Direct-mail glossary

Personal URL (PURL)

PURL, personalized URL

A personal URL (PURL) is a unique web address printed on an individual recipient's mail piece. When that person visits it, you know exactly who responded — not just that someone from the campaign did.

Why it matters

A shared QR code or link tells you a campaign drew traffic. A personal URL goes one level deeper: because each recipient's card carries its own address (often a short code or a personalized link), a visit identifies the specific household behind it. That turns anonymous response into named response. For a local business, that's the difference between "the spring drop got 30 scans" and "these 30 specific lapsed patients re-engaged — call them." PURLs also let you pre-fill a booking form or greet the visitor by name, which lifts conversion, and they make per-recipient follow-up possible. PURLs are a form of variable data printing: the unique code is generated per recipient and printed onto each card at production time, alongside any personalized name or offer.

CardCadence

How CardCadence handles it

CardCadence does not print a personal URL on its postcards. It reaches the same per-recipient attribution a different way: every postcard design ships with a QR code, and that code resolves to a link unique to the individual it was mailed to — so a scan tells you exactly which card, and which address, produced the response. No extra setup, and it is part of the flat per-piece price. The trade-off is worth stating plainly. A printed PURL catches the person who will not scan a QR code, or who sets the card down and types the address into a laptop later. A QR-only card misses those responses. What you get in exchange is a cleaner card with no long personalized web address to typeset, and attribution that is exact when it does fire. If a printed personal URL is a hard requirement for your campaign, CardCadence is not the right tool for it today.

Related terms

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