Acquisition Programs for Marketo Embed Forms

[michellechopin]

Happy Friday, Community!

For leads that fill out a form associated with a program, I've always assumed that Marketo will assign that program as the Acquisition Program (with associated date). However, upon reading Setting Acquisition Best Practices, it seems that might not be the case for embedded Marketo forms (while we have some Marketo landing pages, our primary use of forms is embedded on our website).

If, indeed, embedded Marketo forms do not automatically set this and we have to include a Change Data Value Step in our smart campaigns:

1. Is it safe to assume that Acquisition Program field updates are blocked automatically in Marketo? Given that this is a system only field, I can't see details for it in Field Management
2. Should Acquisition Program Name be set up to block field updates? Or does the block on the Acquisition Program field cover this related field as well?
3. Is it worthwhile including a condition on the Change Data Value Step to denote "if Acquisition Program/Name is empty" before setting the appropriate program data?

We've never set up that flow step on any of our existing programs and we're in the process of migrating to a new Marketo instance so I want to make sure that we're doing everything as properly as possible out the gate (and update our new instance ASAP).

Appreciate your insights and feedback!

Michelle 😀

[Michael_Florin]

If a person submits a form that is on a landing page that is in a Marketo program, the person become a program member automatically and this program is also set as the acquisition program if the person is new to Marketo.

The program member also get this "Acquired By" icon.

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Now you are saying that this is not the case when the form is embedded, aka not on a Marketo landing page? I think you're right, but I would need to test that. But yes, in that case you'd need a flow step that sets the acquisition program. Acquisition Date is set automatically.

To your questions:

1. No, that is not so. You can override the Acquisition Program with a Smart Campaign:

2. No, I don't think that's wise or necessary. Rather do 3)

3. Yes, use that constraint. 

[Darshil_Shah1 · Accepted solution]

Hi @michellechopin, yes, people created via embedded forms on non-Marketo pages won't have their Acquisition Program (AP) and Acquisition Program Name (APN) set. If you noticed, there are 2 fields available in the flow step condition (AP and APN) - 

Since AP is a system field, it's not available to block field updates in the field management, unlike the APN field, which is available to block field updates in the field management section.

APN can be used in the conditions, but not for setting value (you're not able to select APN in the CDV flow step for assigning program names). For setting the value you'd need to use the AP field. You assign value to the AP, and Marketo takes care of updating the APN and Acquisition Date fields.

Should Acquisition Program Name be set up to block field updates? Or does the block on the Acquisition Program field cover this related field as well?

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Block updates on the APN field only if you'd not like to update non-empty values in the AP/APN fields instance wide.

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Is it worthwhile including a condition on the Change Data Value Step to denote "if Acquisition Program/Name is empty" before setting the appropriate program data?

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Yes, as Michael suggested, use it if you don't want to override the existing value, especially if you don't have field updates blocked.

Hope this is helpful. Let us know if you have questions.

[michellechopin]

Thank you both, @Darshil_Shah1 and @Michael_Florin! 

This all makes perfect sense and I will admit, I had NO idea that leads coming through embedded Marketo forms didn't get an acquisition program assigned - it definitely explains why so many of our leads don't have it (outside of lead list uploads).

With both of your responses in mind/helping, my plan is to:

• NOT block field updates on the Acquisition Program Name so that we don't cause issues adding it in the first place
• Add a Change Data Value step in all our future smart campaigns to assign the Acquisition Program to the current one ONLY if it's empty

Many thanks for your expertise 😀

[Darshil_Shah1]

Sounds great, @michellechopin! So glad to be of help with your question.