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Emmanuelle_Biss
Emmanuelle_Biss
New Participant
May 20, 2015
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Lead Source - Tracking traffic sources

  • May 20, 2015
  • 4 replies
  • 9003 views

Hi Everyone,

I've been looking at many discussions to answer my question; unfortunately, I do not seem to have come across one that answers it all.

I'm trying to track the source of our traffic similarly to the way we can track it on Google Analytics: Direct, Organic, Display, PPC, Social, etc. so I can track the original source of the lead.

Is there any way this can be tracked easily in Marketo? I have read that the tracking could be done through the utm tracking, but for leads coming from Direct or Organic, the source cannot be defined, as there is no URL parameters. How can this be solved?

Thanks for your help!

    Best answer by Elliott_Lowe1

    Below is the smart list of the smart campaign that sets the value of the Recent Source field to 'Organic Search' when a page visit comes from that source.  If the lead has just been created as anonymous, then I copy the value in the Recent Source field to the Initial Online Source field.  If the lead has just become known (e.g. submitted first form), then I copy  the value in the Recent Source field to the Opt-in Source field.  Once the lead has a won Opportunity,. I stop updating the Recent Source field and that becomes the source of the last touch.  The smart list of the smart campaign that sets the value of the Recent Soruce field to 'Direct Website' has similar triggers and filters, but the Querystring and Referrer constraints are 'is empty' and I do not include page visits where the Referrer starts with our website's home page URL.

      

    Advanced filters(1 or 2) and (3 or 4) and 5
    Trigger - Fills Out FormForm Name is any
    Querystring not contains 'utm_medium=SEM'
    Referrer contains in (3) 'search.yahoo.com'; 'bing.com/search'; 'studyshack.com/search'
    Trigger - Fills Out FormForm Name is any
    Querystring not contains in (8) 'gclid'; 'utm_medium=SocialAds'; 'utm_medium=Display'; ...
    Referrer contains in (2) 'google.'; 'duckduckgo.com'
    Trigger - Visits Web PageWeb Page is any
    Querystring not contains 'utm_medium=SEM'
    Referrer contains in (3) 'search.yahoo.com'; 'bing.com/search'; 'studyshack.com/search'
    Trigger - Visits Web PageWeb Page is any
    Querystring not contains in (8) 'gclid'; 'utm_medium=SocialAds'; 'utm_medium=Display'; ...
    Referrer contains in (2) 'google.'; 'duckduckgo.com'
    Filter 1 - Is AnonymousIs Anonymous is true
    Filter 2 - Is AnonymousIs Anonymous is false
    Filter 3 - Has OpportunityHas Opportunity is any
    Stage is not 'Closed Won'
    Filter 4 - Has OpportunityHas Opportunity is empty
    Filter 5 - Visited Web PageWeb Page is any
    Querystring not contains in (9) 'gclid'; 'utm_medium=SocialAds'; 'utm_medium=Display'; …
    Referrer not contains in (9) 'gclid'; 'utm_medium=SocialAds'; 'utm_medium=Display'; ...
    Date of Activity in past '1 minutes'

    4 replies

    A
    Anonymous
    October 27, 2017

    Super useful. Thanks for posting.

    I was just setting up my campaign, when i noticed marketo no longer has 'Is Anonymous' as a filter. Given the marketo changes, do we need this filter? If yes, can we use Anonymous IP is empty /not empty for False/true?

    A
    Anonymous
    June 2, 2016

    Hi there,

    does this querystring value come through automatically when the form is submitted or does it need to be captured in the form in a hidden field?

    Emmanuelle_Biss
    Emmanuelle_BissAuthor
    New Participant
    June 2, 2016

    Hi Michael Collins​,

    If you're talking about the querysting utm_medium, yes you will need to make sure you tag your urls correctly so that the information (utm_medium=PPC, utm_medium=SocialAds, etc.) will correctly be sent out to Marketo. You will automatically get the Referrer populated in Marketo though.

    Hope this answers your question

    A
    Anonymous
    June 2, 2016

    In what field is the referrer populated?

    So smart list of Fills in Form…and then?

