Certain Signal Connector: Marketo Native Integration Guide

This document is a guide to using Certain Signal Connector to integrate with Marketo.

(Signal Connector also integrates with other products, including Eloqua and Salesforce via native integrations and
others via Webhooks or Advanced Webhooks – see separate guides.)

This product is not included with Certain Platform by default, but if you’re interested in it after reading this document, please email help@certain.com and features@certain.com, including your account name.

Contents

1. What is Signal Connector? How does it work?

2. Prerequisites
   • Data-Flow Considerations 
   • Marketo Credentials

3. Overview of Setup Steps

4. Setting up Tags 
   • What Are Tags?
   • Setting Tags Up for an Account
   • Applying Tags in an Account
   • Applying Tags in an Event

5. Opening Certain Signal Connector

6. Setting up a Connection
   • What are Connections?
   • Adding a Connection

7. Setting Up Flows
   • What is a “Flow”? 
   • The Flow List 
   • Configuring a Flow

8. Flow Data Source 
   • Available sources
   • Activate for

9. Flow Filters

10. Flow Destination
    • Setting up a Destination
    • Mappings
    • Campaign ID
    • Form

11. Metrics Dashboard 
    • Account Insights 

12. The Retry Queue

13. Replaying a Flow

What is Signal Connector? How does it work?

Certain Signal Connector processes data from your events in real-time, passing it from Certain Platform to your instance of Marketo.

This real-time integration empowers sales and marketing teams to take intelligent, prompt action on the
right event data.

Almost everything is set up at the account level. Signal Connector processes information from the events in your account. For event-level information, this is based on the custom tags you attach to data such as Events, Custom Registration Properties, or Registration Statuses, as explained in this guide.

Important: Signal Connector processes outbound information, processing information from Certain and sending it to Marketo.

Prerequisites

Data-Flow Considerations

• Do you capture data in registration questions that will be synced to Marketo?

  • If so, you’ll need to apply tags to those questions: see Registration Questions.

• Do you have different data mappings based on registration status, or attendee type?

  • If so, you’ll need to apply tags to those items: see Registration Status or Attendee Types.

• How many Marketo campaigns?

  • One campaign that’s common to all events, or one campaign per event?

  • If one per event, you’ll need an Event Question for the Campaign ID: see Campaign ID.

Marketo Credentials

For you to set up a Connection in Signal Connector (see Setting up a Connection) you’ll need to know the URL you use to log in to Marketo, and your Marketo administrator will need to create an OAuth2 app in Marketo, by going to Admin> Integration > LaunchPoint > New Service > Service: Custom > Create.

They then need to provide you with the following details:

• Client Id

• Client Secret

Overview of Setup Steps

Step                                                                 See Page

On Certain Platform

1. Add tags in the account                          Setting up Tags

2. Apply those tags                                     Applying Tags

In Certain Signal Connector

3. Add a Connection                                   Adding a Connection

4. Configure a Flow                                     Setting up Flows

Setting up Tags

What Are Tags?

Tags are a way of identifying event-level data using labels you set at the account level.

You can then apply those tags to generic items in events, especially custom registration statuses and custom registration properties for use in Certain Signal Connector. (Tags can be used for other purposes, but this guide doesn’t cover that.)

For example, your events may have several custom registration statuses in addition to the standard ones. You can apply the same Tags to more than one status or give each one its own Tag.

When you set up a Flow in Certain Signal Connector to send data to Marketo when an attendee’s Registration Status changes, you specify the tags applicable to those statuses, not the statuses themselves. That means the flow can apply to any event in your account.

Setting Tags Up for an Account

1. As an Administrator, go to Account Settings > Management >Tags.

2. Enter a Name and a Label for the tag.

3. Select the Object(s) to which the tag can apply; for example, ‘Registration Statuses” and/or
   “Custom Registration Properties”.

4. Click Add.

5. Repeat as required for as many tags as you need.

6. Important: Add enough tags to apply to all of the following that you will use in your Signal Connector Flows (see Flow Data Source):
   a. Registration Statuses
   b. Custom Registration Properties

7. Also, add enough tags to apply to all of the following that you will use in filters for flows (see Flow Filters):
   a. Attendee Types
   b. Events

Applying Tags in an Account

In each event from which you want information to flow through Certain Signal Connector, apply tags to the relevant information: Registration Statuses and Registration Custom Properties.

(You can also tag Attendee Types and Events to filter registration records by attendee type or event: see Flow Filters.)

Default Registration Statuses

These apply to all events, so an Administrator applies the tags at the account level.

