Is anyone else's Marketo form data not capturing?

[mphilippon]

We have a landing page and have had issues the past two weeks with gathering information. When someone fills it out, we don't capture anything in our instance except for the first name, last name, and email address. None of the other info is stored anywhere or captured anywhere -- including required fields people must fill out to even submit the form. 

When we contacted Marketo, they claimed that this was because everyone who'd filled out the form on a specific day had some kind of software that gave them the ability to bypass the required fields before they submitted the form. This is suspicious because our audience is from different companies and uses different devices. Some other submissions aren't coming in at all.

I suspect that Marketo had a system error or bug that has affected our data gathering over the past two weeks or so. Is anyone else having this issue? 

[SanfordWhiteman]

Haven't tracked pervasive problems like this in the instances we manage.

If you provide the link to your page I can see if there's anything that's disabling the seemingly required fields.

I agree that it's unlikely that you would get a flood of otherwise legitimate leads that bypassed validation. Bypassing validation is trivial, but not something that regular leads would do.

Are you saying this is still happening today?

[mphilippon]

Hi Sanford,

Thanks so much for reaching back out. We sent out emails this morning, and all the form fills came back blank again.

We've run into weird issues with testing the past two days, too. When we hyperlink to the form pages in a button in one of the modules that has a button built in, then preview the emails (whether by sending a sample or in the preview screen in Marketo), the form looks like it's never been filled out when we click on it.

But when we just insert a hyperlink into a copy block, we find that when we click on the button leading to the page when previewing it either way, we reach something that says: "Welcome back, _____!" (This is the name of the person it's being sent to.) 

Here is an example of one of the pages: https://b2b.dumpsters.com/ipad-giveaway.html 

Thanks so much,

Michelle

[SanfordWhiteman]

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When we hyperlink to the form pages in a button in one of the modules that has a button built in, then preview the emails (whether by sending a sample or in the preview screen in Marketo), the form looks like it's never been filled out when we click on it.

But when we just insert a hyperlink into a copy block, we find that when we click on the button leading to the page when previewing it either way, we reach something that says: "Welcome back, _____!"

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That isn't that strange. It means you have Known Visitor HTML enabled ("If Known Visitor, Show Custom HTML" in Form Editor » Setup) and you're building the first link the wrong way, so it doesn't get tracked. If the link isn't tracked, the person remains anonymous, so KV HTML would never kick in.

[mphilippon]

Hi Sanford,

This is probably going over my head, but is it a best practice to have that set up in your forms? I wonder if that could be leading to the form issues we're still running into. 

Also, how are these hyperlinks incorrect? Whenever I insert a hyperlink into a copy block, I always click the options to track the link and add mtko_tok or whatever to them. 

I'm definitely new, so any help you can offer would be great!

Michelle

[SanfordWhiteman]

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This is probably going over my head, but is it a best practice to have that set up in your forms? I wonder if that could be leading to the form issues we're still running into.

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It's neither inherently bad or good. Depends on the experience you want to provide — ungating assets by using KV HTML can be desirable, but gathering more info on a second form fillout can also be desirable.

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Also, how are these hyperlinks incorrect? Whenever I insert a hyperlink into a copy block, I always click the options to track the link and add mtko_tok or whatever to them. 

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Are you using a VML-based button builder?  Please show the HTML of one of the buttons that doesn't work. (Use "Insert/Edit Code Sample" to insert it in your post.)

[mphilippon]

Hi Sanford,

Thanks again for your time. We're not actually providing assets like whitepapers or ebooks so much as asking people to fill out a form to be entered into a contest. All of our fields are required to fill it out. What would you recommend in this case? We want to gather more info besides just the email address and name of the people filling out the form.

Also, the buttons do work -- I'm just wondering if the URL isn't tracking the same way it would if I just hyperlink to a line of text. We are using prebuilt templates that have modules with buttons built in. What is a VML-based button builder? 

Michelle

[SanfordWhiteman]

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Thanks again for your time. We're not actually providing assets like whitepapers or ebooks so much as asking people to fill out a form to be entered into a contest. All of our fields are required to fill it out. What would you recommend in this case?

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Sounds you should disable KV HTML for this case.

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Also, the buttons do work --

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They don't, though — not if they're not being tracked. (I suppose "work" is too vague, but if they don't associate leads, they're not fully working IMO!)

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We are using prebuilt templates that have modules with buttons built in. What is a VML-based button builder? 

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VML is Outlook's vector markup language. Templates can use VML incorrectly to create good-looking buttons that don't track.  See here: https://nation.marketo.com/t5/Product-Blogs/Those-bulletproof-buttons-are-also-tracking-proof-though...

[mphilippon]

Hi Sanford,

Thanks again for your suggestion. It sounds like JavaScript is the main issue with our not collecting data. 

Quick question about the buttons: Are the buttons in Marketo's email templates using VML incorrectly to create good-looking buttons that don't track as you mentioned above? As far as I know, our buttons are tracking because we can track clicks. (Alas, we don't have email heatmaps, which I'd love....) 

Michelle

[SanfordWhiteman]

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It sounds like JavaScript is the main issue with our not collecting data. 

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Not sure what you mean exactly, but I highly doubt people disabling and/or maliciously evading JavaScript validation is responsible for what seem to be partial form fills.