Using Munchkin on Multiple Domains

John_Clark1
Level 10
Level 10

You can use Munchkin on any page you like, but the thing to remember if you have multiple products or divisions in your company is that Munchkin cannot automatically track a lead across domains.  This only applies to top level domains though, not sub-domains.  So, a lead could be tracked through

www.MyProduct.com

http://www.myproduct.com/and

pages.MyProduct.com

but couldn't automatically be tracked through

www.MyProduct.com

and

www.MyOtherProduct.com

So how does munchkin keep track of your leads?

When a lead visits any munchkin tracked page on a domain they've never visited, the system will cookie their browser and create an anonymous lead record in your database.  This allows Marketo to begin gathering and saving information about the lead and their activities even before you know who they are.  It also allows you to begin scoring the lead record, or running them through any other campaigns you might be using to evaluate leads.  Keep in mind that anonymous leads cannot go through all flow steps though(Send Email for instance), and they cannot be made members or a program.  You can see messages about this in the results of any campaign where anonymous leads have qualified for the smart list but couldn't be processed through some steps.

Tracking anonymous leads is a bit like having someone come into your store and look around without really saying or buying anything.  For this reason, it's a good idea to give them a way to tell you who they are.  The main way of course, is by giving them a form they can fill out, which will then convert their anonymous lead record into a known lead record.  Now you can really start to market to them, and you have all of their past activities to see what they've been up to!

Next we'll look at how a lead is tracked if they go to one of your other munchkin tracked pages on another domain.

If our lead from above visits another domain that is being tracked with your munchkin code, the munchkin there will track the lead as anonymous to begin with.  The same process applies to this new anonymous record.  All activity will be recorded, and it can still be scored and acted upon by some flow steps.

If the lead identifies themselves on the new domain by filling out a form using the same email address they previously used on the original domain, then munchkin is able to merge the anonymous record with the original record.  But wait!  There's another way!

Leads can also identify themselves on a new domain by clicking links to that domain in emails that you've sent from Marketo. Each link in your email is wrapped with tracking information specific to the lead the email is sent to, so you can use Marketo to send out invites for known leads to your new store(domain).  By doing this you're saying, "Hey, we know you from our first store, now come visit our new store and let us get to know you there too."  As with the form fill-out, once they click the tracked link Marketo can merge the known and anonymous records and begin tracking the lead's activities in both domains under a single record in Marketo. 

This same process would need to happen for every domain you're using your Munchkin on, in order to track each lead in all domains under a single record.  What we usually recommend is a tagging campaign for each of your domains where you send email(s) from Marketo with a link for each domain. You'd also want to have a form on each domain that leads could fill out.

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33 Comments
SanfordWhiteman
Level 10 - Community Moderator

We want to find an alternative solution for looking at user activity, if such exists.

You can do a background form post (which, confusingly, has much the same effect as associateLead).

SanfordWhiteman
Level 10 - Community Moderator

The only way to associate these leads across domains is to use custom JavaScript for cross-domain communication, which is complex to manage correctly (it is something you should hire a professional developer for).

Or, of course, you can stop using IFRAMEs and move to embedded forms. Why are these IFRAMEd now?

Stepan_Egorov
Level 2

Sanford Whiteman wrote:

The only way to associate these leads across domains is to use custom JavaScript for cross-domain communication, which is complex to manage correctly (it is something you should hire a professional developer for).

We actually have a developer and capacity to implement, just need more clear understanding. Do you by chance have a link to documentation / explanation of how such solution works?

Sanford Whiteman wrote:

Or, of course, you can stop using IFRAMEs and move to embedded forms. Why are these IFRAMEd now?

Mainly because of the form pre-fill, conversion rate stats collection, and (a possible use for us) progressive profiling, which are unavailable in embedded forms, see here: Marketo-Forms.png

I know there's a workaround for form pre-fill, maybe there're also ones for the latter two?

SanfordWhiteman
Level 10 - Community Moderator

We actually have a developer and capacity to implement, just need more clear understanding. Do you by chance have a link to documentation / explanation of how such solution works?

Well, cross-frame communication should already be understood by a developer with the requisite experience... there isn't really space or time to rehash all the related concepts here on the Community.

nd (a possible use for us) progressive profiling, which are unavailable in embedded forms

Progressive Profiling works, and has always worked, with embedded forms. Same with Known Visitor HTML. (That graphic is blatantly wrong and shouldn't be in circulation.)

Tracking conversions by LP can be done in many other ways -- obviously, if you're using non-Marketo LPs, you can't track using Marketo LP reports, but any other analytics package can be used (Clicky, GA, etc.).

The fundamental feature gap is Pre-Fill, which does not work natively for security reasons but can be added by a skilled developer (not by using the REST API, which merely replaces the security issue with a DoS vulnerability).

Stepan_Egorov
Level 2

As I see from other forum topics, the pre-fill workaround doesn't seem to be public. We'll try to look for a solution, thank you!

SanfordWhiteman
Level 10 - Community Moderator

Known record

  1. Visits domain A and then visits domain B
  2. Munchkin will track this cross-domain web activity

Only if they're separately known on both domains, i.e. they click 2 separate links, one to each domain, or fill out one form on each domains.

Browsers will not share any cookies across domains that do not share a private suffix: www.example.net and www.example.com do not share a private suffix and require separate association as they will have separate cookies; www.example.net and pages.example.net do share a private suffix and will share the same cookie, provided the cookie was set at the example.net level.

Michael_Langell
Level 4

Thanks Sanford.  You are right after some confirmed testing.  Re-reading, this article looks correct.  Going to delete my comment

Dominick_Doyle1
Level 1

Sanford, could you help with the format of the code that needs to be added to the exit link please?  An example of it used in a URL would be great, thanks!

SanfordWhiteman
Level 10 - Community Moderator

In this case I was talking about simply appending the (URL-encoded) cookie value to the exit link:

https://other.example.com/?_mkto_trk=id%3A123-ABC-456%26token%3A_mch-codepen.io-1554829392908-12345

But that's only the exit part. You then have to use that value on the other site.

Brian_Klein
Level 1

Sanford, we have the munchkin tracking code on both domains. If we were to append the url encoded cookie value from domain A to the exit link to domain B, what would we need to do on domain B to ensure tracking?

 

Above you said " But that's only the exit part. You then have to use that value on the other site.". How would you implement the value on Domain B?