Invite a colleague - form questions/limitations

[Anonymous]

Hello

We would like to create an 'invite a colleague' campaign in Marketo but I have a few questions about the limitations of forms...

o Can we stop Marketo overwriting data every time on specific fields?         

     E.g. update if new value is not blank/update if contains a valid email address etc.

o Can Marketo forms check if an email address already exists in the system and display a message to say ‘enter new email address, this one is already in our system/in use’         

     < I know Marketo can check this but by using cookies – if people are genuinely sharing an email address than this is not an option that would work for us since they would be on different computers/devices >

o Is it possible to create a new lead by specifying what form fields to take data from?         

     Example form flow:

          • Hannah fills out the form to invite Elena

          • Send form submitter (Hannah) an email to confirm

          • Send email to a form field that we specify (e.g. send to the form field 'My colleagues email address' (Elena)

          • Update Hannah’s contact fields if form fields aren’t blank

          • Rule to create new lead if doesn’t already exist – we can specify from what form fields

It's worth noting that our unique identifier is NOT email address but registration key. Also we have a lot of customers that share email addresses, but are different people.

Thanks in advance - any help/suggestions appreciated!

[Josh_Hill13]

• Field Blocking - yes, go to Admin > Field Management and block the field(s) from update via Form.
• You can use jquery to do this in the Form if you want.
• You would need to program this. Please look up partner/reseller forms for ideas on this.

[Elliott_Lowe1]

Be sure that the page your referral form is on does not create a _mkto_trk cookie; otherwise, the referrers activity will become associated with the lead record of the last person she refers.  If your form will be on a Marketo landing page the Kiosk form? help article explains how to disable the creation of the cookie.

[SanfordWhiteman]

It's more complex than than just removing Munchkin from the hosting page, because a cookie that already exists in the browser will still be sent.  But that's what my How to Build a Referrer/Referral Form topic at the NY MUG will be about.

[Anonymous]

I'm based in London but would love to watch a recording of your preso after if available! Keep me posted! Sanford Whiteman

[SanfordWhiteman]

If Elliott Lowe​ still likes me in September I'm sure he'll put up a video.   Elliott, should Hannah maybe join our MUG group to keep updated?  Does that get confusing?

[Elliott_Lowe1]

Sanford Whiteman, if you can help with arranging for someone to video the presentation, we can post it in the Community where it will be available to all members.  Marketo requests that we only accept members that are in the local area, but if she follows you, you can post updates in https://nation.marketo.com/events about the availability of the video. 

[Anonymous]

This would only apply if we used a marketo form, right? We might use a 3rd party form

[SanfordWhiteman]

If you use a 3rd-party form then you can easily ignore relaying the cookie to Marketo, yes, so you don't have to "turn something off" so much as "not build something."

[SanfordWhiteman]

o Can Marketo forms check if an email address already exists in the system and display a message to say ‘enter new email address, this one is already in our system/in use’ < I know Marketo can check this but by using cookies – if people are genuinely sharing an email address than this is not an option that would work for us since they would be on different computers/devices >

I'm not sure why you'd even consider this for your particular Marketo instance because you've just said you allow -- even invite -- dupe emails by using a different primary key. Even with the whole back end available to the form, how would you possibly validate that an address is "legitimately" in use vs "illegitimately"?

At any rate, on a technical level your Mkto back end db is not available for real-time lookup during form fillout (before form submit).  You can build a gateway using the REST or SOAP APIs (on your server) and then query the gateway. I wouldn't advise this, though. You're limited to 10,000 API calls per day and that would be easily quenched by a deliberate attacker or a mindlessly evil bot.