How to use Marketo to track direct mail campaigns?

[Dan_Stevens_]

We're about to launch a direct mail campaign within a single account to the company's top executives.  The end-goal will be to drive them to a Marketo landing page.  How can we track this activity?  Our desire was to not use a form to make it as easy as possible to obtain the content.  Apparently PURLs are out of the question since they offer no tracking capabilties.  Would love to learn how others have tracked their direct mail campaigns in the past.

[Anonymous]

Hey Dan,

You can set up a trigger campaign for those you send the email. The trigger would be "Visits Webpage" and the filter would be "Was Sent Email." Their munchkin code will be able to track their behavior and if they visit a webpage, or one in particular, you can send an alert, add them to a list, create a follow up task, etc. 

If this strategy is something that you will continue to use, I would recommend creating a channel for it where visiting a webpage is the success.

Just one approach!

[Dan_Stevens_]

Thanks Jeff.  But email is not a component here.  We'll be sending the execs a box containing some branded items, including a flash drive that will have an HTML file on it that will direct them to a Marketo landing page should they click on the link.  We will also print the URLs (using PURLs) on a printed card inserted in the box.  And contrary to what I mentioned initially, PURLs are able to be tracked once they arrive to a landing page - so we'll be able to track initial arrival to this page as well as any content they engage with on this page.  We'll just be careful not to include any social sharing capabilities since we do not want the PURLs to be shared beyond this initial page.  We have a dedicaged "website content" channel that we can use to measure program success.

[Anonymous]

Dan,  How'd the campaign work out for you?  We deliver a lot of direct mail campaigns in conjunction with events and renewal campaigns for our customers.

[Dan_Stevens_]

From a tracking perspective, not good.  PURLs do not offer a way to track direct mail responses (contrary to my last comment above - I kept receiving contradictory info from the community/Marketo leading up to this).  Net-net, PURLs are not trackable unless the lead is already cookied in Marketo.  Here are some related posts:

https://community.marketo.com/MarketoDiscussionDetail?id=90650000000PjJiAAK
https://community.marketo.com/MarketoDiscussionDetail?id=90650000000PnEYAA0
https://community.marketo.com/MarketoDiscussionDetail?id=90650000000Q2XLAA0