Re: Referrer Constraint for "Visits Web Page" trigger

Simon_Wha
Level 1

Referrer Constraint for "Visits Web Page" trigger

Hello,

Some of the mixed language in Marketo is causing some confusion.

For example, on the "Fills out form" trigger on smart campaigns, the "referrer" constraint is not the page that the lead came from to get to the page hosting the form but rather the hosting page itself.

If a lead goes to site.com/page-1 to site.com/page-2 and the form is on page-2, the referrer constraint is referencing site.com/page-2.

Does the definition for the "Referrer" constraint for the "Visits Web Page" trigger mean the same as above or is it in the truest sense referencing the referral url that got the lead to the page visit?

If I set up a smart campaign that says "Visits Web Page" contains "site.com/page-2 with the constraint 'Referrer contains site.com/page-1' " - and a lead visits site.com/page-1 and then goes to site.com/page-2, will the smart campaign trigger?

Because it's a web page visit trigger, I'm thinking that the referrer constraint in this case is referencing the true referral url which in this case is site.com/page-1 but because the language in Marketo is using the same term "referrer" for the constraint in both the fills out form and visits web page trigger, i'm not sure what it means.

3 REPLIES 3
SanfordWhiteman
Level 10 - Community Moderator

Re: Referrer Constraint for "Visits Web Page" trigger

The use of the term "referrer" is not as ambiguous as you think, though I can understand why you might be confused.

The reason the "referrer" of a Fills Out Form activity is the page hosting the form comes from the old days (Forms 1.0).  It was common to use an IFRAME to embed forms, rather than the true same-document <form> element you get with Forms 2.0.

The referrer of an IFRAME (inner document) is always the hosting document (outer document) -- as opposed to the external page (document.referrer) that brought the person to the outer document. So the "referrer" constraint for Fills Out Form treats the form as if it were truly embedded within another secondary document.  Even though it's not. So it's confusing, but let's say not random.

Conversely, the word "referrer" is used in its more technically proper way when you set up a hidden field to fill from Referrer Param.  That's really looking at the previous, presumably offsite, page.

And as you noticed the "referrer" of a Visits Web Page activity is the actual HTTP referrer (document.referrer).

Simon_Wha
Level 1

Re: Referrer Constraint for "Visits Web Page" trigger

It's good to know the history of forms and that at one point in time, it was a true referrer. That helps explain the usage and clarifies things for me moving forward.

Thanks for the help Sanford Whiteman

TrishVosko
Level 1

Re: Referrer Constraint for "Visits Web Page" trigger

If i want to add a constraint to a fills out form smart list showing only people that came from a  URL (say our website) to the form on marketo LP (and filled it out of course) how would i do that then since referrer wouldn't work?

 

 

Thanks

Trish