What is the purpose of acquisition program

[Anonymous]

I have seen the tutorials; however, I am still not sure when to use acquisition program. I import a lot of lists from external tools, and have read not to use acquisition program on these imported lists; however, I am starting to get the feeling maybe i should.

[Anonymous]

Acquisition is the status that says "This Program is the first time this lead ever came into this system" So that program gets the "credit" for creating a  net new lead.

This is very important if you are using RCE or if you rely on the Program Analyzer or Program Performance reports.

Normally acquisition is set for a net new lead that comes in via a related form. But you can assign this during a list import. The acquisition only occurs for net new leads.

yes, you should assign this to imported lists like Trade Shows, etc.

I might change my answer depending on how you are using your external tools. For instance, when you import a list from Data.com, are you importing that for a general use, or for a specific email? Or do you assign Data.com leads to a "Data.com Acquisition Program"?

[Anonymous]

General use AND specific emails e.g. product registration submissions that have selected other newsletter types. We'd want to send them: check out updated product, as well as recall, thanks, etc.

Currently I import those lists in a user defined list e.g. "2014 Product Registrations", setting their lead source to "Product Registration".

Possibly I am seeing this incorrectly?

[Anonymous]

Acquisition Program & Lead Source can be the same or different. For my company I define them as 

Lead Source - The original place that a person came from where they learned about my company
Acquisition Program - The original piece of content/Marketing effort that got us a new lead's contact information.

I create a program for every list import. 

Want to know more? Check out our summit presentation > http://www.marketo.tv/summit2014/use-marketo-analytics-to-deliver-the-right-metrics/