1. Go to Account Settings > Management > Registration Statuses.

2. Select one or more Tags for each status.

Important: Even if you don’t use any standard registration statuses, the best practice is to set up tags for all of them, but it’s essential to tag at least the ‘New’ status (which Certain uses “behind the scenes” when first processing each registration).

Applying Tags in an Event

Custom Registration Statuses (Essential)

1. In each event, go to Plan > Event Setup > Custom Statuses
2. Select at least one tag for each status.

Custom Registration Properties (Optional)

If any of the Flows you configure in Signal Connector (see Configuring a Flow) will activate for Custom Reg Properties:

1. In each event, go to Plan > Configure.
2. Under Custom Registration Properties, select at least one tag for each custom reg property in the event.

Standard Registration Properties (Automatic)

These tags are set up for you automatically, with names identical to the properties themselves:
Complete, Badge Printed, On To Do List, Invoice Generated, and Test.

You only see them in Signal Connector, where, just like Custom Reg Properties, you can activate Flows for them (see Activate for). There’s nothing to edit on Certain Platform.

Attendee Types

(Optional– for use with filters – see Flow Filters.)

1. In each event, go to Plan > Event Setup > Attendee Types.

2. Select one or more Tags for each attendee type on which you may wish to filter registrations. (see Flow Filters.)

Events

(Optional– for use with filters –see Flow Filters.)

1. In each event, you wish to include in a filter (for example, to ensure that only registrations for
that event are passed to Marketo):
2. Go to Plan > Event Setup > Details.
3. Select one or more Tags for the event.

Registration Questions

(Optional– for mapping Certain fields to Marketo fields – see Mappings.)

1. In each event in which you use registration questions to capture data from attendees and wish to
pass those answers and/or questions to Marketo:
2. Go to Plan > Event Setup > Questions.
3. Select just one Tag for each question. (Selecting more could result in duplicate data in Marketo.)

Opening Certain Signal Connector

When Signal Connector is activated for your account, the Account Settings > Implementation menu—available to Administrators—includes an extra option:

• Signal Connector Real-Time Data Integration

Click that link to open Certain Signal Connector in a separate window; it runs separately from Certain Platform.
Note: To return from Signal Connector to Certain Platform at any time, click 

Setting up a Connection

What are Connections?

A Connection in Certain Signal Connector specifies how to connect to your instance of Marketo – your Target
application.

You can actually have multiple connections, perhaps to Marketo and another application. (Other target applications are covered in separate guides.)

Each Flow (see Setting up Flows) requires a Connection. Multiple flows may use the same Connection.

You can set up a Connection before configuring your first Flow, but you also have the option to do so while configuring a Flow. This guide assumes you’re setting up the Connection first.

Adding a Connection

As an Administrator, you may set up one or more Connections for your account. You need only do so once – you can then use them in the Flows you set up (see The Flow List, below).

1. Go to Account Settings > Implementation > Signal Connector Real-Time Data Integration.

2. As noted above, Certain Signal Connector opens in a separate window.

3. Click Connections in the left navigation panel.

4. Click Add A Connection in the Connection List page that opens.

5. Enter the details in the Connection Setup screen that opens.

•   Target: Select Marketo as the third-party app to connect to.
•   Connection Name: Enter a name of your own choice. This could be just ‘Marketo’ or
    ‘Marketo Connection’, for example.
•   Service URL: Enter the beginning of the Marketo URL to which you are redirected when
    you log in to Marketo: the part starting with “https://” and ending with “marketo.com”.
    For example: https://app-ab13.marketo.com

•   Authentication Type: Select the authentication type to be used. For Marketo that is
    currently OAuth2, an industry-standard secure method of authentication.
•   Grant Type: Select 'Client Credentials'
•   Client Id and Client Secret: These two long strings of characters are unique to the OAuth2
    app your Marketo administrator has set up, as explained under ‘Marketo Credentials’ on
Marketo Credentials.
•   Access Token URL: Use the default value.
•   Refresh Token URL: Use the default value.
•   Scope: Leave blank or use the default value if there is one.
•   Test Connection URL: Use the default value.
•   Force Update: Relevant only for ‘Trigger Campaign’ actions. If selected, then if Marketo
    already has a record for the Lead whose data is being sent, that Lead will be updated where
    any details in Certain differ — for example, their phone number.
•   Is this a primary connection – Select only if previously you used Plan > Configure >
    Connectors to integrate with Marketo. The Signal Connector connection will take precedence.

