Aweber Personalization and Wordpress Success Page

by 23 replies
29
Please forgive if this has been covered. I've searched exhaustively, but find no results so far.

How do I pass the name and email variables to a "confirm," "success," and "already subscribed" page on my Wordpress blog?

I get 404s every time because Wordpress is looking for
http://mydomain.com/confirm?email=[email]&from=[email]&listname=[etc...]
while the URLs configured in the Aweber interface are:
  • http://mydomain.com/confirm
  • http://mydomain.com/success
  • http://mydomain.com/alreadysubscribed

Aweber didn't have an answer I liked. They told me I'd have to hire a developer.

There's got to be a simple way and I would think this question has come up many times; I'm just not finding an answer anywhere.
I have the scripts in the right places, and the process works fine on static HTML pages, do I need an "execute PHP" plugin?

I made a video that shows what I did:

http://www.screencast.com/t/ZjU4YTM4

I would love it if someone said, "DUH! All you need to do is [this] and [this]..." and then said, "How stupid are you anyway? What were you thinking? :confused:"

Thanks,
Mitch
#programming #aweber #page #personalization #success #wordpress
  • I guess You should use execute PHP plugin so that You can parse the variable. There's a problem with htaccess in wordpress that prevent the variable to be posted automatically I guess. Sorry but I'm just trying to give idea. I haven't got the same problem before.
    • [1] reply
    • Hi Mitch,

      I tried visiting for success page using some "junk" aweber parameters and the page came up just fine.

      Have you tried copying the URL that is sent to your success page, and typing that straight into a browser and see what happens.

      Also, could you post the URL of the "Rex" guy's success post, so that we can see what is happening.

      The video was great, but I could see the params at the end of the URL

      Take care

      Bruce
  • A quick test has revealled the following :

    I signup as :
    name : Junke
    Email : junk@gmail.com

    It sent me to the confirm page with the following URL:

    http://gotmehypnotized.com/confirm?e...48&submit.y=30

    If I only use a portion of the URL up to the start of the &name parameter, it works just fine. See this URL in action :

    confirm?awt_m=&awt_email=&email=&from=&listname=&m eta_adtracking=&meta_message=&meta_required=&meta_ split_id=&meta_tooltip=&meta_web_form_id=&name=&su bmit.x=&submit.y= | Got Me Hypnotized

    As soon as you add the name parameter, it stops working:

    See the following :

    http://gotmehypnotized.com/confirm?e...840&name=junke

    Not knowing the ins & outs of your website, my guess is that you have a plugin somewhere that is looking for a $_GET variable called name and this is taking control before the page actually see's the page.

    Try deactivating your plugins and see if that fixes things..

    Sorry I can't help more..

    Bruce
    • [1] reply
    • Thank you for your help Bruce.

      It's really very confusing. Are you saying that, all things being equal, say for example there were no plugins getting in the way, etc., that I should be able to pass the parameters through the URL? I see that you managed to get the email to go where it's supposed to - somehow - but the place where the name is supposed to go is getting the default 'friend' that I put in there as an else default. And how in the world do all those parameters appear there as if they were the title of the post?

      I'm confused. Do people do this sort of thing on a regular basis? I mean, do marketers have Wordpress blogs with personalized landing pages? I kinda figured they must, but I can't recall a place where I've seen any. I really thought Aweber would have had a better answer for me.

      I can't be sure what your first post was asking for, but I think I'll try deactivating all the plugins and see what happens.

      Thank you again,
      Mitch

      [EDIT: Aha! I had forgotten I titled the confirm page that way to test things! ]
      • [1] reply
  • How important is this feature in the "grand scheme of things"

    Maybe just ignore it for the moment and keep building your site and driving subscriber to your list.

    That's where the money is..

    Take care, and pls keep us updated on your quest for a solution

    And best of success with the site..

    Bruce
  • You don't know how right you are, Bruce. I've done this sort of obsession all my life and this is a very good example of my putting off the harder things (harder for me anyway,) and using a thing like this as an excuse for not moving forward and past it.

    Thank you for that reality check.

    By the way, the hypnosis site isn't even the project I was going to use this feature for. But if I do get it working, I'll likely use it on all my WP blogs.
    • [1] reply
    • After taking a look ( with the extra "thename" variable ), here is what I get:

      The "Confirm" page works properly, showing both the correct name and email address while the "success" page still fails on the name.

