, the data you entered in the URL will automatically change the variable {{name}} to ‘Alex’. Take a look:

‍

Takeaways

Using variables passed through URLs allows for an easy and seamless way to create personalized video experiences for your viewers when reaching out to prospects and clients and is a powerful addition to your inbound marketing efforts.
‍

Check out this video as we walk through how to set up variables and start using them in your Mindstamp Videos.
‍

To learn more about adding interactive features to your website using Mindstamp, schedule a free demo or visit our website to learn more.

‍