Marketo Forms - Custom fields

[Erin_Cavanaugh]

Hi,

I'm creating a form in Marketo that is asking for basic information like first name, last name, company, and email address.

I wanted the last question to be an open ended question but i didn't know how to do that. When I clicked the [+] to add a new field I am only presented with a drop down list of all Marketo/CRM fields. But this won't work for me because the open ended question I want to ask is obviously not in Marketo/CRM.

Help?

Erin

[Rachel_Noble]

Hi Erin,

Why do you want to avoid using a field for this form? Marketo forms require fields linked to them so that they have somewhere to collect this data. You could either create a new field to reference, or you could create a poll on the same landing page if you're not interested in associating the results back with each lead who fills out the form.

Hope this helps!

Rachel

[SanfordWhiteman]

I second Rachel's question, though I also understand the utility of having a multi-use feedback field that might have a different associated question depending on the lead.  In this case (as I've noted in other posts) you can create a textarea/longtext field called something like DynamicFeedback1 and when the lead submits the form, prepend the question they were asked.  So the final value will look like

     DynamicFeedback1: Favorite Color: purple

for one lead, but for another lead

     DynamicFeedback1: Favorite Animal: blobfish

[Dan_Stevens_]

I think there's some confusion here.  If I'm reading Erin's question properly, only specific fields are available for her to use - and there isn't one that would work as an open text field.  What's needed is a custom Marketo field (or a new field created in CRM that will sync over to Marketo for her to use).  Sounds like she needs to work with her Marketo admin to add this new field so that it is available when she clicks the [+] to add a new field within the form.  Erin, did I interpret this properly?

[Erin_Cavanaugh]

Hi Dan, yes, this is correct. But I didn't want to have our admin create a new field in CRM/Marketo just for this. We're going to be doing tons of forms in Marketo going forward and we'd run into the same issue each time if these forms are asking for anything beyond CRM/Marketo fields.

I still need to look into Sanford's response but I think what Rachel said really answers my question:

"Marketo forms require fields linked to them so that they have somewhere to collect this data."

[SanfordWhiteman]

Technically a Marketo form does not require a custom field to be linked to every field that appears on the form in the browser.

A custom field must exist in order to add it using the Form Editor, but other fields can be added using the Forms API, and their values will be posted to the Marketo activity log even though they will not be stored on the lead. I've built some setups like this in order to have "pass-through" form fields.  However, managing a system like this requires a developer.  I don't think it's worth it only to save a creating a reusable feedback field.  As Rachel notes, if you want the lead's feedback to be anything other than completely anonymous, I don't know why you wouldn't want it the lead.  Isn't it valuable to have in your CRM?

[Dan_Stevens_ · Accepted solution]

Why couldn't you just create a "Generic Open Text Capture" field and use it on all of your forms?  Are you concerned that a lead can potentially interact with more than one form - and therefore overwrite the data that was captured previously?  If so, you can create an "append" field that will append any new data submitted and add/append it to this field.  Eventually, you may reach a character limitation though.

[Josh_Hill13]

Person Notes is the standard field tied to SFDC's Description field. I've written about how to use this properly.

Marketo Hidden Tricks and Tips - Marketing Rockstar Guides

So you can create a field as Dan suggests either in the CRM or just Marketo to do this. But keep in mind the limitations and prefill=F