      The first thing that I would check is that you added "thename" as a variable to be passed on via the redirect issued when a user confirms their subscription. I did not see it in the url...and when I added &thename=Whatever the page properly displayed the name.

      As to the original issue, I am betting that you have a plugin (or wordpress itself...I don't recall all of the built in variables it processes) with the use of the variable "name"...and so your using "thename" instead gives you some success.
      • [1] reply
  • yep, have the same problem, tried it with a virgin wordpress installed with no plugins, it appears to be wordpress itself that's messing it up.

    so, for me it's not using personalization for the time being (the temptation is soooo huge to really dig into it and figure out what's going on, but as Bruce says, that's not where the bulk of the money is...)

    Veit
  • I am having the same issue. I played around with the 'success page' query string, and it seems the 'name=' key conflicts with Wordpress. The link without 'name=..' works fine for me.

    Now we know the real culprit, I'll post on WP's forum to see if there's a workaround. Will post any forthcoming solution here.

    Another option is to have Aweber use another variable for 'name=', but the variables don't seem to be configurable.
    • [1] reply
    • OK, I've found a workaround.

      Add some mod_rewrite code to your .htaccess BEFORE Wordpress's mod_rewrite code.

      The two together looks like this:

      Code:
      # For Aweber's 'success page', rename 'name' parameter to 'fullname' to avoid Wordpress conflict
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^name=(.*)$ 
RewriteRule ^subscribed/$ /subscribed/?fullname=%1 [R,NC,L]

# WordPress permalink
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
      My success page is called 'subscribed/'. You'll need to rename this to the name of your page.

      As stated in the comment, what this code does is it renames the conflicting query parameter 'name' to 'fullname'. You will also need to change the corresponding code on your page that reads the 'name' parameter to read 'fullname'.

      Hope this helps. If it does, a Thank is much appreciated.
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • hmmm i think this works... been having similar problems...
    • [1] reply
    • I had to alter the mod_rewrite code to this:

      Code:
      RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} (.*?W)name=(.*)$
RewriteRule ^subscribed/ /subscribed/?%1fullname=%2 [R,NC,L]
      Again replace 'subscribed' with your own page name.
  • For me aweber is passing ALL of the fields. I only really want one of them and "name" is not what I want.

    Do I have to include all the parameters they send in the rewrite code?

    thanks.
  • Turns out it was a mod_auth_rewrite issue for me, hostgator whitelisted the domain and now it works.
    • [1] reply
    • @zaclondon

      I couldn't make your workaround work, but after lots of digging around, I stumbled upon a different way of coding it, that did work for me. Don't ask me how - it has something to do with stripping the variable from the URL, but the result is OK.

      Code:
      RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} .
RewriteRule ^losse-verkoop/opvoeden-in-verbondenheid/bedankt-voor-je-bestelling(.*) /losse-verkoop/opvoeden-in-verbondenheid/bedankt-voor-je-bestelling/? [L]
      You can check it if you past this link in the browser address bar:
      Code:
      http://www.educare.nl/losse-verkoop/opvoeden-in-verbondenheid/bedankt-voor-je-bestelling?custom%20adres=YourAddress%20101&custom%20betaling=Machtiging&custom%20datum=26%20september%202010&custom%20exemplaren=1&custom%20geslacht=Mrs.&custom%20land=CountryName&custom%20organisatie=YourOrganisation&custom%20plaats=YourTown&custom%20postcode=3333%20AZ&custom%20rekeningnummer=testing%20the%20form&custom%20telefoon=0900-123456789&email=myname%40gmail.com&from=myname%40gmail.com&listname=aweberlist&&name=Firstname%20Lastname&name%20%28awf_first%29=YourFirst&name%20%28awf_last%29=YourLast&submit=Verzenden
      Referenced sites:
      .htaccess tricks and tips.. part two: url rewriting with mod rewrite.
      Learning to Use Regular Expressions

      In any case, thank you for putting me on the right track looking / finding this solution!

      Patricia
  • this is a pretty old posts...maybe the op got it fixed it already
  • This solution doesn't seem to be working with the latest version of WordPress (3.3.x). Does anyone know how to pass the AWeber variables to this latest version of WordPress?
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