Adding personalization Tokens into a URL Link for an email template

[MTrevino6]

Hi HubSpot Community,

I'm having an issue with dynamically inserting a custom field into a URL within an email template. Here's the situation:

I have a URL structure like this:
https://website.com/{{contact.franchise_urls}}/purpose-driven-care/

• Franchise_URLs is a custom field in my HubSpot account.
• The field is currently a dropdown (picklist), and I've confirmed its internal name is franchise_urls.

• The expected behavior is for the token {{contact.franchise_urls}} to dynamically resolve to the value of the Franchise_URLs field (e.g., houston-metro) when the email is sent.

However, when I send or preview the email, the URL is not resolving correctly. Instead, I get encoded characters like this:

https://website.com/%7B%7Bcontact.franchise_urls%7D%7D/purpose-driven-care/

I’ve taken the following steps to troubleshoot:

1. Verified that the token is written correctly as {{contact.franchise_urls}}.
2. Checked that the Franchise_URLs field values are URL-friendly (e.g., no spaces or special characters like %20 or %E2%80%8B).
   
   1. But it still doesn’t work.
   2. Confirmed the internal name of the field matches franchise_urls.
   3. Checked the contact records to ensure the field is populated with valid values (e.g., houston-metro).

   Despite all this, HubSpot seems to treat the personalization token as plain text rather than resolving it properly.

   Has anyone encountered a similar issue with dropdown fields or URL personalization in email templates? Am I missing something specific about how picklist fields work in this context?

   Any insights or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

   Thanks in advance!

   I've also tried creating a field with single line text and this didn't resolve the issue. 

[franksteiner79 · Accepted solution]

Hi @MTrevino6 

Thanks for all the details and context.

My best guess is that drop-down property might be the issue. Have you tried using a single text field? I've had a similar setup with a client and that worked fine.

Thanks

Frank