When users not accept cookies, engagement data won't feed into Marketo after form fill

[WeiDMarketing]

Hi fellow Marketo users,

Stumbled on a cookie issue, below are the details.

We're testing embedding an iFrame into a landing page and placing a Marketo lightbox form as the gate. The vendor, Navattic is integrated with Marketo via API. Feeding in data such as step completed, project name, etc. 

When users are already cookied or clicked "accept cookies" from the page, Navattic is able to push user engagement data with the iFrame into Marketo as person custom fields. (Perfect).

However, when users don't accept the cookies or ignore the cookie prompt from the web page, the data will not push into Marketo. I am confused by this because if the user fills out a Marketo form, shouldn't the person be cookied? The engagement is after the form fill.

Curious if anyone else have experienced this issue before? Are there any workarounds? Thank you very much.

[SanfordWhiteman]

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However, when users don't accept the cookies or ignore the cookie prompt from the web page, the data will not push into Marketo. I am confused by this because if the user fills out a Marketo form, shouldn't the person be cookied?

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Not at all! Form fills don’t require cookies. If they did, then Marketo forms would be non-functional whenever someone has tracking protection enabled, which is luckily not the case.

If cookies are accepted, then a form fill will associate the formerly anonymous Munchkin cookie with the lead that fills out the form. This complementary behavior is obviously useful, but the form fill itself doesn’t set a cookie — if it did, that would be defying the person’s explicit privacy preferences.

Provided cross-origin communication is already enabled, the IFRAME could read the email address of the person from the form upon successful submission (i.e. onSuccess listener). Not the cookie, because there isn’t one.

[WeiDMarketing]

Hi Sanford, 

Thank you for the response. Please see below for some more context.

Based on Marketo docs:
In order to be associated with a known record in Marketo, one of the following methods should be used:

• The person may visit a Munchkin-tracked page with a mkt_tok parameter in the query string from a tracked Marketo email link.
• The person may fill out a Marketo Form.
• REST associate lead call must be sent.

In our case, the user fills out a Marketo form and we're performing a lead API call to associate Navattic with the Marketo Munchkin cookie. Are you saying there is no way we can pass over the user's engagement data unless cookies are accepted? Because it's clear Marketo and Navattic was able to ID who the user was based on email and the Munchkin cookie. I literally see the data in Navattic reporting. (SS below)

[Darshil_Shah1]

I see Marketo's Munchkin tracking cookie being created in either cases, i.e., with the cookies enabled/disabled. I saw that with the cookies rejected, a couple of Marketo tagged scripts under the Navattic's capture.js weren't called on Marketo form submit, which wasn't the case with the cookies enabled. Looking at the script contents, it appears that they're responsbile for syncing the event data from Navattic to Marketo. I'll let Sandy weigh in and correct me if I'm mistaken anywhere.

[SanfordWhiteman · Accepted solution]

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In our case, the user fills out a Marketo form and we're performing a lead API call to associate Navattic with the Marketo Munchkin cookie. Are you saying there is no way we can pass over the user's engagement data unless cookies are accepted?

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By definition, Munchkin-logged activity data (Visit Web Page, Clicked Link) requires the Munchkin cookie. That’s what Munchkin is all about. It wouldn’t make sense to be able to track people who have opted out of the tracking cookie.

Filled Out Form is not a Munchkin-logged activity, which is why you will see that in a lead’s Activity Log regardless of whether cookies were accepted.

[WeiDMarketing]

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By definition, Munchkin-logged activity data (Visit Web Page, Clicked Link) requires the Munchkin cookie. That’s what Munchkin is all about. It wouldn’t make sense to be able to track people who have opted out of the tracking cookie.

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Thank you for the explanation. So basically, if the user manually rejects all cookies from the website, that prevents the Munchkin cookie (still anonymous) from associating with the email address.

I guess a potential workaround is to not use Javascript and leverage Segment or Mixpanel to track/ID user events. (Something to think about down the road). 

Appreciate the help, everyone.

[SanfordWhiteman]

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Because it's clear Marketo and Navattic was able to ID who the user was based on email and the Munchkin cookie. I literally see the data in Navattic reporting. (SS below)

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You’re conflating 2 things here.

The Marketo API doesn’t let you look up a person using the Email Address value and the Munchkin cookie value.*

You can look up using one of those two lookup keys, but not both at the same time.

* This wouldn’t make sense anyway because any associated cookie is associated with one person, while the Email Address can be associated with multiple people. If you have the cookie, you’d use only the cookie. Including the Email Address would be redundant.