Tracking of leads imported into marketo ?

[Anonymous]

Hi,

When you've imported leads into Marketo [without they filled out any form so], how could they be tracked into the web activity ?

Many thanks in advance !

Alexandre

[Alex_Stanton1]

Hi Alexandre,

Until they have filled out a form, clicked a link in a Marketo email (or inteacted with the Muncking API), you will not be able to track their activity. Here are a couple of articles to help you understand how that works: Understanding Anonymous and Known Leads - Marketo Docs - Product Docs  and Tracking Anonymous and Known Leads - Marketo Docs - Product Docs

[Anonymous]

It seems better with your explanation... It wasn't so clear, even with that litterature I read

Many thanks Alex

[Dan_Stevens_]

Another important item you'll want to consider is, when you import the leads, they really shouldn't be assigned to a specific Acquisition Program yet (unless your uploading a list of, say, event attendees as members of an event program) - since, IMO, Acquisition Programs are those programs that are responsible for initially acquiring that lead - meaning, specific engagement/behavior must take place in order to align them to a specific program.  Therefore, we include a very important flow step in every smart campaign that involves user engagement (e.g., fills out form, attends an event/webinar, downloads content, clicks link in email, etc.):

What this will do is ensure that every lead in Marketo - that responds/engages/interacts with one of your programs - will have an Acquisition Program value assigned to it.  The reason this is so important is because if a lead already exists in Marketo and fills out a form in the future, Marketo will not assign an acquisition program name to this lead since it's already in Marketo.  This is also very important for reporting purposes.  Unfortunately, you cannot use a local token for "program name" and instead need to hard-code it in directly into the "new value" field.  Also, "Acquisition Program Name" is a hidden field used for Marketo operational purposes only.  But it must be used like I have it here in order to test if "Acquisition Program" value on the lead record is empty.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Dan for your response.

So, if I get the logic, if I don't assign a campaign to my new leads imported into Marketo, they wouldn't have any king of 'marketing source' now and in the future for tracking from where they came. Is that correct ?

In this case, why assigning them to a fake campaign ? Would not be a problem for reporting ?

[Dan_Stevens_]

You can still create values like "marketing source" by creating custom fields to store these values (that would also need to be contained in your spreadsheet).  What I'm referring to is the formal "Acquisition Program" value in Marketo.  Just out of curiosity, what program are you using now without taking into consideration the approach I provided?  I have a real hard time giving attribution to a program that had nothing to do with bringing a lead into Marketo (unless it was an event attendee list, for example).

I'm not suggesting a fake campaign at all.  What do mean by "fake campaign"?

[Chris_Morris1]

Dan, thank you for the information on the flow step, I agree it makes sense to categorize leads this way. Is that flow step set up to only run once per lead?

We have various services I could apply this to, but that would mean the link/form my lead clicks/fills out first will be the one they are attributed to, regardless of what interest they show in other services in the future, is that correct?

This would still be an improvement for me, as I currently don't attribute them to a program for the very reason you give... just wanted to see if I'm on the same page with you as far as multiple services offered would be.

Thanks again for your help!

[Dan_Stevens_]

Chris, yes, like most of our "conversion" smart campaigns in our programs, this runs once per lead.

Sounds like you're in need of some additional custom fields for things like "last touch-response program", "last touch-response channel" and "last touch-response date".  Once acquisition program name has been set/defined, it should NEVER change.  This is so Marketo can attribute the first program that brought a lead into Marketo.  Anything other than that, use custom fields.  We use a host of custom fields - in addition to the three above.  Things like "Area of Interest", which populates with a value that is representative of a solution/offering (e.g., "Digital Business" or "Cloud") that's aligned to one of our marketing campaigns.  Once populated, the lead moves into the appropriate engagement program for relevant nurture communications.

[Chris_Morris1]

Excellent information Dan - thank you. I appreciate your help.