Smartlist - Different count for same objective

[Sid_Patil]

Hello All,

Recently we ran email campaigns where we directed our customers to two of our webpages and now, we are trying to figure out everyone who may have visited those webpages.

For that, I created a smart list with the condition: Visited Webpage CONTAINS {name of the webpages}. It returned an abnormally low count (1k people) since we mailed almost 1 million people with CTAs to those webapage {contains so that it captures any UTM combination)

To investigate further, I created a smart list saying Click link on email {email names}, adding constraint Link contains {the link URL directing to those webpages}. This smartlist returned 40k people which seemed representative of the numbers I was expecting.

What might be the reason of this difference?

Thank you so much for reading this. Please reach out for any clarifications.

Best,

Sid

[Floyd_Alvares2]

Hi Sid,

Just my thought - do those webpages contain the Marketo munchkin tracking code?

Thanks

Floyd

[Sid_Patil]

When I run the smartlist Visited Webpage CONTAINS {name of the webpages} only, it does return 1k people. Doesn't that mean it does contain the Munchkin code?

[Floyd_Alvares2]

Hi Sid,

My assumption here was if all the webpages you listed would contain the munchkin - just a check.

However, as Jay mentioned, it would be good to see your smart list filters. But yes even with email link scanners action, that is an extremely large disparity between the results.

Thanks

Floyd

[Jay_Jiang]

You can't equate Clicked Link = Visit Webpage as link scanners will come into the picture.

Your high disparity might be caused by how you're setting the filter logic. Can you take a screen shot and paste here?

[SanfordWhiteman]

You can't equate Clicked Link = Visit Webpage as link scanners will come into the picture.

Came here to say the same.

[Sid_Patil]

Here are the snapshots:

Webpage smartlist

Email link click smartlist (where Link URL is the webpage listed in the first smartlist)

[Jay_Jiang]

Since you haven't specified a timeframe, my guess is the difference in data retention policy for the two activities is causing the high disparity.

Clicks link in email is retained for 25 months whereas Visit Webpage is retained for 90 days.

[Sid_Patil]

Thanks, Jay!

This was sent in the last month so I think the data retention policy would not have much effect. Do you think anything on the Visit Webpage smartlist needs to be changed?

Sanford Whiteman​ and Jay, thanks for referring me to the Link Scanner. That was quite a revelation. Based on article I read on Link Scanner, I plan to create Smart List like this:

Email is Delivered {email names} AND Click link on email {email names}, adding constraint Link contains {the link URL directing to those webpages} -- What do you think about it?

A follow up question, do click scanners affect Email Performance Report/ Email Link Performance report?

[SanfordWhiteman]

You cannot effectively detect mail scanners using Marketo Smart Lists. This is gone over in some depth on the Community posts on the topic. False positives and false negatives abound.

Yes, scanner clicks skew all reports related to clicks.

(This is why I was so disappointed to find the new CC option is encumbered by mail scanner clicks on email copies.)