Facebook Lead Ads & Lead Source (Person Source)

[John_Danielson1]

We are currently running a couple of Facebooks ads that include forms that will sync into our Marketo instance. I noticed that when someone completes one of the FB forms, their Person Source is changed to Facebook Lead Ads. Some of the people filling out these forms are already in our database and have lead source that is getting overwritten. I tried to update the Flow in our campaign to only update the lead source on new records, but it appears that the source is getting updated anyway.

Flow step to update Person Source to Facebook Lead Ads if SFDC Type is empty (i.e. not a lead or contact in SFDC):

However, this lead had its lead source updated even though it was already a Contact in our SFDC instance. I've highlighted the line where the Person Source was changed from Web (General) to Facebook Lead Ads. The other highlighted is the flow step to update the Person Source, which was skipped since the SFDC Type [Person] for this lead was not empty.

Is there any way to block the update on the Person Source/Lead Source field for people who complete a form through the FB lead ad integration?

John

[Will_Raleigh]

If  you go to Admin > Field management > Field Actions > Block Field Updates

...that should allow  you to set the field so that it always retains its original value.

[Eric_Salamon1]

Couldn't you also find the rules that update the source and put a choice in place if source value is empty update xyz else do nothing? I would only advise blocking the fields if you are 100% sure that you won't make a mistake, or haven't made one.

[John_Danielson1]

Hey Eric,

Sorry for the delay in reply. I actually tried something similar based on if they were already synced into our SFDC instance (If SDFC Type is empty, change source to FB Lead Ads), but that wasn't working. I think your suggestion (If Person Source is empty, change source to FB lead ads) might actually be a better option.  I just made the change, so hopefully it works. Thanks for the help!

John

[John_Danielson1]

The update didn't work. The change is still happening, but it's not from the flow. You can actually see in the Activity Log that it skipped and did nothing for that flow steps because the Person Source was not empty, but the change occurred anyway.

I guess I just have to monitor these and make sure to change them back. I'm not even sure blocking field updates would work.

[Eric_Salamon1]

@John Danielson,

Sorry for my delay. I just thought of something. In you SFDC instance, is the field for primary campaign a pick list? If it is you may need to add that source type to the pick list, so that it will allow the change. Pick lists are a bit of a pain in that light.

[Jamie_Hunter]

John,

We ran into this issue with both Facebook and LinkedIn Adbridge programs. I submitted this idea for LinkedIn AdBridge campaigns: so feel free to vote for it.

Unfortunately, there's no getting around writing Facebook Lead Gen to a field, however, you can define which field this value is written to in the Launchpoint field mapping section as seen in the screenshot below. In our use case, we wanted to write 'Paid Advertising' as the lead source instead of 'Facebook Lead Gen'. To accomplish this, we needed to create a new field (called Ad Bridge Source in this example) and map this in the Launchpoint field mapping section to Lead Source (Facebook field). From there, your campaign logic can write the desired value. In your case, you might want the flow logic to say IF Lead source is empty, then attribute Lead source value as Facebook Lead Gen.

I hope this helps!

Best,
Jamie

[Anna_Leary3]

This is super helpful - thank you!

[Anonymous]

@John Danielson,

Were you able to find a resolution to this problem? I'm having the same issue on my end and can't seem to find a work around..

[Jamie_Hunter]

Hi Nick,

I just replied with a workaround solution above. Hope this helps!

Best,
Jamie