First Conversion Tracking

[Anonymous]

I recently took over the administration of our Marketo Account and have a few questions regarding conversion tracking. While I used Marketo extensively throughout my career, my expertise lies with Hubspot's automation system, which provided the following read-only fields:

• First Conversion Date: Hubspot defined this as the date a lead first filled out a form
• First Conversion Event: Using a list of pre-defined "event" values defined by an administrator (i.e. webinar registration, content download, demo request, etc), Hubspot will record the type of event corresponding to a lead's first conversion
• First Conversion Campaign: This refers to the first campaign (equivalent to a Marketo program) in which a lead converted. Though Marketo has an "Acquisition Program", this field has been largely misused by past users.

*Please note: Hubspot defines "conversion" as any form fill other than unsubscribe. However, I personally would like to customize what a "conversion" means in my flows

For all future incoming leads, I know how I can record all of this information (i.e. if user fills out form, AND # of form fills = 1, update "First Conversion Date" to {{system.date}}), but I am having trouble figuring out how how to do this for EXISTING LEADS. Specifically, I am looking to:

• Record "First Conversion Date" for all existing leads in our database
• Input "First Conversion Event" values to all existing leads based on a set of pre-defined values
• Delete all existing inputs for "Acquisition Program" and update with the actual name of the first program "Success" (if program is deleted, it can just say "Deleted Program")

Appreciate any help that you guys can offer. (I'm hoping you guys will turn me into a Marketo genius)

Thank you

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Update: I realized "# of Form Fills" was another Hubspot thing and not a Marketo field... I now also need to figure out a way to trigger this for all incoming leads as well.

Message was edited by: Christina Wu

[SanfordWhiteman]

For all future incoming leads, I know how I can record all of this information (i.e. if user fills out form, AND # of form fills = 1, update "First Conversion Date" to {{system.date}}), but I am having trouble figuring out how how to do this for EXISTING LEADS. Specifically, I am looking to:

• Record "First Conversion Date" for all existing leads in our database
• Input "First Conversion Event" values to all existing leads based on a set of pre-defined values
• Delete all existing inputs for "Acquisition Program" and update with the actual name of the first program "Success" (if program is deleted, it can just say "Deleted Program")

You can only perform this backfill by doing an Activity Log export using the API, then reupdating the leads.

It's not possible to extract characteristics like the timestamp of the first form fill using a Smart List.

[Anonymous]

That's unfortunate, this information has always been very valuable for my reporting. I also realized I was wrong when I said I could track "# of form fields" -- turns out that was another Hubspot thing...

Thank you Sanford.

[SanfordWhiteman · Accepted solution]

That's unfortunate, this information has always been very valuable for my reporting. I also realized I was wrong when I said I could track "# of form fields"

You mean "# of form fillouts," right?

While this counter is not automatically available on a lead, you can easily add a score field to increment +1 on every fillout.

As for the backfill, it shouldn't be especially hard for a developer because it's a one-time thing (much of the agony with any API integration comes from OAuth token caching, job scheduling, storing incremental checkpoints -- things you don't have to worry about with one-off downloads).

[Anonymous]

Yes, my mistake, I meant “# of forms completed.”

Even if I added that form scoring mechanism, it doesn’t account for any existing lead (with conversions) who comes back and downloads new content, which is common for us.

[SanfordWhiteman]

Even if I added that form scoring mechanism, it doesn’t account for any existing lead (with conversions) who comes back and downloads new content, which is common for us.

Right, that's why you need to do the backfill for existing leads.

But you struck-through the part of your original post that referred to "future incoming leads" even though, for those leads, you do have the ability.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Sanford, I see you’re quite a regular in the Marketo Community. I’m in sort of tricky position since I am taking over an account with over 10 years of data influenced by numerous users. Apart from not having more conversion tracking capabilities, I’m also a little disheartened that I can’t set specific field selectors for custom Marketo fields, as this would have really helped in preventing the influx of random data I am dealing with almost every field. But that’s just a little side rant

Anyway, thanks a lot for your help, and I’m sure we’ll be talking again in another discussion.

[SanfordWhiteman]

Thanks Sanford, I see you’re quite a regular in the Marketo Community.

Without a doubt.

I’m also a little disheartened that I can’t set specific field selectors for custom Marketo fields,

Don't know what you mean by this, but if if you open another thread in Products​ you can explain it further.