Protecting Shared Content

Ekphrastic lets you control access to shared content when you need to protect confidential, commercially sensitive or customer-specific information.

You can protect content with a password or restrict access to recipients whose email address belongs to an approved domain.

Access protection is separate from publishing, sharing and engagement tracking.

What You Can Protect

Access protection is available for shared Ekphrastic content, including:

• ROI Models and Calculators

• Presentations

• PDFs

• Videos

• Collections

Protection is configured for the content itself. When protected content is shared, recipients must verify their access before they can view it.

Choosing an Access Method

You can choose one of two protection methods:

Password protection

Password protection requires recipients to enter a password before opening the content.

This is useful when you want to share protected content with specific people without restricting access to a particular organisation or email domain.

You set the password when configuring the content's Security & Protection settings.

Recipients opening the shared content are presented with a restricted-access screen and asked to enter the password.

If the password is correct, the content opens. If it is incorrect, the recipient can try again.

Passwords are case-sensitive. Make sure recipients enter the password exactly as it was provided to them.

Email domain protection

Email domain protection restricts access according to the recipient's business email domain.

For example, if you add:

acme.com

a recipient using:

[e-mail]

can be authorised to access the content.

This is useful when content should be available to people from a particular customer, prospect or organisation without requiring everyone to use the same password.

Recipients are asked to enter their full email address. Ekphrastic checks the domain associated with that email address against the domains you have allowed.

If the email domain is approved, the recipient can continue to the content.

If it is not approved, access is not granted.

Add the organisation's domain rather than individual email addresses. For example, use acme.com rather than [e-mail].

Configuring Password Protection

Open the options for the content you want to protect and expand Security & Protection.

Choose Password Protection and enter the password you want recipients to use.

Once password protection is enabled, recipients must provide the correct password when opening the shared content.

When sharing the content directly with a recipient, make sure they also receive the password they need to access it.

Configuring Email Domain Protection

Open Security & Protection and choose Email Protection.

Add the email domains that should be permitted to access the content.

For example:

• acme.com

• example.co.uk

• customer.com

You can add multiple domains when content needs to be accessible to recipients from more than one organisation.

When a recipient opens the content, they enter their full email address. Ekphrastic uses the domain from that address to determine whether access should be granted.

Using subdomains

Domains are matched specifically.

For example:

[e-mail]

uses the domain:

mail.example.com

This is different from:

example.com

If recipients use a particular subdomain, make sure the appropriate domain is included in your allowed domains.

Password or Email Protection

Password and email protection are alternative access methods.

Only one protection method can be active for an item at a time.

Use Password Protection when anyone with the password should be able to access the content.

Use Email Protection when access should be limited according to the recipient's organisation or email domain.

Changing the protection method replaces the previous access method.

What Recipients See

When recipients open protected content, Ekphrastic displays a restricted-access screen before allowing them to continue.

For password-protected content, recipients are asked to enter the password.

For email-protected content, recipients are asked to enter their full email address.

The recipient can continue once their access has been successfully verified.

If the password is incorrect or the email domain is not authorised, Ekphrastic displays an access message and allows the recipient to correct their information.

Email Protection and Buyer Engagement

Access protection and Buyer Engagement serve different purposes.

Access protection controls whether a recipient is authorised to open shared content.

Buyer Engagement helps you understand engagement with content shared using tracked links.

When a recipient enters their email address to access email-protected content, that email may also be associated with their tracked engagement where the sharing experience supports recipient identification.

Password protection does not, by itself, identify a recipient by email.

Protecting content does not replace the choice between tracked and untracked sharing. Access protection determines who can open the content, while tracking determines whether engagement activity is recorded.

Changing or Removing Protection

You can return to Security & Protection to change the access settings for your content.

You can:

• Change the password

• Change the allowed email domains

• Switch between password and email protection

• Remove access protection

Changes apply to the protected content, rather than to an individual share link.

This means you do not need to create a different copy of the content simply to change its protection settings.

Things to Know

• Access protection is configured separately from publishing.

• Publishing content does not automatically protect it.

• Protection is separate from tracked and untracked sharing.

• Password and email protection cannot be enabled at the same time.

• Passwords are case-sensitive.

• Email protection uses the domain from the recipient's full email address.

• You can allow more than one email domain.

• Subdomains are treated as separate domains.

• Removing protection allows recipients to open the shared content without completing an access check.

Troubleshooting Access

A recipient's password is not accepted

Check that the recipient is entering the password exactly as configured. Passwords are case-sensitive.

If you have recently changed the password, make sure the recipient is using the current password.

A recipient's email is not authorised

Check the recipient's email domain against the domains configured under Security & Protection.

For example, if the recipient uses:

[e-mail]

their domain is:

uk.acme.com

If you have only allowed acme.com, add the appropriate subdomain if it should also be permitted.

A valid email address is rejected

Recipients must enter a complete email address, such as:

[e-mail]

Entering only the domain is not sufficient on the recipient access screen.

Access cannot be verified

A temporary connection or verification problem may prevent Ekphrastic from checking access.

The recipient can try submitting their password or email address again.

Related Guides

• Publishing Content

• Sharing Content

• Tracked vs Untracked Links