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Re: Clear UTM source field?

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Anonymous
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Clear UTM source field?

We have a field in marketo for "utm_source" to track when people come in from Social vs emails vs newsletters, etc. and then put them in different sfdc campaigns, etc.

And we have multiple smart campaigns with varying flows which are triggered on form fill out and 'utm_source' being a certain value (Social, email, etc). Then I have a catch-all smart campaign for when people fill out the form without a utm source in the url, this one is triggered based on them NOT having one of the preset utm sources. (form fill + utm_source IT NOT Social, Email, Sponsored Newsletter, etc)

My concern is I don’t want people who have previously come in through a certain source to incorrectly go through the wrong flow in the future if they come in through a page without a source parameter in the url. (They should go into the catch-all for that, but will incorrectly go through social,etc since they were previously tagged as such)

My question is, should I have a campaign that goes through and clears 'utm_source' regularly (nightly)?

Is there a better way to be doing this?

Thanks

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SanfordWhiteman
Level 10 - Community Moderator

Re: Clear UTM source field?

"Querystring is empty" constraint on that trigger instead does exactly what I need it to since it bases it on the current querystring rather than what's saved in the utm_source field.

I would use [not contains] "utm_source" because you will get hits on your site that have query strings, even if they don't have "utm_source".

I could just use querystring constraints and not need the form to pull querystring and populate the hidden field as part of it's function, right?

Sure, if that's the only place you'd need the query param (i.e. you don't need to store the exact current or historical value anywhere, you just use it for lead routing).

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SanfordWhiteman
Level 10 - Community Moderator

Re: Clear UTM source field?

My question is, should I have a campaign that goes through and clears 'utm_source' regularly (nightly)?

No, just clear the utm_source (really should be called Last utm_source for clarity) when the conversion isn't associated with a current or recent utm_source in the query string.

Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Clear UTM source field?

Thanks Sanford Whiteman, this actually led me down the path to fixing my issue.

I was using "utm_source IS NOT xxx1,xxx2,xxx3" as another filter in the smart campaign after the form fill out trigger, but using the "Querystring is empty" constraint on that trigger instead does exactly what I need it to since it bases it on the current querystring rather than what's saved in the utm_source field.

I actually now realize I could be doing this for all of the other smart campaigns that trigger based on form fill trigger + utm_source filter. Currently I was having the form pull the querystring into a hidden utm_source field and using that to inform which smart campaign to run through. I could just use querystring constraints and not need the form to pull querystring and populate the hidden field as part of it's function, right?

SanfordWhiteman
Level 10 - Community Moderator

Re: Clear UTM source field?

"Querystring is empty" constraint on that trigger instead does exactly what I need it to since it bases it on the current querystring rather than what's saved in the utm_source field.

I would use [not contains] "utm_source" because you will get hits on your site that have query strings, even if they don't have "utm_source".

I could just use querystring constraints and not need the form to pull querystring and populate the hidden field as part of it's function, right?

Sure, if that's the only place you'd need the query param (i.e. you don't need to store the exact current or historical value anywhere, you just use it for lead routing).

Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Clear UTM source field?

Good catch. Links from a marketo email would have the marketo querystring.

I do currently only use it for routing, yes.

Is there any worry of leads being missed if for whatever reason someone or something slightly changes the querystring? Example if it gets truncated for whatever reason so [utm_source=CoolSponsoredNewsletter] becomes [utm_source=CoolSponsoredNewsl]. This would not get picked up by the "CoolSponsoredNewsletter" smart campaign, nor the "Not Contains utm_source" constraint. Thanks.

SanfordWhiteman
Level 10 - Community Moderator

Re: Clear UTM source field?

Example if it gets truncated for whatever reason so [utm_source=CoolSponsoredNewsletter] becomes [utm_source=CoolSponsoredNewsl]. This would not get picked up by the "CoolSponsoredNewsletter" smart campaign, nor the "Not Contains utm_source" constraint. Thanks.

Def would not worry about somebody editing the URL -- at that point all bets are off.