Web form API Sync into Marketo - Not Marketo Form - Help!

[Lindsay_Zanga]

Hi all,

I wanted our demo request form to be a marketo form but our engineering team insisted on creating our own form and then having an API call into marketo (not sure why they refused to just drop the iframe code in from my pretty form).  Because of this I can't use standard trigger campaigns based on "fills out form" instead I am needing to use a trigger of "lead is created and original source info = web service API or lead source = demo request".  I am wondering if others have forms that sync via API that could give some guidance/best practices on how they manager their trigger campaigns.  Some concerns that I have and am wondering if others have workarounds are:

• Right now when someone submits the demo request form the system would fill in the "lead source" field to be "demo request". However, if the lead is not net new to the system I do not want to override the original source with the new "demo request" source.  But if this is not overridden I do not know how I will know if someone submitted a demo request form or not.  Any ideas on how I could do a workaround? I was wondering if I could do a marketo field checkbox field that passes over via API to say demo request = True.  Then I could run my trigger campaign on "lead source = demo request" or "data value changes and demo request checkbox = true".  I have heard from some people that you shouldn't have more than 1 trigger per smart campaign - is this true? What are the implications of having more than one?

Thanks in advance to anyone who can provide some advice!!

Lindsay

[Anonymous]

Hi Lindsay,

Not sure if this will help you. If your major fear is having the field update, you could block the field update from forms fills so the original source will never be overridden. You would go to administration/field management / click on the lead source field/ field actions / block field updates. You can drill down on what you want to block by clicking on block field updates.

Hope this helps.

Steve

[Mel_Dadoly]

Hi Lindsay,

If you use a server side form post, you can log a form fill activity in Marketo because this posts to a Marketo form (this allows you to continue to use the non-Marketo form). This blog post from our dev blog has more details on that:

http://developers.marketo.com/blog/server-side-form-post/

[Lindsay_Zanga]

Hi Mel,

This sounds very promising. I have passed this article to the dev team in hopes that we can create a "hidden" marketo form so it would allow me the marketo functionality and keep them happy w/ the form remaining in our homegrown format.  I am not sure if we are using a "server side form post" but I hope this is the case! Thanks again!

[Kenny_Elkington]

Please do not use this method.  I highly recommend this instead: http://developers.marketo.com/blog/make-a-marketo-form-submission-in-the-background/

[SanfordWhiteman]

Lindsay, the decision to use an API call for every form post was reckless.  You can tell your engineering team I said that. 

I strongly recommend you change the architecture.  You can still use your custom form but use a hidden form post​ as detailed by Marketo's Kenny E. Then you will no longer be inviting malicious use of your (and Marketo's) infrastructure, and you will be using real form posts so you can trap those events appropriately.

[Conor_Fitzpatri]

Hi Sanford,

I'm also trying to use an external form to submit into Marketo (HR forms for job applicants) and read Kenny's article. However, I didn't understand how to reference the values in the external form so they'd match up with the corresponding hidden fields in the Marketo form (i.e. how we get test@example.com to be what the user inputted in the non-Marketo form). Can you provide any insight on how to accomplish that?

[Lindsay_Zanga]

Thanks for your advice! As with the Server Side post I have passed this on to my dev team in hopes that this is a solution we can use.  Unfortunately I am not very knowledgable on the API and coding aspects so I will need them to tell me if it is possible. Fingers crossed!! Thanks again

[SanfordWhiteman]

Certainly the client-side hidden form post is technically possible, since it doesn't involve server code at all (that is, if you didn't have a server you controlled, the server-side options wouldn't be available, but you almost always have control on the client).

There are 7 technologies I can think of that could all be described as "posting form data to Marketo."  In decreasing order of preference:

1. Display a Marketo form on a Marketo LP.
2. Display a Marketo form on an external site using the embed code.
3. Display a Marketo form on an external site by embedding a Marketo LP in an IFRAME.
4. Display a custom form on an external site and post the data directly to Marketo using the Forms 2.0 API (what we are calling a hidden form post).
5. Display a custom form on an external site and post the data directly to Marketo using custom XHR/iframetransport library
6. Display a custom form on an external site and post the data to a remote server, then use standard HTTP x-www-form-urlencoded POST to resend the form fields to Marketo.  Do this only if you must not use (4) of (5) for some reason.
7. Display a custom form on an external site and post the data to a remote server, then use the Marketo REST or SOAP UIs to update the Marketo database.  Never do this unless you have a compelling technical reason and are aware of the consequences for the reliability of your site.

[Justin_Norris1]

Sanford Whiteman​

Epic list

Can you elaborate on the technical consequences of using (7)?

(4) seems like the clear way to go when you must use a custom form. Benefit of keeping the fills out form trigger and it's all client side.

Do you know if there's any rate limiting or other restriction as with a server-side post?