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Anonymous

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Sitecore & Marketo Integration

Forum|Forum|9 years ago
January 18, 2017
4 replies
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We are migrating our website to Sitecore this year. Any tips for integrating Sitecore with Marketo? Best practices? Does anyone continue to use Marketo landing pages, or do they embed the form on a Sitecore page?

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Best answer by Dan_Stevens_

Today, our integration consists of the following:

Munchkin tracking code placed on every page (using Google Tag Manager, which manages our other tags/scripts, such as Google Analytics and Demandbase)
Every form on our site is a Marketo embedded form.
For every piece of content (and activity) that we want to track across our 23 country sites (and global), we create a dedicated program in Marketo. We've scaled our programs so that it tracks activity across multiple country sites (we used to create a program per country per content).

We still use Marketo landing pages - primarily where there's a single call-to-action and we need to keep the focus on the CTA. Especially since our website pages can be quite long with a variety of content to consume (for example: Sitecore | Avanade). Usually, they're used for PPC and paid advertising campaigns.

We're still working on getting xDB installed/deployed - which will enable us to do more advanced Marketo integration (e.g., bring in Marketo behavioral data for known leads to provide a highly relevant/personalized customer experience). This will also allow us to start taking advantage of some of the analytics capabilities in Sitecore that aren't available in Marketo. In fact, we're relying less on the analytics/reporting in Marketo and instead using the API to pull all relevant data (leads, programs, activities, etc.) into a central data warehouse where we have a set of custom dashboards and drill-down reporting - way beyond what RCE can provide. We're using SQL Server and Power BI for this.

M

MatteoBa2

New Participant

Hi everyone,

I'm bringing up this thread 'cause we need to integrate forms done in Marketo on Sitecore landing pages. When I click on "embed code", where should I place the code in Sitecore landing page settings? Anyone can help me to figure it out?

A

Anonymous

Hi Rachel,

We are in the midst of purchasing and re-platforming to SiteCore. What did you use to integrate Marketo? SiteCore's native connector looks like it is not well-maintained; last updated in 2/16 . Any integration whoas I should steer clear of?

Thanks,

Nikki

Dan_Stevens_

New Participant

Hi Nikki - thanks for sharing. I didn't even know this connector existed (it is developed by a third-party, and not Sitecore). As you mentioned - and based on the lone comment - doesn't look like it's well maintained/supported; and doesn't function as expected. Looking at the features, I really couldn't see us leveraging this anyway - even if it does work as expected - as it seems like it could introduce a lot of confusion/issues across both platforms. I wonder if it's even supported on Sitecore 9.0.

A

Anonymous

Hi Dan,

Thanks for the reply. How are you integrating SiteCore with Marketo? We are evaluating several point-to-point and iPaaS options currently, so any advice you can share on integrating the two would be helpful. I am most worried about keeping persona data in sync so the personalization we are doing in Marketo aligns with our website.

Thanks,

Nikki

A

Anonymous

Hey @Dan Stevens Another sitecore/marketo question for you. SInce you use Marketo forms on your sitecore pages, how do you handle the pre-form fill functionality not working on external sites? I saw this article: http://developers.marketo.com/blog/external-page-prefill/.

Thoughts on this? What are you currently doing?

Dan_Stevens_

New Participant

Hi Rachel - we don't use the pre-fill functionality on the embedded forms on our website. Even if the capability worked for embedded forms (without the customization), we would only use it sparingly due to some of the strict privacy laws in certain countries around the world.

Dan_Stevens_Accepted solution

New Participant

Today, our integration consists of the following:

Munchkin tracking code placed on every page (using Google Tag Manager, which manages our other tags/scripts, such as Google Analytics and Demandbase)
Every form on our site is a Marketo embedded form.
For every piece of content (and activity) that we want to track across our 23 country sites (and global), we create a dedicated program in Marketo. We've scaled our programs so that it tracks activity across multiple country sites (we used to create a program per country per content).

We still use Marketo landing pages - primarily where there's a single call-to-action and we need to keep the focus on the CTA. Especially since our website pages can be quite long with a variety of content to consume (for example: Sitecore | Avanade). Usually, they're used for PPC and paid advertising campaigns.

We're still working on getting xDB installed/deployed - which will enable us to do more advanced Marketo integration (e.g., bring in Marketo behavioral data for known leads to provide a highly relevant/personalized customer experience). This will also allow us to start taking advantage of some of the analytics capabilities in Sitecore that aren't available in Marketo. In fact, we're relying less on the analytics/reporting in Marketo and instead using the API to pull all relevant data (leads, programs, activities, etc.) into a central data warehouse where we have a set of custom dashboards and drill-down reporting - way beyond what RCE can provide. We're using SQL Server and Power BI for this.

A

Anonymous

This is great, thanks Dan. Few Questions:

For the Munchkin Tracking Code, you place a code on every page through Google tag manager? What is the benefit of that?

For Marketo landing pages, do you use them for email nurturing campaigns? Or do you send them to a sitecore page with an embedded marketo form?

Appreciate the help!

Dan_Stevens_

New Participant

Hi Rachel - the main benefit of GTM is the ability to quickly deploy and manage scripts/tags without having to manually edit each and every page where they're required. Back in the day, many of us who administered websites would use "include" files and place these references at the bottom of every page of our site. Then when we needed to edit the code/content (e.g., something as simple as a year (2017), to something more complex like the inclusion of advertising tracking code), we simply updated a single "include" file and those updates were immediately reflected on all of our pages. GTM is like an "include" file on steroids - as it allows you to deploy/manage specific tags across specific pages of your web properties. For example, we include GTM on both our Sitecore pages and Marketo LPs. But since Marketo LPs already include Munchkin by default, we have it turned off within GTM (and only use it to serve up the Google Analytics and DemandBase tags on Marketo LPs). You can learn more here: Why Google Tag Manager - Analytics Help and here http://developers.marketo.com/blog/integrating-munchkin-with-google-tag-manager/. Just be aware that using GTM has some minor downfalls, as explained by @Sanford Whiteman in this thread: Re: Adding Munchkin to GTM.

Most of our nurturing campaigns drive users to our Sitecore pages (especially since we can provide unique experiences using custom URL parameters - e.g., ensuring the main CTA is contained within the top hero banner; or immediately start the video referenced in any URL). Another use-case for Marketo LPs are for event registrations since those pages are often short-lived and easier to deploy using Marketo LPs.

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