Identify leads that have filled out multiple forms

[michellechopin]

We have a page on our website that gives leads the option to download up to 6 brochures. While we use the same form on each landing page, they are separated by a form name identified in the code and I'd like to see how many leads are downloading more than one form. 

I've only been able to pull a report and smart list that identifies how many leads have filled out each form using custom columns, but I can't seem to find, or figure out, how to identify leads that might have filled out 2 or more forms. Is that possible?

[SanfordWhiteman · Accepted solution]

There actually isn't a built-in way to determine if they've filled out 2 or more different forms.

But if you choose to believe that 2 or more forms ≈ 2 or more different forms, or don't care about the distinction, you can use the "Min. number of times" constraint on the Filled Out Form activity.

[michellechopin]

Thanks @SanfordWhiteman - that's also where I ended up too but as it doesn't QUITE meet what I needed, I was hoping there was another option or way to build it out manually. The form name is the same so that "min number of times" would technically work, it's the different forms that are what I am hoping to identify.

If we have a lot of people downloading multiple brochures, I'd ideally push them into our general brochure nurture program, instead of the nurtures that are based on the individual brochures (they are regionally based) - if I can't identify who's downloading multiples at a glance, I wonder if I can use the Smart Campaigns to push people into the right nurture based on activity (i.e. fill out that specific form multiple times with any of the brochure names, then push them into the general nurture; if they fill out only ONE time based on the form itself, then I can push them into the specific nurture).

Thanks as always for your help and insight 😀

[SanfordWhiteman]

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The form name is the same so that "min number of times" would technically work, it's the different forms that are what I am hoping to identify.

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This is kind of confusing b/c if if the form name is the same, then it's the same form — not different forms. 2 forms can't have the same name.

Do you mean not "different forms" but "different submitted form data"?

[michellechopin]

@SanfordWhiteman - apologies for the confusion.

We use the same base form (called Blank_Import Form) and we use it across multiple landing pages for our brochure downloads. The fields are the same across each form, but we can identify who filled out which version of the form based on the "Brochure Name" associated with it (this is populated via the code in the form; it's not a field that the lead fills out).

So your note below is half correct because the data submitted is also the same too!

[SanfordWhiteman]

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So your note below is half correct because the data submitted is also the same too!

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If there's a hidden field in the data that's different, then it's not the same?

[michellechopin]

Perhaps I'm confusing the way things are referenced - as a non-developer/coder, I see things in terms of fields (that are either filled out or filled in by something) but some of our data is simply information that pulls through from the landing page when the form is filled out. If those are considered one and the same by Marketo, here's a complete overview to give context (and perhaps explain it better 😋).

On this landing page we have 6 brochures, and they each use our base form with "Form ID = 3" (to differentiate it from the other versions of this form across our site). To separate each of these brochures into its own category for appropriate email follow up (and ideally engagement program assignment), I use the filter "Brochure Name contains" to identify which brochure the lead downloaded.

Here's the Smart Campaign to send a follow up email to someone who has downloaded our Winter Brochure:

Does that change the ability to identify whether someone has filled out multiple forms? Or is that still a limitation?

Since my original post, I've used the Program Smart Campaigns to direct someone who ONLY fills a specific brochure form into the related engagement program (i.e. downloads winter only, gets winter follow up email). I'm still stumped for those people who might download 2-6 brochures - I don't want to assume that one engagement program is more suitable for them than another, so I can direct them into our general brochure engagement program - I just need to be able to identify those leads (and hoping I don't have to come up with Smart Campaigns for all possible combinations - in which case, I may just hope that there's only a small number of people downloading multiple brochures).

Thanks so much!

[SanfordWhiteman · Accepted solution]

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Perhaps I'm confusing the way things are referenced - as a non-developer/coder, I see things in terms of fields (that are either filled out or filled in by something) but some of our data is simply information that pulls through from the landing page when the form is filled out. If those are considered one and the same by Marketo.

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Yes, any part of the form data — be it a static hidden field inserted by code on the page, or a dynamic hidden field autofilled by UTM parameters or from cookies, or the visible fields filled in by the end user — is just a form field.

This isn't really a Marketo thing, but rather is common to any HTML form. There can be many different sources for the fields on a form, but when the server receives them, they're just fields. (Of course, code on the server may be intelligent enough to know that specific field names were supposed to be filled in automatically, at least if no one maliciously attacks the form. But the fields themselves are sent in the same way.)

However, you may be surprised to learn that your pages are not actually submitting Marketo forms. Rather, on a page like this one, you have a fully custom form that submits to your back end server. Then the server simulates a Marketo form post by connecting to Marketo's Submit Form REST API. Marketo treats the data, in the Activity Log, as if it came from a form with a particular form ID. But the form itself is never present on a web page.

Also bear in mind that, while every Filled Out Form activity is connected to a specific form ID in Form Editor (whether it comes from a true form post or a simulated Submit Form call), the field FormID in your Smart List is not directly connected to the form's ID in Marketo.  FormID is a custom field that that your web team presumably sets to the same value as the true form ID. But technically, it's not the same field, and the FormID field could (say, if there were a bug on your back end) be set to any made-up value.

Since the FormID field is a flat field, not tied directly to the Filled Out Form activity, it gets continually overwritten as each form is submitted. So a more descriptive name for it would be Last Form ID.

Similarly, a somewhat better name for Brochure Name would be Last Brochure Name. Of course you assume the Brochure Name is the same as the Brochure Name that was sent along with the form submission, but that's a common-case scenario as opposed to a 100%-guaranteed-case.

Back to the goal, which (I believe) is to determine if someone has submitted the form multiple times with multiple different Brochure Name values.

To fully achieve this goal, you'd need to call a webhook that keeps track of uniques over a time period. But you may be able to get close to the goal by checking how many Data Value Changes have fired for the Brochure Name field. Data Value Changes with Min. Number of Times = 3 means the value has been set 3 or 4 times (depending on whether the person was created via brochure form fillout or if they already existed before requesting their first brochure).  Now, that still could mean their path was Created and Downloaded Brochure A → Downloaded Brochure B → Downloaded Brochure A → Downloaded Brochure B (that's 3 changes but only 2 different Brochures in total). But it may be a useful approximation.

[michellechopin]

@SanfordWhiteman my apologies for the super slow reply - I never got a notification that you had replied here!

Thanks for the hugely detailed explanation and for the potential solution at the end. I'm going to try this to see what I come up with. I want to identify these people because we have a dedicated nurture program for each of our brochures and if someone was to fill out more than 2 for example, it would make more sense to send them into our main brochure nurture vs every single one of the regionally targeted ones (the content in the latter comes from the former).

If I can't solve that, I can use Smart Campaigns to identify those people who have downloaded one brochure form and not the others, to move those around, while anyone who DOESN'T fit that criteria would get the main brochure nurture as standard. 

As always, appreciate your volume of Marketo knowledge!

Michelle 😀