Email validation in Marketo through Javascript

[Phillip_Wild]

Hi Community!

We've been finding that unfortunately Marketo forms have pretty crappy email validation on them as default. Using the "Email" field means that a user is only required to enter an email with an "@" symbol - they don't need a period "." This means we get a bunch of junk emails that fail validation in our other systems.

Here's the code my developer gave me to solve this:

<script>

  MktoForms2.loadForm("//app-ab06.marketo.com", "110-AIL-152", 1330, function(form){

      form.onValidate(function(){

        // Get the values

        var vals = form.vals();

        var re = new RegExp(/^([\w-]+(?:\.[\w-]+)*)@((?:[\w-]+\.)*\w[\w-]{0,66})\.([a-z]{2,6}(?:\.[a-z]{2})?)$/i);

        if(re.test(vals.Email)){

          form.submittable(true);

        }

        else{

          form.submittable(false);

          var emailElem = form.getFormElem().find("#Email");

          form.showErrorMessage("Please enter a valid email format", emailElem);

        }

      });

    })

</script>

If I was using a "self-guided" landing page, I know how to implement this - simply create a HTML element and drop this script in the HTML code section. But with a guided landing page, it doesn't seem to work.

I've tried two ways - dumping it at the bottom of the raw code (after "editing draft" on my template), below where the other scripts are, and secondly, dropping it into a section via the landing page editor (much like I would with a "self-guided" page). Neither seems to work.

Any ideas? Is there an easier way to do this? I know you can "mask input" with fields in Marketo forms - is this a better way of doing it? Will there be disadvantages if I use this field type instead of "Email" field type?

Thanks in advance!

Phil

[Josh_Hill13]

Sanford Whiteman​ has probably posted on this before. Check developers.marketo.com too.

[SanfordWhiteman]

Thanks, Josh.

Phillip​, your developer's regex is broken: don't use it.  Greg's is broken, too.  Courtney's is a little better, but it's still going to barf on perfectly valid emails.

There's nothing surprising about this, as it's been known for a long time that writing a single regex to catch all valid emails is hopeless. Cool as regexes are, they can't solve everything.  You would not find a mail server -- a server which is actually responsible for delivering email -- using a single regex, so there's no reason to think that you can reduce it to a one-liner and accurately reflect the real world.

Here, for example, is the local mailbox code parser from sendmail (which still doesn't support the full set of possible addresses):

The bottom line, if you don't want to falsely turn away leads, is you need to either [a] validate only the domain and not try to apply incomplete intelligence about the the local-part (mailbox); [b] use a true verification service that connects to the remote mailserver and sees if the mailbox exists; or [c] use a JS validator that's written to the spec, meaning it's not a regex.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Sanford,

Sorry, I just copied Phillip's regex, just fixed the error on how it was integrated in the template

-Greg

[SanfordWhiteman]

Gotcha, I wasn't blaming anyone anyway... it just doesn't make sense to take a risk on the front end, since the truth is we don't actually care about good-looking/average-looking addresses. We care about real-world *mailable* addresses. And there's no better place to apply Postel's Law than one of Postel's brainchildren, SMTP.

[Grégoire_Miche2 · Accepted solution]

Hi Phillip,

Try this at the bottom of the guided LP template:

<script>

MktoForms2.whenReady(function (form) {

      form.onValidate(function(){

        // Get the values

        var vals = form.vals();

        var re = new RegExp(/^([\w-]+(?:\.[\w-]+)*)@((?:[\w-]+\.)*\w[\w-]{0,66})\.([a-z]{2,6}(?:\.[a-z]{2})?)$/i);

        if(re.test(vals.Email)){

          form.submittable(true);

        }

        else{

          form.submittable(false);

          var emailElem = form.getFormElem().find("#Email");

          form.showErrorMessage("Please enter a valid email format", emailElem);

        }

      });

});

</script>

-Greg

[Phillip_Wild]

Hi Gregoire

Thanks, your code works perfectly! While I understand it may not be perfection for validation, it's going to fix the problem in the short term.

Phil

[Anonymous]

Hi Greg,

I used it in my landing page template but it is not working

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Faizal,

Better reopen a new thread, you will get more visibility and more answers.

And provide more info, if possible the page URL.

-Greg

[Anonymous]

Hi Greg,

this is the url : Download

let me know your thoughts on this