Ticket Details

Product / Feature: Optimizely Web Experimentation (Visual Editor / Link & CTA Configuration)

Request Type: Feature Request / Product Enhancement (Follow-up to support phone call)

Target Component: Visual Editor — External Link Input Field

Context & Background

Per our recent discussion with Optimizely phone support, we confirmed that the External Link input field currently auto-prepends http:// whenever an input is not formatted as a fully qualified, absolute URL.

Support advised us to submit this formal ticket to request functionality that permits entering query parameters only (e.g., ?utm_content=Homepage-hero) into the External Link input field without the system forcing http:// in front of it.

Problem Statement

Current Validation Logic: The external link field requires a fully qualified domain. If we enter only query parameters (?utmcontent=Homepage-hero), the editor auto-prepends http://, resulting in a broken output URL: http://?utmcontent=Homepage-hero.

Current Workaround: To avoid broken links, we are currently forced to hardcode the entire absolute URL (e.g., https://example.domain.com/?utm_content=Homepage-hero) directly into the external link field.

Why This Is Problematic: Hardcoding the full URL in the visual editor breaks environment portability. We manage our destination domains dynamically in our local codebase so that links correctly resolve across Development, Staging, and Production environments. Hardcoded URLs in Optimizely override or bypass this local domain logic and require manual editing every time code moves between environments.

Current Behavior vs. Desired Behavior

Detail

Current Workaround (Full URL)

Current Behavior (Params Only)

Desired Behavior (Feature Request)

Input in External Field

https://example.domain.com/?utm_content=Homepage-hero

?utm_content=Homepage-hero

?utm_content=Homepage-hero

Rendered / Output Link

https://example.domain.com/?utm_content=Homepage-hero

http://?utm_content=Homepage-hero (broken)

?utm_content=Homepage-hero (or relative path preserved)

Domain Control

Hardcoded in Optimizely Visual Editor

Broken protocol

Handled dynamically/locally in application code

Business & Engineering Impact

Multi-Environment Promotion: Without parameter-only support, experiments configured against a development or staging domain cannot be promoted to production without manual updates to the Visual Editor CTA configurations.

Local Code Governance: Our engineering team needs to maintain authoritative control over the destination domain and path directly within our codebase, while allowing experimenters to append campaign and tracking parameters (utm_*) via Optimizely.

Risk of Broken Links: If an editor or marketer inadvertently strips the domain prefix in the editor, users encounter invalid http://? links in production.

Requested Action & Next Steps

Feature Request Submission: Please submit an official feature request / enhancement request to the Optimizely Web product team to adjust the validation logic of the External Link field, allowing strings starting with ? or relative paths to pass through without prepending http://.

Recommended Interim Workaround: While this functionality is under consideration, what is Optimizely’s recommended best practice for appending query parameters dynamically to existing CTA links in code (e.g., using variation JavaScript to modify link.search or link.href rather than using the Visual Editor's external link field)?