Web Activity Not Tracked with Conversion on iFramed Form

[Anonymous]

We routinely used iFramed Marketo forms on non-Marketo pages created via a separate CMS. All pages created from that CMS contain munchkin code.
In the past, this would successfully record Web Activity for all users who become known by converting on these iFramed forms.
The visitor would browse our munckined pages built via our CMS, and their anonymous activity would be stored.
Upon converting on an iFramed form on a non-Marketo, munchkined page, they would become know, their data would merge and we would begin tracking all web activity associated to them.

Recently it appears the only web activity being tracked is the Marketo LP where the form is embedded, and no other web activity is being recorded on the pages created via our CMS.

We are told that the situation we describe above is impossible, and I can't pull up a record from when it worked because of web activity being archived.

Any ideas on this being possible, and what may have caused it to stop working?

[SanfordWhiteman]

We are told that the situation we describe above is impossible, and I can't pull up a record from when it worked because of web activity being archived.

Any ideas on this being possible, and what may have caused it to stop working?

Of course it's possible and anyone who said otherwise wasn't thinking it through.

The key is whether the IFRAMEd domain and the non-Marketo domain share a parent registered domain.   That is, www.example.com and pages.example.com share example.com; example.com and pages.example.com also share example.com.  Thus they will, by default, share cookies.  This is age-old browser behavior that works significantly to our advantage when tracking across subdomains.

Now, the question is, "What changed?"  Do you now load the IFRAMEd pages from a domain that has nothing in common with the CMS domain?

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Additional to Sanford,

The munchkin may have been removed from your CMS pages, for instance when a new page template has been put in place.

With the removal of anonymous leads, testing that the munchkin code really works on a CMS page takes more sophistication : you need to navigate to these pages with a know lead (you own browser for instance) after filling out a form on a Marketo LP IN THE SAME DOMAIN and look into the activity log of this lead whether the web page activities are flowing in.

-Greg

[SanfordWhiteman]

...navigate to these pages with a know lead (you own browser for instance) after filling out a form on a Marketo LP IN THE SAME DOMAIN and look into the activity log of this lead whether the web page activities are flowing in.

You can use the WPA report with Source=Anonymous. 

[Anonymous]

I have confirmed that the munchkin still exists on our CMS pages.

[Anonymous]

by A) iFramed domain and the B) non-Marketo domain... do you mean the A) Marketo LP where the form is, and which sits in the iFrame and B) Our CMS page holding the iFrame?

If so, they are not the same parent. Our company is a part of another, parent company.... Company and Company Child. our iFramed domain is CC.company.com, and our non-Marketo domain is CompanyChild.com.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Meghann,

As pointed by Sanford, if the iframe, Marketo hosted pages, and the web/CMS pages are not in the same domain, that cannot work. Munchkin tracking is cookie based and cookies cannot cross domains.

You need to set up you Marketo instance to host your iFrame page in the same domain as your CMS web site (companychild.com), which can be done in admin->landing pages->Rules->New->New domain Alias. This will also require that you set up a CNAME in your companychild.com domain to redirect to Marketo servers. ONce this is done, you will be able to have your iframe pages in the companychild.com domain.

-Greg

[SanfordWhiteman]

our iFramed domain is CC.company.com, and our non-Marketo domain is CompanyChild.com.

OK.  As Greg said, these 2 domains will never automatically share Munchkin cookies, and the easiest solution is to allocate a subdomain (pages.companychild.com) as an alternate Marketo LP domain.

If the above is not possible for some reason (i.e. the entity controlling the domain doesn't want to create a DNS CNAME record for the subdomain) then there are still alternatives: 

• If the Marketo domain is only accessed via IFRAMEd forms -- that is, the only way anyone ever accesses any of your Marketo LPs on cc.company.com is via an IFRAME on companychild.com -- then it's actually quite easy to cross domains.  However, it doesn't sound like this is the case for you (based on the "parent company" being the one that's already in Marketo).
• If not, the 2 domains can still be bound together via some elegant solutions.  One of our specialties is enabling cross-domain tracking in scenarios in which it supposedly can't be done.  While it takes only a tiny bit of code, it does need to be tailored for each setup.

[Anonymous]

• If the Marketo domain is only accessed via IFRAMEd forms -- that is, the only way anyone ever accesses any of your Marketo LPs on cc.company.com is via an IFRAME on companychild.com -- then it's actually quite easy to cross domains.  However, it doesn't sound like this is the case for you (based on the "parent company" being the one that's already in Marketo).

This actually was very true of our situation... how would this allow it to be easy to cross domains??? If there is an answer here, it may be what I am looking for.

[SanfordWhiteman]

This actually was very true of our situation... how would this allow it to be easy to cross domains???

Because one domain controls the entry points to the other domain (Domain B is only accessed via an IFRAME on a page on Domain A), Domain A can safely pass its existing Munchkin cookie value in the IFRAME src.  Domain B can then be configured to use the existing cookie instead of generating a new, random one.  When the cookie is then associated with a lead via form fillout, the web activities on Domain A will be associated as well.

You should hit me at sandy@figureone.com as this is outside of typical usage and I don't want to clutter the community with site-specific stuff.