6. Click Save & Test.

7. If the test is successful, click Close. If it’s not, check that the values in step 5 are all correct.

Setting Up Flows

What is a “Flow”?

A flow is a configuration to manage the flow of data from Certain to Marketo. You create Flows from the landing page in Signal Connector: see Configuring a Flow, below. You may configure several flows for an account, which might all use the same Connection (explained above).

You only need to configure a flow once at the account level. When a flow is complete, it will start picking up data for each event in that account within about a minute.

The minute’s delay is because Signal Connector runs independently from Certain Platform. So if you edit a flow then the same slight delay occurs before that change takes effect in the processing of the registrations.

The Flow List

As an Administrator in Certain Platform. go to Account Settings > Implementation > Signal Connector Real-Time Data Integration.

As noted above, Certain Signal Connector opens in a separate browser window.

The main screen in Signal Connector is the Flow List, which lists all flows.

The Status column shows whether a flow is completely set up.

The Active column shows whether the flow is running. Click the toggle button to change a flow from Active to Inactive, or vice versa.

Configuring a Flow

Click ADD A FLOW to start setting up a new flow.

See screenshot overleaf.

The configuration consists of:

• Name
• ‘Live’ or ‘Test‘ status. (See immediately below.)
• Source: What information the Flow will look for, and what it will activate for in your events.
(See Flow Data Source.)
• Filters: Optional filters to narrow down that information. (see Flow Filters.)
• Destination: Where and how that information goes into Marketo. (See Flow Destination.)

‘Live’ or ‘Test’

The Live toggle switch determines whether your Flow is Live or Test:

A Live Flow will pick up all live registrations in live events. It will ignore test registrations, even in live events.

A Test Flow picks up all test registrations: that’s all registrations in test events, plus any registrations
marked as ‘Test’ in live events."

Best Practice: Set a new flow up as Test—and test it—before setting it to Live.

Flow Data Source

Next, specify the Source of data for the flow (optionally applying Flow Filters).

The Source of a Flow is what the Flow will watch for in your data in Certain and when it will activate, based on that data.

For example, it might watch for any change to a Registration Status, and activate if an attendee’s status has changed to a status tagged as ‘Registered’.

Available sources

You set a flow to watch for any one of the following:

• Registration Create Update: When a registration is created or updated.
• Registration Status Change: When a registration’s status changes.
• Session Registration Status Change: When a registration’s session registration status changes.
• Event Create Update: When an event is created or updated.

Note: You can always save an incomplete Flow and complete it at a later date. As soon as a Flow is complete, it will start picking up data after the usual minute’s delay.

Activate for …

Choose what the flow should activate for by selecting one or more tags in each appropriate object’s dropdown list

As shown in the screenshot above, you can activate for tags applied to Registration Statuses and/or
Registration Properties. (The latter includes both Standard Reg Properties and Custom Reg Properties). Other options may be added depending on what the Flow is watching for:

• If the Flow is watching for Registration Status Change, you must activate for Registration Statuses.
• If it’s watching for Session Registration Status Change, you must activate for Session Registration
Statuses.
• And if it’s watching for Event Create Update, you must activate for Event Statuses.

The tags available for selection are those set up for that object; see Setting up Tags.

For example, the tags for Registration Statuses include Registration Status tags, which you can apply to:

• standard registration statuses at account level (see Applying Tags in an Event)
• custom registration statuses at event level (see Applying Tags in an Event)

Flow Filters

You can filter the data going into a flow by selecting fields in any of these three filter types:

Event fields, Profile fields, and Attendee Type tags.

The flow will only include a registration if it meets the rule(s) specified in the filter.

• Event
Available fields:
— standard event fields (e.g., Event Code)
— custom event fields
— event tags

• Profile
Available fields:
— standard profile fields (e.g., Position)
— custom profile fields

• Attendee Type Tags
Available fields:
— tags that can be applied to Attendee Types

Note: For custom fields you can only select “enumerated” questions – those that have pre-configured
answers; that is, questions that are of types Select, Multi-select, Checkbox, or Radio.

Flow Destination

Select Marketo from the integrations set up by Certain for your account.

Setting up a Destination

1. Give the Destination a name of your choice,

2. Select the Connection to use.

Note: You can instead click New Connection to add a connection; the process to set one up is the
same as described on Setting up a Connection.

3. Select the action for this connection from those listed as available:

• Trigger Campaign
• Create/Update Lead
• Form Post

Your choice of action determines the other configuration options.

