During our recent implementation of the BrightTALK integration for Marketo, there were a few things that weren’t immediately obvious or contained specifically in documentation. If you’re considering or embarking on your own integration adventure, hopefully these will help you out!
BrightTALK Feed vs BrightTALK Central
There are two main areas of BrightTALK – My Feed and BrightTALK Central. BrightTALK Central is where the integration is set up and managed ongoing. If you’re directed to My Feed first, you can access BrightTALK Central from the link at the top right of the screen.
Note: If you shrink the screen too much, the uppermost menu disappears.
Two Access Points for Marketo Integration Settings
Once in BrightTALK Central, the Marketo integration/settings panel appears in two places.
- On/under the Home menu option (top of the left rail), in the Connectors tile:
- On/under the Settings in Content > Channels > Company Name:
BrightTALK’s Activity Type Field Does NOT Update Program Status
There are three fields that are required for the integration to work, one of which is Webcast Activity - Activity Type – this is on the Person record so cannot be used for Program Status updates. Program Statuses are managed by the Map Program Statuses section in the initial setup, except No Show*.
*The No Show campaign must be set up as a standalone Smart Campaign in Marketo – it should be run after the webinar is finished and the sync has run/completed (BrightTALK includes this in its integration documentation).
Newly Created BrightTALK Webinars Can Take Time to Show Up
When testing or setting up live webinars in BrightTALK, it can take several minutes for the webinar to show in the Content list and also in the Marketo Programs section of the Connector (assuming everything has been set up correctly). I waited well over 5 minutes for my test webinar to show up and panicked that I had done something wrong – turns out I needed to wait a couple more!
Connect Webinars to Marketo in the Connector
It might seem like webinars are connected to Marketo from the Content list because each webinar has a “Manage” button, but this is to manage the webinar details (thumbnail image, description, time, etc.). To connect a webinar to Marketo, click Connectors from the left rail or click “Manage” from the Marketo tile on the Home Page.
Once there, click Marketo Programs from the third gray dropdown and select “Connect” to the appropriate webinar (you must use the exact naming convention from your Marketo webinar program). You’ll see a green “Connected” label on your webinar when complete.
FastPass Only Works from Marketo Emails
While a big selling point for BrightTALK is that it eliminates the form fill for interested registrants, there are a couple of caveats:
- Only Leads that register through a Marketo email link use the FastPass feature. This pulls data from Marketo into a form that the lead doesn’t see and sends them to the BrightTALK webinar page with a confirmation message that they’re registered.
- Leads that register through another method (i.e. through social media, content syndication, or via your website) must fill out a short, 4-field form regardless of whether they are in your Marketo database.
Both options sign the lead up for a BrightTALK account, which will allow them to access any webinar in the BrightTALK ecosystem, including others in your content library.
The Data Sync is Based on Setup Time
We use the Hourly sync option as it’s the fastest available, but it’s important to note that the sync doesn’t happen at a set/standard time in the tool. It’s based on the time that you completed your set up – for us, it’s 17 minutes past the hour, and I rely heavily on the timer in BrightTALK to remind me/let me know when the next sync is going to happen.
Keep your sync time in mind for things like your No Show campaign – you’ll need to make sure your webinar is over and your sync has completed to update Attendee statuses before you run the No Show campaign in Marketo. It looks for anyone left with a Registered status and changes them to No Show, so if the main sync hasn’t happened from BrightTALK before then, you’ll end up with your webinar looking like no one attended!
I hope these are helpful and if you find any more tips and tricks for the BrightTALK-Marketo integration, please be sure to comment below so others can find it!
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