Form fillout activity

[Anonymous]

Is there a way to expose the date of activity for form fillouts?

We created a custom field to capture via token the date when a person fills out a form. We've found, however, that our own customers have been filling out lead forms erroneously which has polluted the data.

The ultimate question we want to answer is: how many leads did we get through form fill outs in e.g. January of 2015? If there were 300 such form completion, but from February 2015 to January 2016, 200 of those people again filled out the forms, then the custom field we have for capturing dates of form fill outs would get overridden and say we only had 100 leads in January. The historical data is lost.

With the date of activity field we could capture the *first* instance of when they filled out a form, rather than the last.

[Anonymous]

We initially used the custom field approach, but that didn't work for us. This is because our leads can fill out forms multiple times per year (such as a returning lead x months later), and we are interested with each instance of dates (as opposed to the original or most recent).

Our solution was to tie in Google Analytics/Adwords into the submit button, which date/time stamps each form fill out regardless of the number of times they return. In essence, I can see if "jane doe" filled out a form in January and again in April. Marketo doesn't offer an adequate solution for this.

[SanfordWhiteman]

We initially used the custom field approach, but that didn't work for us. This is because our leads can fill out forms multiple times per year (such as a returning lead x months later), and we are interested with each instance of dates (as opposed to the original or most recent).

That's what history fields are for -- they don't get overwritten but rather appended.

In essence, I can see if "jane doe" filled out a form in January and again in April. Marketo doesn't offer an adequate solution for this.

What exactly are the parameters you want to pass to a report? Having trouble imagining a GA-based solution for Known Leads that could possibly be usable at scale (unless you are also using GA UserID and bringing things together in a separate analytics database).

[Anonymous]

We were interested in counting the number of inquiries. In a simple scenario, suppose the same 1 lead fills out a form every week for the month of January.

1. If I setup a report for January based on a token/custom-field relationship, Marketo would reveal 1 inquiry (be it original datestamp, most recent, or other). It would not export 4 rows for a single lead in a csv with each date (or date1, date2, date3, date4 columns).
2. If I do setup a list querying for this information, I would need to alter my filter 31 times for the 31 days to find out when. While I would then know the 4 dates/inquiries, this is not scaleable.

As you guessed, our solution was to join ga uid and a few other dimensions/metrics into another database alongside Marketo; We can now see the known lead from marketo as well as the number of times they interacted with a form and, more importantly, all the associated dates en masse.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

What you would need is this:

Vote

-Greg

[Robb_Barrett]

Easy method:

Create a campaign triggered upon form fill out, will change the program status of the lead to "Fills Out Form" or something more relevant.

Now, after you get a few form fills, go into the Members tab. You'll see the member's name, you'll see "Changed Program Status" and the date is happened.  Voila!

[Robb_Barrett]

If you have a SC to track fills and set status you can look in the Results for the SC and filter by Fills Out Form. 

[Grégoire_Miche2 · Accepted solution]

Hi Loic,

you can create a smart list with a "fill out form" filter and set some date range (click the "add constraint" link and add the "date of activity" constraint.

Now if you do no want this to reproduce, you just have to go to admin -> field management, select the date custom field, then "field actions" -> "block field update" and block the update for form fillouts, flow change data value and lead detail update (and other sources, as you wish).

This will prevent anyone from tempering with the value in the field if there is one, but will not prevent the field to be entered a value if it is empty. Therefore, it will guarantee that you keep the first value in the field.

-Greg

[Anonymous]

I've marked your answer as helpful, but it help for getting the exact date of the activity. I would have to do a date range for every single day for e.g. 2016 to reveal the specific date (not just the month) that a person filled out a form.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Loic,

With smart lists, yes.

Another technique is to create a compound formula field with the following formula: email + " - "+filled out form date, or last name + " " + company name + " - "+filled out form date (filled out form date being your custom field)

Then you create a lead performance report, you set a smart list to filter only the lead that have filled out the form and you group by the formula field. The report will give you a line for each lead.

The last, and most powerful feature, would be to use RCE, if you have it.

-Greg

[Erin_Cavanaugh]

I have the same question as Loic. Our business team is requesting to know the exact dates that someone filled out a particular form on a particular page. The Smart List method doesn't seem like the right way to go because you'd have to keep changing your date range for each day. I saw your response below:

Another technique is to create a compound formula field with the following formula: email + " - "+filled out form date, or last name + " " + company name + " - "+filled out form date (filled out form date being your custom field)

Then you create a lead performance report, you set a smart list to filter only the lead that have filled out the form and you group by the formula field. The report will give you a line for each lead.

I'm not too sure what a compound formula field is or how to build it.

Loic: Where did you end up with this?

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Erin,

Admin->field management, the add field, type = formula.

Then: Create and Use a Concatenated String (Formula) Field - Marketo Docs - Product Docs

-Greg

[Erin_Cavanaugh]

Thanks for getting back to me Greg. I'm still confused.

I created a Custom Date field:

And I created a Form Date field:

I'm sort of staring at the Compute Formula Value screen blankly. I'm not really sure what to put in here as my formula.

I'm afraid the below doesn't mean much to me.

email + " - "+filled out form date, or last name + " " + company name + " - "+filled out form date

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Erin,

You will need to get the tokens for each of these. Typically email -> {{lead.email address}}, custom date -> {{lead.custom date}}

then the formula value will be {{lead.email address}} - {{lead.custom date}}. No need to insert a choice.

Why have you blocked the updates of your custom date field? You will not be able to add the date to it.

-Greg

[Erin_Cavanaugh]

OK, I added my tokens in and created a Lead Performance Report, but when I click on the Report tab I am getting an 'Error Running Report' message.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Erin,

Start with displaying a couple of leads in Marketo UI and look at the "form date" field. Is it displaying correctly? You can also add it to your Marketo view.

If it is displaying correctly in the lead page, then, the problem is in the report.

-Greg

[Erin_Cavanaugh]

I'm not seeing the custom date after the dash so I guess my custom date field isn't set up correctly.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Erin,

How is the "custom date" field populated? What value does it show on that same lead? Try to update it manually on one lead and see whether the Form Date is correct. It will prove that the formula works.

Now, Marketo may no like the idea of concatenating a string with a date field, and that might be the issue. You might want to set the "Custom Date" field to be a string field instead.

-Greg