I want to tag web visits when lead downloads PDF from link in email

[Anonymous]

I want to tag a lead after they download a PDF. At the moment, we send an email to somebody which includes a link to a PDF on our web site, and when they click the link the PDF is opened in their browser. However, the Munchkin code on web server doesn't see that they are looking at the PDF since there is no HTML being accessed to view the PDF.

Any suggestions ?

[Anonymous]

Is the PDF hosted in Marketo? Or somewhere else? If it's in Marketo, have you tried doing a Smart List of "Clicked Link" and then use the PDF link?

It has to be clicked before it will show up in Marketo (not sure what makes it show up or not because I have a few that are still not showing up). Maybe someone can comment on that.

However, I'm pretty sure that works.

[Anonymous]

The issue is not whether I can see the clicked link in the email, but whether I can track them when they visit my web site after they have opened the PDF...

I can put the PDF anywhere I need it to be. However, when they click the link and the PDF opens in their PDF viewer, they are not looking at my web site, so the Munchkin tracking on the web site will not be linked to the email address I sent the email to.

Of course, I can make a page on web site which has a link to open the PDF, then make the link in the email refer to thsi web page, but this is extra work and extra clicks.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Tim,

You could setup a webpage that has a timer built in that autoforwards to the pdf viewer.  This way you can get both the munchkin visits page and not make the user click an extra time to view the pdf.

Rodney

[Anonymous]

Rodney,

I was thinking of something similar, but I am not sure how to do that. I am using Drupal for my website, so cannot just insert static html into page head. 

Thanks,
Tim

[Anonymous]

Tim,

One other means to get there would be to use a blank Marketo landing page and place the redirect into a HTML block.  This would give you the access to modify the HTML if you are unable to do so through Drupal.

Rodney

[Anonymous]

Rodney,

How would the landing page approach work ? I can see that link in email would open the landing page, and the landing page html would redirect to PDF URL, but how would I then get the user to land on my website so that Munchkin cookie will be associated with their email address ?

Thanks,
Tim

[Anonymous]

Rodney and others who helped...

I have solved this. I created a page on my Drupal web site which includes PHP. The PHP runs some Javascript after the page has been rendered by Drupal and this Javascript just redirects to the PDF location so it is opened. This works perfectly, so I am able to tag people who we send emails to and they can just click a link in the email to open a PDF document. They don't have to fill any forms and they won't know they are tagged...

[Anonymous]

How would the html block look like for attempting to do a redirect without technically landing on the blank marketo landing page? 

[Anonymous]

Janet,

I am not using a Marketo landing page - I am using a hyperlink in the email which links to a page on my webstie, e.g. http://my.company.com/pdf-view?pdf=<location of pdf file>

So, when somebody clicks on the link, they land on my web site and the PDF opens. This means that they are being tagged and not anonymous anymore when they visit the website. 

The pdf-view page is just including some javascript which redirects to the value of the pdf= query string param.

Thanks,
Tim