How do YOU track Email Conversions?

[Anonymous]

I've been using Marketo since 2014, and I've always tracked Email Conversions the same way -- by using a Smart Campaign that listens for one of 3 actions: A change to "MQL" field value for Contact Status, the same for Lead Status, or the lead being Added to an Opportunity. The other filter I add is "was sent email within 7 days" -- that way I know what email they converted from. However, this has failed me as we we have other email sends within 7 days that the lead could have had any of these triggers fire for, while being sent the same email within 7 days.

So, for example:

Lead gets sent Nurture Email 1 and does not reply to the email, so no conversion.

But, 4 days later, Lead receives Webinar Follow Up Email and replies to the email, so our Lead Qualification Specialist marks them as an MQL by changing their Lead/Contact Status. Ding! Conversion for Email 1 AND Webinar Follow Up Email, since both were within 7 days.

How do YOU all track your email conversions?

[Darrell_Alfons2]

These are great ideas!

We typically have based it by the program type/program success, so if a lead downloads the piece of content we have sent via email, or if they have watched the video we were highlighting, registered for a webinar, or RSVP to an event.

I would like to try the change in status/add to opp.

[Anonymous]

I'm glad it's helpful! I guess it's a bit different with our business -- we only qualify a lead as an MQL if they request a demo of our product. So, that can be a Form Fill on our website, etc. OR it can be a reply to one of our "rep style" emails. If we ask if they'd like to see a demo in the email, and they say yes, that would be a conversion. So, tracking that is the tricky part -- I can't have my reps manually mark them a conversion (no access to Marketo) so I have to think of a workaround.

[Andy_Varshneya1]

I would suggest changing "was sent email" to "clicked email" or at least "opened email" so you can track a little more of influence or causation rather than just correlation as you're currently getting with "was sent email".

[Anonymous]

Hi Andy -- I thought of using "opened email" instead of "was sent email", but, Marketo does not track Opens very well. Opens are tracked using an invisible image tag, and Marketo only marks the email as Opened if that image tag is downloaded by truly opening the email. However, the majority of our database uses Outlook, and with Outlook you can download and view images in the Preview Pane without having to actually Open the email. So, we actually get more Opens than Marketo tracks.

A conversion either happens by a lead replying to an email, or by a lead filling out a form on a non-Marketo LP that we link to in our email. Do you think the tracking would still work?

[Andy_Varshneya1]

Hmm in that case, are you using URL parameters to track sources? If so, you could set it to filled out form is not <unsubscribe> and referrer contains utm_medium=email, or something along those lines.

This is assuming the form is embedded on a page with your Munchkin code on it.

[Anonymous]

That works for form fills, but another mode of conversion is when a lead replies to our emails personally. We send faux-rep emails that ask the lead if they'd like a demo, and if they reply, they are converted to MQL.

[Andy_Varshneya1]

Yeah, I think that'll require you manually pushing them to MQL unless you build out a series of integrations by leveraging Zapier.

You'd have to setup a Gmail account that these replies are going to, then have a Zapier integration watching that inbox and firing off a workflow in SFDC to update the lead info, which can then either have the MQL data updated there or have the SFDC workflow/field update trigger a smart campaign in Marketo to update the MQL data. Either way, it'll be messy.

[Dan_Stevens_]

Opens are tracked using an invisible image tag, and Marketo only marks the email as Opened if that image tag is downloaded by truly opening the email. However, the majority of our database uses Outlook, and with Outlook you can download and view images in the Preview Pane without having to actually Open the email.

Hi Sarah - viewing the email in the Outlook preview pane will also trigger an open (as long as images are turned on).  The only thing that matters is that the image is able to ping back to the Marketo server that it's been retrieved/viewed.  Even with images turned off, if the user clicks on a link within the email, that too will register an "open" - since the user had to open the email in order to click on it - and Marketo takes this logic into consideration when providing the OPEN numbers.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Sarah,

You should move this question to Products where it belongs. Marketing Central is for generic marketing questions. Read this for more info.

YOU could have a non tracked form that the sales would fill out each time a lead request a demo. It would take 1 minutes for them to do it and it would count as a regular form fillout for the lead.

-Greg