Show the search term in your headline (text from the link)

When someone searches for “trail shoes”, clicks your ad and lands on a page that says “trail shoes” in the headline, they know right away they're in the right place. With text from the link, one landing page can do that for every search term, campaign or ad. You can test it like any other change: the original headline against the one that repeats the search term.

How it works

Your ads add information to the link, such as ?utm_term=trail+shoes or ?utm_campaign=summer_sale. Varly reads that part of the link in the visitor's browser and puts it into your text, at the place you choose. It works in a single-page app too: when the visitor clicks further and the part disappears from the address, the text stays the same for the rest of the visit.

Every text from the link has a fallback text. Visitors see it when the link doesn't have the part, or when Varly decides not to show the value (see What Varly never shows).

Add text from the link

1. Open the test in Varly and click Open the visual editor.
2. Click the text you want to change, for example the headline, and choose Edit directly.
3. In Text, select the words that should change, for example “running shoes”. Then click Insert text from the link.
4. Choose what to take under Take the value of:
   • Search term (utm_term): the keyword or search term of a Google Ads or Microsoft Ads click.
   • Campaign (utm_campaign): the name of the campaign.
   • Ad content (utm_content): often the name of the ad or the audience.
   • Another parameter: a name of your own, for example kw for links like ?kw=trail+shoes.
5. Check the Fallback text. Varly fills in the words you selected. It's required.
6. Choose the Capitalization: As in the link, Title Case (Trail Shoes), First letter capital (Trail shoes) or lower case (trail shoes).
7. Optional: under Only use these values, type the values you allow, separated by commas. Any other value shows the fallback text. Use this when you want full control over what can appear on your page.
8. Click Insert. The text now reads, for example, Best {utm_term|running shoes} for beginners. The part in braces is the text from the link, with the fallback text after the bar.
9. Click Save change.

On the page in the editor you see the fallback text. To see what a visitor sees, type a value under the part, for example trail shoes. The page changes right away, and the line below says what visitors see. Click Edit to change the fallback text, capitalization or allowed values.

You can use up to three parts from the link in one text, for example {utm_term|Running shoes} in {city|your city}.

What Varly never shows

Anyone can make a link with their own text and share it. Varly protects your page, so a value from the link is only shown when it's plain text. Visitors see the fallback text when the value:

• is longer than 60 characters (Varly never cuts a value off);
• looks like an email address;
• contains a long number, such as a phone number, customer number or bank account number;
• looks like a web address, such as www.example.com or shop.com;
• contains encoded characters, such as %3C or <, a common trick;
• contains characters that don't belong in a text, such as < > " # % @ ( ) or emoji;
• isn't one of your allowed values, when you set them.

Letters with accents, other alphabets, numbers and normal punctuation (. , ! ? ' & - /) are fine. Underscores become spaces, so summer_sale reads “summer sale”.

The value is always put in as plain text, never as code. Varly doesn't send the value anywhere. Only with the visitor's consent does it keep the first value of the visit in the visitor's own browser, until they close the tab, so the text stays the same while they click around. Without consent, in privacy mode, Varly only uses the link of the current page.

Check it before launch

Open the preview link. When a version uses text from the link, the preview bar shows a field for each part, such as ?utm_term=. Type a value to see what a visitor with that link sees. The line below says what the version shows, or why it shows the fallback text, for example “It contains a long number, such as a phone number. Varly never shows those.”

You can also open your page with the part in the address, for example https://yourshop.com/landing?utm_term=trail+shoes, together with the preview link.

Only for visitors from your ads

Text from the link works for every visitor in the test: visitors without the part see the fallback text. To test only with visitors from your ads, add a rule under Who takes part, for example UTM source is google. See Who takes part: rules and saved audiences.

Common problems

• I see the fallback text, even with the value in the link. Check the name of the part: utm_term is not the same as term. Type the value in the preview bar to see why Varly doesn't show it.
• The value is too long. Search terms longer than 60 characters show the fallback text. Use a shorter campaign name, or allowed values.
• The headline jumps when the page loads. It shouldn't: Varly puts in the text before the page is shown. If it does, check that the Varly snippet is high in the <head> of your page (see Install the snippet).