Removal of "Is Anonymous" filters.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi all,

We have been receiving today an information from Cheryl Chavez​ about the removal of the is Anonymous filter, as part of the release of Munchkin v2. See here for more details : Next Generation Munchkin Tracking FAQ - Marketo Docs - Product Docs

Although this new version of the munchkin and the way the V2 will work is promising, there is one thing we will be missing, though: the ability to look at the anonymous leads, display inferred and origin informations and create an understanding of where they come from and how they arrived here.

Also, some database providers use anonymous leads to read their IP addresses and provide in return some leads from the same IP address for retargeting. They will be in hard difficulty.

Your thoughts ?

-Greg

[Casey_Grimes]

I'm actually rather annoyed at the announcement surrounding anonymous leads. The under-utilization of anonymous leads isn't due to their lack of usefulness; it's due to a lack of awareness and the possibilities they hold.

Tracking anonymous records on their path to becoming known to the system is a key piece of seeing how various inbound marketing programs work—because measuring who was touched by a campaign before they later convert is vital to measuring long-term campaign influence. I've been using anonymous records in conjunction with Smart Campaigns and static lists as a way to monitor this for a while; if anything, I've been bummed that I can't do more with anonymous records in terms of comparing them to known records. When you're honing in on specific actions, it's more than just scoring or flagging an Interesting Moment.

This change will effectively ruin the ability to do that.

[Mike_Reynolds2]

Courtney,

You will still be able to track that path of leads through your marketing programs. Visits Web Page triggers will fire at the time the lead becomes known, so the Change Score, Interesting Moment, Change Data Value, Add to List and Remove from List flow steps will still work for your tracking. So if you're using static lists in particular, there won't be any impact other than waiting until the lead becomes known to gather that tracking data.

[Casey_Grimes]

Hi Mike,

The issue and rub here is in fact that wait time between the record being anonymous and becoming known (if they in fact ever become known on that session.)

To use a very simplified example, let's say Widgets Co. is using paid advertising to promote Product A, Product B and Product C. There's a Marketo program that tracks clicks, 1-session conversions and multi-session conversions. Right now, if someone clicks on an ad for Product A and Product C but still is unknown, I can isolate that specific web activity in Marketo along with IP/inferred firmographic data—if a company is whale hunting for large accounts, I can then pass the information along that Whale Company was looking at Products A and C to enhance the conversation sales has.

While this could technically be done with other products, the relative ease and friendliness for being able to show anonymous data and have Marketo automatically append data before the point of becoming known was a big win for marketing-sales alignment. Now this puts that at risk, or at the very least is going to require a good deal of workaround development.

[Dan_Stevens_]

This is an exact use-case of how we're using the "is anonymous" filter today in our smart campaigns that at least provide company-level insight into our paid campaigns.  See my earlier reply above - but in essence, this smart list will no longer work and the account-level activity that our sales execs have been receiving will go away.  This is not good.

[Andy_Varshneya1]

Seconding this.

Our digital marketing team that is responsible for all top of the funnel lead generation will be 1/2 as productive and helpful without the access to anonymous lead data. Marketing Ops and demand gen will not be as good either.

This is a huge step backwards for Marketo and marketing teams using Marketo.

[Anonymous]

Hi Mike,

I am quite concerned about the scoring and the population of "Interesting moments" as well.

Will all triggers work as you just explained for "Visit web page"?

Thanks a lot for your feedback.
Claire

[hena_wells]

Hi Claire MARBACH,

Have a look at the example in Next Generation Munchkin Tracking FAQ - Marketo Docs - Product Docs . It covers how scoring/Interesting Moments would work. Let us know if it does not clarify your question.

Aj

[Anonymous]

Hi Arjun,

Sorry but no it doesn't.

The only example you use is the "visit web page" trigger, and I need to know if all other trigger will work the same way.

Could you please confirm this?

Thanks a lot,

Claire

[Josh_Hill13]

I agree here. I play up this during many conversations with clients and it rarely gets done because few teams have the resources to look at RTP and other Anon to Known conversion techniques.

I'm concerned about a few things here because this wasn't fully explained. And I appreciate Kenny Elkington​'s explanation and @Arjun, but need more:

• What happens to smart lists and flows where Is Anonymous currently exists?
• Many teams were using Is Anonymous to prevent Visits Web Page from scoring Anon leads. I thought this defeated the point of scoring, but it does reduce the trigger. How is this situation handled then?
• Will ALL behaviors now never operate on Anonymous? That is, smart lists act only on Known records?
• How will RTP work? Will this Anon stuff just be hidden?

