Ensuring Seamless User Experience with Click-to-Call (tel:) Links in Marketo Emails

If you ever incorporated a clickable telephone number into your Marketo email which provides recipients with the ability to directly make calls from their mobile devices, you may have faced certain challenges along the way.

While hyperlinking the phone number using the tel: format seems straightforward on the surface, it doesn't always guarantee the desired click-to-call functionality, and users should be aware of the caveat associated with it.

Click-to-Call and Tracking in Marketo Emails:

The standard approach to adding a clickable telephone number is to use the tel: format in the hyperlink.

<a href="tel:[Phone]">[Phone]</a>

However, if you leave the link as is, with Marketo's tracking and encoding, the click-to-call functionality may not work on all devices. To overcome this, you can include a class mktNoTok in the <a> tag, allowing the click-to-call feature to work while still allowing click tracking.

<a href="tel:[Phone]" class="mktNoTok">[Phone]</a>

Alternatively, just uncheck the "Include mkt_tok" checkbox in the Edit Link per the below snapshot.

The rationale for this is straightforward: the behavior of tel: links with an unexpected query string can differ across platforms and applications, and when the
”Include mkt_tok” option is selected, links are augmented with the mkt_tok query parameter. This practice can be extended to excluding any additional tracking parameters from tel: links as well.

By prioritizing a seamless click-to-call experience, you can strike a balance between tracking and functionality.

I hope you found this little tip insightful. Feel free to post any comments/suggestions in the comments below. 😄

Happy Marketo’ing!