"Do not execute retroactively on newly known leads" checkbox in the qualification rules

[Grégoire_Miche2]

With the disappearance of the "is anonymous" filter, trigger campaigns may run retroactively on leads at the moment they become known. See Re: Removal of "Is Anonymous" filters.   and Next Generation Munchkin Tracking FAQ - Marketo Docs - Product Docs

So the idea is to have a check box in the qualification rules for trigger campaigns that prevent the SC to run retroactively.

-Greg

[Grégoire_Miche2]

One question to voters : should the checkbox be checked by default or unchecked by default.

It is not that simple : most of users will not understand the implications and will keep the default value, so let's have this default value set correctly...

The setting could also be managed instance-wide or workspace wide.

It could also be manageable through a role. Some people would have the right to change the setting, others will only have the right to use the default, instance wide default.

-Greg

[hena_wells]

Hi Gregoire,

Thanks for submitting the idea.

Could you (and others) let us know about some cases where you would not want to run these leads through the campaigns?

Aj

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Arjun,

Typically all behavioral scoring campaigns that we do not want to apply retroactively to anonymous leads. Some customers prefer not to score anonymous leads at all. Some to give score to only specific actions (search keywords) but not others (web page visits).

There might be others. See the thread on which you have already provided so many answers : Removal of "Is Anonymous" filters.

-Greg

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Another, related, use case is about smart campaign that should run for anonymous leads only ?

See the Removal of "Is Anonymous" filters.  thread.

-Greg

[Andy_Varshneya1]

I would say the default should be checked (as in do not execute retroactively on anonymous lead data) as those programs won't be behaving as trigger campaigns anymore as they aren't being triggered by action that was just taken, they will be triggered by action taken days or weeks ago.

[Edward_Unthank_]

You can do this without a special feature request, if you're clever with order of operations.

Lifecycle Processing, which starts out with a "lead is created" trigger and then runs through smart campaigns that are linked, can go through and change lead values. These happen upon the "lead is created" trigger, going through data management, lead assignment, and a medley of other operational processing. The first step of Lifecycle Processing is to change "Lifecycle Status" from "[null]" to the appropriate Lifecycle Status value.

In the new world of no anonymous leads, all smart campaigns that will be triggered before a lead has been promoted (Marketo's lingo for going from Anonymous to Known) won't have run through these smart campaigns in Lifecycle Processing yet.

Let's take a look at the order of operations in the Activity Log of when a lead is created:

Using the above, we can add a filter to all smart campaigns that we want to keep from going through said smart campaign, explicitly.

Which filters to add to triggered smart campaigns

EXPLICIT EXCLUSION OF 'ANONYMOUS' LEADS:

This filter would equal "Don't apply this smart campaign retrospectively to leads upon their promotion to known:"

EXPLICIT EXCLUSION OF 'KNOWN' LEADS:

This filter would equal "Only apply this smart campaign retrospectively to leads upon their promotion to known, but exclude any leads who are already known:"

Don't have Lifecycle Processing and aren't ready for that project yet?

Create a new Marketo-only boolean field called "Is Promoted" and change the data value to "true" with a smart campaign triggered by "Lead is created." By default, the field will be unchecked (false) for new leads. Only your smart campaign, upon triggering, will check that box (become true). Use that as a filter in the smart campaigns you explicitly want to exclude from "upon promotion" smart campaigns.

Then your filter in your smart campaigns becomes "Is Promoted" with values of true or false, and you get (operationally) the same functionality (although inverse) of "Is Anonymous" was providing.

Best,

Edward Unthank | Founder, Etumos

[SanfordWhiteman]

But (from Anonymous Lead Upgrades – Under The Hood😞

[Edward_Unthank_]

Exactly right. Because the Pre-Promotion smart campaigns are run first (before smart campaigns run upon promotion), the additional filters will keep any action from happening on the desired smart campaigns.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Guys,

I agree with Edward, this should work (ought to be tested though).

But still far too complex to set up and error prone. We really do not want Marketo users to all have IT architect background in order to understand how to set it up. It should stay manageable by MARKETING people...

One of the key advantages of Marketo over the competition (at least the other high end products) is that it is intended to be operated by marketing teams, and implemented in what I call "Low IT" projects. It would be, IMHO, a very dangerous path to forget about this. I am not saying that IT experts are not needed for the most complex things (integrations, webhooks, JS), but in the very case of simply setting up a series of smart campaigns that should trigger or not when the lead becomes "promoted", it should really not require a level of process logic that is more the apanage of a software engineer than of a Marketing executive.

-Greg

[SanfordWhiteman]

Hmm, I misunderstood which events you were triggering on.*  This seems like a good workaround for now. Nice!

* The order of events in your v1 screenshot isn't the same as the order in the v2 prerelease docs. New Lead >> Fill Out Form (v1) vs. Fill Out Form >> New Lead (v2).  This may be a mere typo as v2 is referred to as "the same order it does currently."