Re: Personalized content not working

Franky_Ruyssch2
Level 4

Personalized content not working

Previously, we have imported thousands of contacts from another marketing automation platform. Only a small part of them has a Marketo cookie.

Today, we have generated personalized content which is stored in 10 custom fields in a contacts profile ( 5 URL’s and 5 'Link' text fields ), not all fields are used for everybody.

Based on those fields we create a bullet list which can have up to 5 items ( all links, consisting out of a text link and the link itself )

The personalized content is used in an email (the links - if any - and text are correct, meaning the correct information from the contacts profile ). The same content is displayed on a landing page which is also personalized based on those 10 fields. So on the landing page the 5 links are visualized.

The problem,

On first time visit for a part of the contacts ( for which we think that they do not have the cookie ) , the landing page content is empty, only on a second attempt ( clicking a link from the mail ) the content is displayed. We should expect that the anonymous lead is converted to a known lead because he clicked on the link in the email. So why are contacts imported from our other automation platform not converted to a known lead? Is there a delay ? 

How should we solve this problem?

Franky Ruysschaert
4 REPLIES 4
Chris_Wilcox
Level 9

Re: Personalized content not working

While the demographic information from your old CRM is in Marketo, Marketo has no idea who is who when it sees people using your website. There needs to be a cookie link created.

How would Marketo know what web user is associated with which lead in the CRM without a tie to the cookie and user? 

Linking the record in your CRM with that individual's web user occurs when a user either clicks a link in a Marketo distributed email (with the mkt_tok option enabled), or fills out a Marketo form. 

Franky_Ruyssch2
Level 4

Re: Personalized content not working

Hi Chris, thanks for helping

I have constructed the links in my email in html like :

<a href="http://{{lead.mkt3497link1}}">{{lead.mkt3497link1text}}</a>

Could it be that as done above they are not mkt_tok option enabled?

Franky Ruysschaert
Chris_Wilcox
Level 9

Re: Personalized content not working

Hmmm I don't think I've ever confirmed if mkt_tok option works on a tokenized link URL, but I would expect it to work.  

SanfordWhiteman
Level 10 - Community Moderator

Re: Personalized content not working

You can see quickly if the link is branded: is it rewritten to bounce off your branding domain?

Also note a cookie is *not necessary* for dynamic content to work. Your first pageview doesn't send a cookie to Marketo. The cookie is created in JS *after* the page is received by your browser. You must, however, have a mkt_tok.