What are vanity links and how to set them up

What is a vanity link?

A vanity link is a unique referral link that contains a participant's vanity ID (participant's first name + GrowSurf ID). This will make it extra memorable for the person who receives the link to try out your product or service.

Note: If a participant's first name is not present at the time of them being added to your campaign, a vanity link will not be generated for them (their unique GrowSurf ID will be the default identifier instead).

Examples:

• A participant's default vanity link would look like this: https://yoursite.com?grsf=emily-a1jk28
• Before vanity links, Emily's link would look like this: https://yoursite.com?grsf=a1jk28. (The a1jk28 is the participant's GrowSurf ID that is used by default if the participant does not have a vanity ID).

How to create vanity IDs for participants

When a new GrowSurf participant is created and if their first name is present, vanity IDs are generated automatically in the format of first name and unique GrowSurf ID. 

Vanity IDs can be created and customized by both GrowSurf participants and admins:

• Participants can update their vanity ID(s) in the Embeddable Form element, GrowSurf window, and referral portal.
• GrowSurf admins can create/update vanity IDs from the GrowSurf admin dashboard on the participant detail page.
• GrowSurf admins can create/update participants' vanity IDs via REST API.

Note: To bulk create or update vanity IDs for all participants your campaign, you will need to use the REST API endpoints /POST Update Participant by ID or /POST Update Participant by Email.

How to manually create/update a participant's vanity ID

To create/update a vanity ID for a participant you will need to do the following:

1. Click on the participant you want to update
2. Click the DETAILS tab
3. Add a vanity ID, then click the save button

How to enable participants to update their vanity ID

1. In your admin dashboard click Campaign Editor > 2. Design 
2. Share > Social Share
3. Scroll to '"Customize" vanity link text' and type in Customize, then click the save button

Once you have saved the changes to your campaign a participant can go to your referral portal and do the following:

1. Click Customize

2. Delete default vanity ID

3. Update referral link

4. View the new referral link

Note: Anytime the participant's Share URL is shown in API responses and in UI elements, the referral link will always contain the participant's first available vanity ID, if present. In addition to containing their first available vanity ID, whenever their vanity IDs are updated the Share URL field (e.g, https://yoursite.com?grsf=emily) will also be synced with any active integrations (e.g, Mailchimp, Intercom, HubSpot).

Limitations

• Participants cannot have more than 5 vanity links at a time.
• Vanity IDs must be between 1-20 characters.
• Vanity IDs can only contain numbers, letters, underscores, and hyphens.
• Vanity IDs must be unique and cannot be identical to another participant's GrowSurf or vanity ID.