Mappings

The Available Mappings option is available for most actions, including ‘Trigger Campaign’, ‘Create/Update Lead’, and ‘Form Post’.

A mapping specifies how each target field in Marketo matches a source field in Certain.

Select a mapping from the drop-down list.

If nobody has set any mappings up yet, or you need something other than one of the existing mappings, click New Mapping to add one:

1. Give the mapping a name of your choice.
Best Practice: For multiple mappings, used for different flows, make the names self-explanatory.
For example, ‘Lead Mapping’ and ‘Form Mapping’

2. The left column lists Marketo fields: the “target” fields.
Under each one is the default “source” field in Certain matching that target field.
For example: target field ‘Salutation’ defaults to source field ‘Prefix/Title’, meaning the value of the
Salutation field in Certain will populate the Prefix/Title field in Marketo.

3. By default, only the First Name, Last Name and Email fields are mandatory. Select the checkbox
next to a target field to make it mandatory.

• If a required field is missing, there’ll be a validation error when the flow tries to update Marketo. This is not normally fixable, so would not go into the Retry Queue.

4. Click the x after a source field label to delete that field. Click to add a new one.

Note: You can concatenate multiple source fields for the same target field, and even type fixed text.

For example, for target field ‘Title’ you could choose source fields ‘Position’ and ‘Organization’,
separated by two spaces and “@”:

The Certain fields you can choose from as the source of the data going into the target fields in
Marketo include:

• Profile Standard Fields
• Profile Custom Fields
• Registration Standard Fields
• Registration Custom Question Tags – one field for the question, and one for its answer. (See         page 5 about not using the same tag for more than one question.)
• Registration Standard Properties
• Account Standard Fields (Account Code)
• Event Standard Fields (e.g., Event Code and Event Name)
• Event Custom Fields
• Flow Fields (Flow Name)
• Macros (e.g., Current Date)

5. In the second column you can select a transformation option for each field. The default of no selection means the data will be sent to Marketo unchanged.
The options are:

• lower case
• Proper Case
• UPPER CASE
• Trim (This removes extra spaces.)

Note: You can select more than one transformation for a field. For example, you could change it to
Proper Case and trim it.

6. At the end of the list you can Add Target Fields and select source fields for them.

To delete a field from the mapping, click DELETE at the end of that row.

If you’ve selected a mapping then two other buttons are enabled, with self-explanatory labels:

• Edit Mapping
• Preview Mapping

A third button is also enabled:

• Refresh Target Fields

Use this if you don’t find a target field you were expecting in an existing mapping.

Technical note: This is likely for new fields added since a connection was created, since the target
fields are cached when a connection is tested. A refresh updates the cached mappings.

Campaign ID

The Campaign ID is required if your action is ‘Trigger Campaign’ or ‘Create/Update Lead’. There are two options:

• Select Campaign ID Based on Event Question

If you have a unique campaign for each event, use a custom event question to specify the campaign ID. (See Registration Questions.) Select that question here.

• Campaign ID

To move all attendees to a single campaign, regardless of event, enter the campaign ID here.

Note: If you specify both an event question and an account-level campaign ID, then the event question-based campaign will take precedence.

Form

If the selected action is Form Post, then complete the following:

• Select A Form – Select the Marketo form to which the data will be sent,

• Form URL – This is populated automatically based on the form selected.

• Mapping – The target fields are pre-populated based on the form selected. You then select the
target fields and map them to the source (Certain) fields, as described under Mappings above.

Metrics Dashboard

To see the statistics available in Signal Connector, click Metrics in the left navigation panel
when looking at flows.

The choices in the new navigation panel you then see for Metrics depend on the flows and their targets.

The first one will be Insights, as illustrated and described below.

Other links will be, for example, to Leads Created and Form Posts; those each work in the same way as
Account Insights.

Account Insights

Select whether you want to see Live Flows or Test Flows.

Select the period for which you want to see the data; for example, for the last 15 minutes, 1 hour or 4
hours, or a number of days.

There are three tabs: Summary, Troubleshooting, and Activity Feed.

• Summary tab

This is the default tab on the Insights page, as shown here. The figures shown depend on the flows and actions. For some of them, you can click the number to drill down further – for example, click Unique Registrations to see the registrations processed by any flows in your selected time frame.

You can filter or search for records when you’ve drilled down. For example, filter on an Event Code to
see only the registrations in that event.

The figures listed below are shown. Remember these are for the whole account: all events and registrations.

For each of these you can click the number to drill down to details.

• Changes Processed: The number of registrations processed. Increments each time a registration is created or updated in Certain and then processed by a flow in Signal Connector.

