How to prevent campaign bloat and sfdc campaign status sync

[Justin_Eichelb1]

Hey!  I am having a bit of a conundrum here at work.  I've got our Customer Success Team at Marketo working on it, but I want to open it up to as many potential helpers as possible.  If anyone has any ideas, feel free to chime in.

The problem revolves around having a call to action in an email, how the url for that CTA is tagged with the SDFDC campaign id, and how the future actions taken are recorded in the SFDC Campaign status.  In all of our solutions, scalability or manual resource requirements are the issue.

Let’s dig deeper.

Consider an email with one CTA to an asset download.

The url has a querystring (term is sc, the value is the sfdc campaign id…i.e. sc=982339487). 

That sc code is then cookied on the machine when the recipient clicks the link and goes to the page of the asset. 

The next step is to add the recipient to the SFDC campaign that matches the id, and give it the status that corresponds to the action taken. In this example, “Asset Download”

Any other actions (form fills, asset downloads, etc) that follow the CTA are tagged with the sc code. 

Those actions are then synced to the same SFDC campaign with the new actions status.  Here is a list of some of the statuses:

•    Trialed

•    EP Trial Requested

•    DNSP Trial Requested

•    WSAT Trial Requested

•    Asset Download

•    System Analyzer Download

•    Request for Contact

So, as you can see, an email recipient can start at Asset Download, take a generic trial and get a “Trialed” status, then download another asset to go back to “Asset Download”.

Of course this is all dependent on the recipient not clearing their cookies, or overwriting the cookie with a new sc id (clicking another call to action with a different sc id).

Our sc id process is to look in the URL for a new sc code, if none, look at the cookie for one present, then use a default as last option.

The SFDC campaign statuses are pretty static, but there are 10 statuses for responded. I’ve detailed 7 of them above.

This means there are about 10 (could reduce with a  little bit of grouping, but not much) smart campaigns in Marketo to track each CTA that gets put in an email.  That’s quite a problem on its own. 

Every CTA in an email has these statuses.  And a member can go between them depending on their actions.  And in one email, there may  be multiple CTA’s.  Multiple.

I need a solution to capture the action taken (form fill, asset download, etc.)  I need to get the sc code.  I need to add the person to the sfdc campaign with the proper status. I can’t have 7-10 smart campaigns for every CTA, for every email, for every program. 

X# of programs * Y# of emails * Z# of CTAs * 10 smartcampaigns = too many smart campaigns.

I hope this is enough info to explain the process.  If there are any more questions, I’ll be happy to answer.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Justin,

I would simply add also the status to the URL as well and add it to a cookie too. Then I would run a Marketo form in the background (JS) when the person lands on the asset page. In this form, I would read the 2 cookies (SFDC campaign ID, SFDC campaign member status) in fields in the from. The 2 values would get added to 2 dedicated lead fields. Then you can add the lead to SFDC using the technique below:

Add to Salesforce Campaign Problem

-Greg

[Justin_Eichelb1]

Thanks Gregoire,  I will be proposing this solution to our team. This was very helpful.

[Josh_Hill13 · Accepted solution]

Why are you treating each SFDC Campaign as a mini funnel?

The SFDC Campaign should align to One Asset or One Channel using the parameter method you describe.

Funnel Statuses should be tracked separately.

But that's just a general point. Greg's solution should work. I'd be careful about using Person is Created in high volume systems.

[Justin_Eichelb1]

Thanks Josh,

I agree with your concern, although I look at it more like a quasi multi-touch attribution system.  It was setup before my time.

I would prefer this method.  Let me know if you agree.

Parent campaign contains all Marketo Program Members and the statuses match the channel statuses.

All child campaigns are used for tracking assets and/or promotion methods.  the statuses for child campaigns would simply be Member and Responded.

If I can convince the team to use the method I described, I think our lives will be much easier.  However, it's going to wreak havoc on our reporting.  I'm trying to build a case for it.  Any thoughts?

DM me if you think you can help our org.  This is a big issue, we are putting things on hold while we solve for this.  And I'm now getting the green light to look at the SFDC side of things.