Re: UTMs, Gcluid, and hidden fields

cookiemonstersa · ‎03-01-2023

Hey all!

I am trying to figure out the best way to go about capturing UTMs and Gcluid via hidden fields on forms.

We currently have it set to "URL parameters." However, for awareness campaigns that direct people to non-conversion-focused pages, they often navigate around before converting, thus we lose the UTMs and Gcluid when they end up converting.

I have made some smartlists that show me if people visited these web pages via ads by creating smartlists that look for query that contains the corresponding UTMs. From this I can manually look back through the leads history and take the Gcluid out and populate a spreadsheet. Nightmare, but possible, and it allows us to feed the google ads algorithm.

However, people keep asking me why a lead driven from an Ad has a lead source of direct/organic. I explain that it's because the system sees them as direct organic as the UTMs and Gcluid fall off as they navigate around the site before converting.

Any ideas here? Do I need to tell our ad agency that we can only run conversion-focused ads? Do we switch to a cookie model?

My dream state would be to tie ad campaigns running in google, back to the Marketo "looker program" (A program that runs in Marketo that looks for form fills with specific UTMs, corresponding to google ad campaigns, so we can track the success of the ad campaigns). So that I can report of the ROI of specific ad campaigns, then roll it up into a channel-level report.

So tracking campaign and channel success. But with the massive drop off of people being captured by the "looker program" since the UTMs fall off before they convert.... I am lost.

Does anyone have a solution for this? Or is this just the state of traceability currently

Darshil_Shah1 · ‎03-01-2023

I think this post talks about addressing the exact same issue that you've described. Basically, it stores the URL parameters into cookies and also takes care of updating them in case a user visits any of your webpages with different UTM values.

cookiemonstersa · ‎03-01-2023

Hey Darshil,

It might be? But the language confuses me...

"So if someone navigates away and the parameters disappear, then the UTM values will not be captured.

To solve for this, we have created a tracking script that will store any UTM parameters it finds into a cookie. Now when a visitor fills out a form that contains the hidden UTM values on a form, the cookie will store the UTM value across the main and subdomains."

The above is saying the cookie will store the UTM value across the main and subdomains. Is this trying to say upon form fill it will input the cookie-stored UTM values into the hidden UTM fields?

In my case I already have code that stores the UTM values as a cookie, but no code that injects it into the hidden field upon form fill.

Currently, I only have one cookie value store and its not broken apart:
Eg: https%3A%2F%2Fwww.exampleurl.com%2Flp-perfect-deal-23%2F%3Futm_source%3Demail%26utm_medium%3Dmarketo_email%26utm_campaign%3Dv-day

So the suggestion is to move to a cookie base model? And if so, how do I get Marketo to take the above cookie value and input it into the corresponding hidden fields?

cookiemonstersa · ‎03-01-2023

Also, am I wrong in thinking this also takes us further away from program-level success tracking? For example, someone could get cookied in with a utm, navigate all around, and then form fill with FORM: Register

The initial ad campaign could have directed them to webpage XYZ with FORM: Register.
But 10 webpages later they fill out FORM: Register on webpage ABC.

Would I really want to consider that a success in the program that tracks success for the original specific ad? While it may show me channel-based success, it fails to show me asset-based success.

Is the best practice to have a master paid search program for example, that looks to see if someone converted after coming in through paid search and makes that their lead source, but does not count them as a program success for the specific ad campaign that brought them in if they convert on a different asset?

Darshil_Shah1 · ‎03-01-2023

Yes, you're not on the wrong train of thought IMO. This cookie approach although solves a tech issue but brings in a strategy/tracking/ROI issue that you just described above. You could have the best of both worlds by creating Lead Source and Lead Conversion (or last Lead Form) fields. Lead Source would store the values that drove the person to your webpage (i.e., the URL with UTMs), and the Lead Conversion (or Last Lead Form) could store the form/tactic data that resulted in the form-submit. In case they fill out the form on the same page as they landed on initially (i.e., with UTMs), then both should match, else they won't. Of course, there could be a better way to tackle this based on how you track and measure success, but this is what I could think of off the top of my head. I hope you find this helpful.

cookiemonstersa · ‎03-01-2023

My thoughts exactly. Thank you! Always a challenge but think a cookie model might fit us better for now.

jace_brendle · ‎03-01-2023

We've run into this as well, and you're going down the right path. You will need to create the script on the website that takes the value from the stored cookie and injects it into the hidden fields on the form. We do this for our Adobe Analytics tracking codes and a few other stored cookie values.

Christiane_Rode · ‎03-01-2023

When someone is navigating around your site, are you using UTMs to tag folks on your site pages -- for example, so you could see if someone got to the page via clicking a homepage thumbnail or something similar, or is the issue that the UTMs clear out when someone travels from your site to a Marketo LP?

If it's the latter, it might be worth talking with a dev team to see if they make some updates to your site that can allow the UTMs to persist in the URL when someone travels from your site to the Marketo LP/form with hidden fields.

cookiemonstersa · ‎03-01-2023

Thanks for the reply!

When someone clicks a google ad, they land on our homepage with UTMs. There is no direct CTA on our homepage so they navigate around. When they click to different pages, the UTMs drop out of the URL. So when they eventually form fill, marketo is unable to capture the UTMs as its looking for the UTMs to exist in the URL.

We can switch to a cookie-based model, and get a developer to make a script that injects the UTM cookie values into the hidden fields upon form fill.

Darshil_Shah1 · ‎03-01-2023

@cookiemonstersa wrote:

Hey Darshil,

It might be? But the language confuses me...

"So if someone navigates away and the parameters disappear, then the UTM values will not be captured.

To solve for this, we have created a tracking script that will store any UTM parameters it finds into a cookie. Now when a visitor fills out a form that contains the hidden UTM values on a form, the cookie will store the UTM value across the main and subdomains."

The above is saying the cookie will store the UTM value across the main and subdomains. Is this trying to say upon form fill it will input the cookie-stored UTM values into the hidden UTM fields?

The script on this page creates a cookie, updates it in case someone visits with different UTMs, and injects the cookie values on the corresponding hidden fields. You'd need to update the script so it has the correct API names of the hidden fields corresponding to each UTM param. (lines 70 - 75 in the script). Post that you're all set to capture the UTM data even if the person navigates to a page that doesn't have the UTMs.