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Josh,

The answer to your first 2 questions is in the FAQ at least partially (Next Generation Munchkin Tracking FAQ - Marketo Docs - Product Docs)

• Smart campaigns with "is anonymous" in the filter will fail and you will receive a notification. I gather this if for batch campaigns as well as trigger campaigns
• The second point will be handled differently : the scoring (and any other flow step BTW) will happen later, at the moment the lead becomes known, but with retroactive dates. I suppose this will enable these flows to run for leads that become known, thus significantly reducing server workload. BtW, a question: what if I do not want a smart campaign to work retroactively when a lead becomes known ?

On your 3rd point, my understanding is that yes, smart lists will only act on knows records

on the 4th, I do not have a clue

-Greg

[Liz_Medlicott]

Hi Greg - I know it's been a while since this was posted but I was doing some research because I am finding anonymous leads that are being scored and have in turn become MQLs - we discovered this because blank lead alerts were coming through and once I logged a ticket with support they provided me with the information that it was, in fact, an anonymous lead.  Do you know if this is true that they aren't supposed to be scored or allowed to go through smart campaigns? This just started happening like two weeks ago, I'm wondering if maybe it's something with how our tracking was set up and if something else is wrong. Let me know if you have any information or thoughts on this, I'm also still trying to work with support to get more information on their end. Thanks and I appreciate all of your posts/feedback in the community

[Josh_Hill13]

Do you literally mean Anonymous Lead that is completely blank other than behavior?

You should only see the scoring activate when someone becomes Known and then their Anonymous behaviors are scored.

[Liz_Medlicott]

This is what I am seeing, hope this helps!

[Anonymous]

Thank you Grégoire Michel​, really helpful.

[Mike_Reynolds2]

Q: What happens to smart lists and flows where Is Anonymous currently exists?

A: “Is Anonymous” filters should be removed wherever they are in use. However, if they are still in use after the upgrade, here is what you’ll see as results:

1. “Is Anonymous” = True

Smart Lists will return zero results, Smart Campaigns will fail and won’t run.

2. “Is Anonymous” = False

The filter is ignored because all leads will be known.

3. “Is Anonymous” = True in combination with “Is Anonymous” = False using OR filter logic

Smart Lists will return zero results, Smart Campaigns will fail and won’t run.

Q: Many teams were using Is Anonymous to prevent Visits Web Page from scoring Anon leads. I thought this defeated the point of scoring, but it does reduce the trigger. How is this situation handled then?

A: Greg is correct, the campaigns that would have applied while anonymous will still apply as long as the web activity happened within the web activity pruning policy timeframe.

Q: Will ALL behaviors now never operate on Anonymous? That is, smart lists act only on Known records?

A: Yes, this is correct, only known lead records will be able to activate smart campaigns, but, that anonymous web activity will still trigger the smart campaigns at the time they become known.

Q: How will RTP work? Will this Anon stuff just be hidden?

A: RTP will not be affected at all. Neither will RCE/RCA.

Greg’s question:

Q: What if I do not want a smart campaign to work retroactively when a lead becomes known?

A: All active trigger campaigns that could apply to the anonymous web activity will be activated the same as if it were active and reacting to an anonymous record now. Deactivated campaigns won’t be triggered, but any/all active campaigns will. If you don’t want the campaigns to react retroactively when the lead becomes known, the short answer is to deactivate them (the same as you’d do if you didn’t want them to react to anonymous records currently).

[Andy_Varshneya1]

What about the data that's stored about an anonymous lead and then later on associated with its known lead counterpart? Is that gone too now?

[Dan_Stevens_]

No, that will still happen.

[Andy_Varshneya1]

Thanks Dan, hard to keep track of all the comments as the questions and answers are flying back and forth in this thread.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Mike Reynolds,

The last point is not acceptable : I need my smart campaign to apply to know leads so I cannot deactivate it. And I'd rather not imagine someone trying to deactivate it each time a lead becomes known and reactivate it afterwards

I gather I can have a filter "email address" is not empty or "last name is not empty" to prevent retroactive execution, but these are error prone and might not be accurate.

You will absolutely need to consider a "Do not execute retroactively on newly known leads" checkbox in the qualification rules.

-Greg

[Grégoire_Miche2]

And here is the idea :

-Greg

[Grégoire_Miche2]

And also, I have a question : does this impact API's as well ?

-Greg