Undesired behavior when using Personalized URLs PURLs

Dan_Stevens_ · ‎03-18-2014

I had some members of my team participate in a series of PURL test and came up with the following findings:

If the user has been previously cookied AND known, but enters a PURL intended for someone else, Marketo will correctly identify the user based on their cookied data and NOT based on the PURL.
If the user has been previously cookied (and known), when they enter the PURL, they will be identified using the data in their lead record in Marketo - and a personalized landing page experience can be used.
[EDIT 11/20/2017]: If the user has an associated cookie on their browser (e.g., visited your Munchkin-enabled web page) but is not yet KNOWN, when they access their PURL-enabled LP, the page will not be personalized (tokens will remain blank) - even though a lead record had been created in Marketo to support the creation of their PURL.
If the user has does not have an associated cookie on their browser, when they enter their PURL, the personalized tokens will render properly on the LP.

1, 2 and 4 is the desired behavior. And our desire for #3 would be to have the user identified by the data that was used to create the PURL. Does Marketo have any plans to improve upon this? We're using this approach for a direct mail campaign - and as a result of #3's outcome, I don't think we can rely on Marketo PURLs for appropriate tracking purposes and personalization via tokens.

Dan_Stevens_ · ‎10-01-2014

We never received an update on this. I suspect Marketo hasn't done anything to make PURLs more usable for direct mail campaigns.

Anonymous · ‎10-01-2014

Was there any update on this? What was the outcome?

We are looking to do a direct mail peice with PURLs and would like to see if these are still known issues.

Thanks!

Anonymous · ‎03-20-2014

Wonderful data and insight! Thank you very much Dan!

Dan_Stevens_ · ‎03-20-2014

FYI, I received the following reply from Support:

I was able to duplicate the issue you have described and it appears that Marketo is favoring the cookied lead over the PURL which is not desirable for anonymous leads. I have contacted our Product Management for clarification on this matter and am awaiting a reply. I will update you as soon as possible.