Note: This will often include the same registration more than once. For example, creating a
registration and then updating it twice would total three “changes”.

• Unique Registrations: The number of registrations processed, counting any single registration onlyonce. You may find this the most relevant figure on the page.

It’s likely to be lower than Changes Processed. For example, if Joe Citizen’s registration was
processed three times, then Changes Processed will have increased by 3. But since those changes
were all for the same registration, the Unique Registrations will have increased by only 1.

• Actions Triggered: The number of actions triggered by flows. If you only have one flow with one
action, then this could be the same as Changes Processed. The more flows you have, and the more
actions configured in those flows, the more actions may be triggered.

• Actions Not Triggered: Only displayed if registrations were processed by flows without actions
being triggered. This could be caused, for example, by a registration having an untagged status.

• Active Flows: The number of flows actually processing registrations during the selected period.
This is not related to whether the flow are shown as ”Active” or ‘Inactive” on the Flow List.

• External Activities: Not applicable to Marketo. (Would apply only if a Target were Eloqua.)

• Form Posts: Relevant for Form Post actions – the number of form posts.

• Leads Created: The number of leads created in Marketo by flows.

• Leads Updated: The number of leads updated in Marketo by flows.

• Registration Activity in Certain: Overview information.

• Processing Status: A pie chart comparing the numbers of failures and successes.

Drilling down into the failures provides a high-level view for troubleshooting.
For example, you can see why an action has failed. If that’s something you can address, then once
you’ve done so you can expedite the fix in Signal Connector by going back to Flows and clicking Retry in the left navigation panel — see Retry Queue.

• Troubleshooting tab

The second tab on the Insights page shows information you may find useful for troubleshooting.

For example, if some registrations are not processed because a Registration Status isn’t tagged, this gives you the chance to rectify that so that the registrations can be processed on the next retry.

The numbers shown are as follows. Click a number to drill down to see details of the actual records,

• In Retry Queue: If an action fails, it joins the Retry Queue— and will be tried again.
(Maximum automatic retries per action = 3.)

• Total Retried: The number of retries. If an action was retried twice, that would have added 2 to this number.

• Retried Abandoned: The actions that failed three retries.

• Validation Errors: No retries possible because failed validation. For example, a lead that could not
be created because a mandatory target field had no value in the source field. (See ‘Mappings’)

• Retry Activity: A chart showing retries by time.

• Retry Processing Category: A chart showing retries by category – “General”, “System”, “Config”,
“Connection”, etc.

• Connection Activity: A chart showing activity per connection over time.

• Activity Feed tab

The third tab on the Insights page lists the registrations processed, noting success or failure, Registration Code, Event, Flow, etc.

This is a rolling history, by date. Think of it as another way to access lower-level data you could see by drilling down in the Summary or Troubleshooting tabs.

The Retry Queue

When an action fails it usually joins the “Retry Queue”, where it takes its turn to run again. (Failures that
can’t be resolved, such as missing mandatory fields, are exceptions: they don’t join the queue.) An action can be retried up to three times, after which it does not rejoin the queue.

To see the Retry Queue, click Retry in the left navigation panel on the Flows page:

Causes of failure include ones under your control as a planner, such as a registration with a status that hasn’t been tagged, and technical ones such as a connection being down.

Where you can resolve the cause of a failure, such as tagging a registration or setting a flow back to being active, that’s all you need do. The action should succeed when retried.

For other failures that don’t resolve themselves, you probably need to contact your administrator or ask
Certain for help.

The interval between retries depends on the severity of the reason: the more serious the reason the sooner the retry.

Filtering the Queue
You can filter the records shown in the Retry Queue using these three filters:

Integration: Probably only one option, ‘Marketo’, unless you have multiple integrations set up.

Status: ‘All Statuses’, ’Retry’, ‘Error’, ‘Failed’, or ‘Done’.

Category: ‘All Categories’, ‘General’. ‘System’, ‘Config’, ‘Certain API’, ‘Connection’, etc.

Submitting to the Queue
When you click an item in the Retry Queue, you see its full details.

If that knowledge is enough for you to solve the problem, then once you have done so you can click Submit to Retry Queue, which adds the item straight to the front of the queue.

Replaying a Flow

If you change an aspect of a flow while it has been running for some time, such as changing its filters, you
may want to replay that flow for the same registrations as before, as if the changes had been made earlier.

This is not something that you can do directly, but you can ask Certain to arrange it for you. You may be able to specify a date range, or even an event.