How can I add a Lead to a Campaign based on clicking a link completely external to Marketo?

[Anonymous]

Hey, all. I have a situation in which we want to add a Lead to a specific Campaign when he clicks a specific link that isn't hosted anywhere in Marketo. Specifically, we have some training material that is broken into steps. Once a Lead clicks on the "Go to next step..." link, we want to track that activity and add the Lead into a "Completed Step X" campaign, as well as continuing to the next step in the tutorial.

I've been told that tracking a click for a link OUTSIDE of Marketo using the Javascript Munchkin API means that it CANNOT be used in a Trigger or a Filter. Is that the case, and how would I track that click and filter that Lead into a Campaign otherwise? I know how to do this in ye olde Google Analytics, so it seems like a no-brainer for Marketo. Thanks in advance,

David Rogers

[Anonymous]

David, I cannot help you with this, but this would certianly be something that I would be interested in learning how to do.

[Anonymous]

Here's the deal; you CAN use the "Visits Web Page" trigger to accomplish this, but there are two important points to note. The first being that you will need the Munchkin tracking code on the page in question. The second point being that Marketo needs to be "aware" of the person taking the action. By "aware" I mean that they recipeint being tracked will have to have either submitted a Marketo form, or clicked a link in a Marketo email to set the proper tracking cookies.

Try this; send a Marketo email to anyone taking the training. Require that they click on a link in the email to launch the first step of the training. This will make Marketo aware of who they are and when you use the "Visits Web Page" trigger to mark their completion, it should work. As an added measure, require them to launch the beginning of any training from the email.

I hope this helps. Best of luck.

[Anonymous]

The method Tom mentioned will work for that situation.

An alternative approach is to create a "passthrough" page that is hosted on Marketo. You can effectively track any lead that is cookied by Marketo using this method by setting up a triggered "visits page" campaign. You might need some dev resources to accomplish this.

Here's an example:

1. User clicks link on external landing page that doesn't have munchkin code
2. Link directs to a Marketo landing page that has an instant redirect to the actual page the user is supposed to see
3. User doesn't see the "passthrough page" and lands on the actual page, which doesn't have the munchkin code
4. A "visits web page" triggered campaign is set up to look at the users who land on the page in Step 2

Note that Step 2 needs a redirect which can be accomplished using several methods. The most "white hat" way (strongly recommend this) would be to use a "htaccess" redirect.

Here's an article about that method: https://kb.mediatemple.net/questions/242/How+do+I+redirect+my+site+using+a+.htaccess+file%3F

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the great advice, folks. I have a couple of follow-up questions for your approaches, though: 

• I understand needing to have the Marketo Munchkin code on the page that the Lead visists... To trigger the "Visits Web Page" event, though, are you suggesting that the Lead has to land on that Munchkin-tracked page directly, or can I trigger an event via Javascript?
• What if I have a link that doesn't have a landing page associated with it, like a download link or a Javascript-powered navigation item. Can I still trigger an event that will drop the Lead into a Campaign?
• What about the limitation that I was given about clicked links specifically being omitted from Campaign Triggers or Filters? Has anyone run into that in practicality? Are these the workarounds?

Thanks again, folks.

[Anonymous]

I believe you can trigger "visits web page" via API as well: https://community.marketo.com/MarketoArticle?id=kA050000000Kyr7CAC

[Anonymous]

Thanks, Charlie. That's where we started, actually, but it appears that there's a poorly documented limitation of that API call in that events triggered via the API cannot fire Campaign Triggers or Filters. At least, that's the word we got from support, and our Proof of Concept confirmed the same.

[Anonymous]

I'd like to add leads to a campaign via a sales alert email. That's not possible I believe?