Help · Content
Where a link goes
Every link in an email — a button, an image, or words inside a sentence — asks the same question in the same place: Where it goes. There is one field, and it does two things depending on what you type into it.
https://… or search your store
Type something starting https:// and it stays that link, kept exactly as you typed it. Type anything else and it searches your store as you type. There is no mode to switch and no second control to find. A word is never stored as an address: if you type "summer", look at the results and then walk away without choosing, the link stays where it was.
What you can point at
The search offers four kinds of thing from your store — your Products, your Collections and your Pages, each under a heading of its own — plus two places every store has, which sit at the top with no heading because they are not a category: the Home page and All products.
An empty box shows you what is there, so the field tells you it searches before you have typed anything.
Renaming something in Shopify never breaks a link
What is stored is which thing you chose, not its address. The address is built fresh from your store's own web address and that thing's current name each time the email is drawn and each time it goes out.
So renaming a collection in Shopify changes where an already-sent email points, and nothing anywhere needs fixing. It is also why the field shows you a name rather than a URL: the URL was never the thing you chose.
Once you have chosen
The destination shows by name, with a Change button beside it. Change opens the search again over whatever is there now, and the block keeps pointing where it did until you choose something else or type an address. Leaving the box without choosing puts the destination back — a Change you thought better of costs the block nothing.
Rows that are grayed
A destination you cannot use is shown, grayed, with the reason beside it — never hidden. A product that is not for sale right now says so; a page that is not visible on your online store says so. You cannot choose one, and the point of showing it is that you can see it is there and why it is not available, instead of hunting for something the search appears not to have.
A destination your store no longer has
A link already in an email whose product, collection or page has since left your store still shows its name, with the reason beside it:
No longer in your store
It is kept on screen rather than blanked, because a blank field gives you nothing to act on — and this one does need acting on. The check refuses the email until you point the link somewhere else:
This email links to a collection your store no longer has, so the link would go nowhere. Point it somewhere else.
This email links to a page your store no longer has, so the link would go nowhere. Point it somewhere else.
This product is not in your store’s catalog.
Addresses have to be https
An http:// address is warned about while you type it:
A link has to start with https:// — an http:// one will not be kept.
Told there rather than after you save, so you fix it once.
Pages are copied over once a day
Shopify announces a product or a collection change; it announces nothing about a page. So your pages are read on a daily walk, and a page you added in Shopify a minute ago may not be searchable here yet. Where none have ever been copied over, the search says so under the results rather than pretending your store has no pages:
No pages have been read from your store yet.
Refresh collections in Settings reads your pages at the same time, which is the way past the wait. The Settings page covers it.
When the search finds nothing
Three different nothings are said in three different ways, because you would act on each of them differently. Nothing matched your word:
Nothing in your store matches that.
Or your store could not be read just now, which is not the same thing at all:
Your store could not be searched just now.
And while a search is still running, the field says Searching… rather than either.
The unsubscribe link
A link inside a paragraph can point at the unsubscribe link instead, and it is the only one that offers the choice. That is because the footer sentence every email needs is written that way — a phrase in the middle of a paragraph, pointing at the way out. Choosing it takes the field away, because that address is built for each person as the email goes out and there is nothing for you to type:
This link opens the page where a reader can unsubscribe from receiving your emails. Every marketing email must include an unsubscribe link.
A button and an image get one field and no choice. A button goes to a link you paste or to something in your store; an image may or may not be a link at all, and an empty field is how you say it is not one.
A button that already points at the unsubscribe link — one that came in from an email you imported — says so where the field would be, and offers one way back out:
This goes to the unsubscribe link.
Point it at a link instead
A link you can see and cannot change would be a trap, which is why that way out is always there.