Tracking Clicks for Blog Mentions

[Anonymous]

We currently partner with several blogs that use our data to create stories. We ask them to put a link to our website in each blog. In the past, when I had Hubspot, I would just create a Custom Tracking URL that would look something like this: https://reonomy.com/?utm_source=Blog&utm_medium=The%20Real%20Deal .

Then I could see in my Hubspot Sources report how many people came from that URL, then see conversions all the way down the funnel.

How do I do this in Marketo. I have been told I need to make a new landing page for each blog, but our homepage is not a landing page. I also have been told to do a UTM Parameter watch, but how do I check for conversions.

Thanks for the help!

[Chris_Johnston]

The best way is to create a landing page. This will let you target the blog's users with content directed at them, as you know what their interest is based on the referral blog. They can then move on from the landing page to explore your website. Hopefully, you can even incorporate a form and discover who they are.

[Edward_Unthank_]

Hey Bethanie,

You should be doing the same thing as you did with Hubspot, or at least very similar.

What you're looking for is a Lead Source methodology. Similar to what you did with Hubspot, you should have your UTM framework which designates individual UTM parameters for inbound links based on what source you're looking for. It seems like your previous identifier for this kind of tracking was "utm_source=Blog" and then the specific blog post as the "utm_medium."

When a person clicks through that link with UTM parameters, it'll show up like the flow below, assuming that you have a form on your homepage and the person fills out the form:

The more advanced way to do this, and more aligned to what you're thinking of, is to have some custom JavaScript on your website (including your home page) that takes those UTM parameters and stores them as a cookie.

Instead of having the hidden value populate from the URL string (which the above example has), you'd get the values onto the hidden UTM fields through cookie values like this:

That way, you can point people toward your home page in the way you used to do with Hubspot, then if they navigate to an area with a form that they submit, you can track their success back to those original UTM parameters.

Here's a meta example for you—you can download our Lead Source Guide which has some more information on how this setup works with the rest of a Lead Source methodology here: http://pages.etumos.com/marketo-lead-source-guide.html?utm_source=marketo+comm&utm_medium=community+...

Note that the above link has UTM parameters on it, and it fits into our own UTM framework. If you fill out that form by clicking that link, that's our way of tracking that a new lead has filled out a form by reading this specific Marketo Community (utm_source=marketo+comm&utm_source=community+post) thread (utm_content=37225).

Cheers,

Edward Unthank | Etumos