Merge Fields in Hyperlinks

We’re needing to include the contact’s email address in a hyperlink URL to direct contacts to the email preferences page on our website. The format we’re using currently is:

www.patriotacademy.com /email-options?email=[[contact.email1.address]]
(space included to avoid being stripped by the forum software)

When we send an email using this method, it strips the mail merge code from the URL, but does not insert the contact’s email address. This code still works in the old email builder, but all new emails are not allowing the mail merge in a url.

Is there something I’m doing wrong here? How can I include mail merge fields in a hyperlink?