    How does that work for figuring out if someone came to our site via an organic search or came directly – so there was no URL with paramaters clicked on…

    Elliott_Lowe1
    Elliott_Lowe1Accepted solution
    New Participant
    May 21, 2015

    Below is the smart list of the smart campaign that sets the value of the Recent Source field to 'Organic Search' when a page visit comes from that source.  If the lead has just been created as anonymous, then I copy the value in the Recent Source field to the Initial Online Source field.  If the lead has just become known (e.g. submitted first form), then I copy  the value in the Recent Source field to the Opt-in Source field.  Once the lead has a won Opportunity,. I stop updating the Recent Source field and that becomes the source of the last touch.  The smart list of the smart campaign that sets the value of the Recent Soruce field to 'Direct Website' has similar triggers and filters, but the Querystring and Referrer constraints are 'is empty' and I do not include page visits where the Referrer starts with our website's home page URL.

      

    Advanced filters(1 or 2) and (3 or 4) and 5
    Trigger - Fills Out FormForm Name is any
    Querystring not contains 'utm_medium=SEM'
    Referrer contains in (3) 'search.yahoo.com'; 'bing.com/search'; 'studyshack.com/search'
    Trigger - Fills Out FormForm Name is any
    Querystring not contains in (8) 'gclid'; 'utm_medium=SocialAds'; 'utm_medium=Display'; ...
    Referrer contains in (2) 'google.'; 'duckduckgo.com'
    Trigger - Visits Web PageWeb Page is any
    Querystring not contains 'utm_medium=SEM'
    Referrer contains in (3) 'search.yahoo.com'; 'bing.com/search'; 'studyshack.com/search'
    Trigger - Visits Web PageWeb Page is any
    Querystring not contains in (8) 'gclid'; 'utm_medium=SocialAds'; 'utm_medium=Display'; ...
    Referrer contains in (2) 'google.'; 'duckduckgo.com'
    Filter 1 - Is AnonymousIs Anonymous is true
    Filter 2 - Is AnonymousIs Anonymous is false
    Filter 3 - Has OpportunityHas Opportunity is any
    Stage is not 'Closed Won'
    Filter 4 - Has OpportunityHas Opportunity is empty
    Filter 5 - Visited Web PageWeb Page is any
    Querystring not contains in (9) 'gclid'; 'utm_medium=SocialAds'; 'utm_medium=Display'; …
    Referrer not contains in (9) 'gclid'; 'utm_medium=SocialAds'; 'utm_medium=Display'; ...
    Date of Activity in past '1 minutes'
      Emmanuelle_Biss
      Emmanuelle_BissAuthor
      New Participant
      May 22, 2015

      Hi Elliott!

      Wow, thanks a lot for this detailed explanation. I will try to implement it and hopefully this will solve my problem!

      Thanks again for your help!

      A
      Anonymous
      May 22, 2015

      @Emmanuelle Allibert​  Hey, just wanted to let you know that if you like @Elliott Lowe​ 's answer, you should mark it Correct Answer (or Helpful). This will alert others...and also give some points to Elliott.

      - Updated at 8:20 this am: Emmanuelle, you also get points if you mark an answer correct : ).

        Elliott_Lowe1
        Elliott_Lowe1
        New Participant
        May 21, 2015

        This can be done via a series of smart campaigns for each source type.  You would create a set of triggers / filters that would be specific for the channel and if the lead qualifies, you would set your custom source field to the desired value and/or add them as a member of the appropriate channel program.  We do this at three different times (initial page viist, visit at opt-in and last visit before the Opportunity is closed).

          Emmanuelle_Biss
          Emmanuelle_BissAuthor
          New Participant
          May 21, 2015

          Hi Elliott,

          Thanks a lot for your reply! OK, I see how you would need to create a series of smart campaigns for each source type. But how can Marketo differentiate the source of the visit? Especially one from Organic vs. one from Direct? Will I need to add a specific Javascript code on all pages of my website?

          Also, that is a great idea to do it at three different stages! Do you keep this value unmodified to see the customer's journey (therefore the initial source will never change, no matter how many times the user comes to our website)? I would also need to create 3 new fields: Initial Source, Opt-In Source, Last Visit Source. Is that how you did it?

          Thank you again for your feedback

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