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Campaigns and Programs

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Campaigns

Campaigns are used to track efforts of marketing tactics - field events, webcasts, content downloads. The campaign types align with how marketing tracks spend and align the way records are tracked across three of our core systems (Marketo, Salesforce and Bizible) for consistent tracking. Leveraging campaign aligns our efforts across Marketing, Sales and Finance.

Campaign Large Buckets

Campaign buckets are used to improve reporting at a high level and Allocadia forecasting. A bucket must be selected when a new campaign is created.

Name Description Examples
Brand Activities meant to elevant the GitLab brand All-Remote, share of voice campaigns
Lead Generation Efforts designed to bring in NEW leads to our database Inbound Marketing, Conferences, Content Syndication, Webinars, Prospect Events in regions
Pipeline Generation & Acceleration Efforts to develop and accelerate leads in our database to purchase Webinars, Workshops, Owned Events
Users & Community Campaigns geared towards GitLab users and Community Commit, Meetups
E-Commerce Conversion Campaigns that do not require a touch by sales to close Buy Now in our store

Campaign Types and Large Buckets will not always be 1:1, as certain programs could fall into multiple buckets (like webcasts, content).

Campaign Cost Tracking

Campaign Managers track costs associated with campaigns - such as events, content, webcasts, etc. Campaign tags can be applied to Expensify reports, corporate credit card charges, and vendor bills processed by Accounts Payable. Campaign expenses that are incurred by independent contractors should be clearly noted with the appropriate tag and included in their invoices to the company. We then use these accumulated campaign tag costs for budget to actual analysis as well as to update the Salesforce campaigns with actual costs.

The following steps are used to create and manage campaign tags:

  1. Event Owners create the campaign tag in the budget document, link to a procurement issue if it exists, and also the main tactic issue.
  2. Finance is notified by either the Procurement issue or the main tactic issue (if the tactic costs less than $5,000 and has no contract that needs to be signed) that a campaign tag needs to be created. NetSuite, which then updates Expensify nightly.
  3. The Salesforce campaign is set up to match the campaign tag exactly, so that it can be used as a unique identifier and tracked across multiple systems. We only need to set up campaign tags for events/campaigns or if there are multiple vendors for the same budget line item that we are trying to track.
  4. If you are a Field Marketer, more information on campaign tags for Field Marketing can be found here.
  5. For the MCM team, additional details can be found in the campaign epic.

Things to Note:

Campaign Type & Progression Status

A record can only progress one-way through a set of event statuses. A record cannot move backward though the statuses.

i.e. Record is put into Registered cannot be moved backwards to Waitlisted

Conference

Any event that we have paid to sponsor, have a booth/presence and are sending representatives from GitLab (example: AWS re:Invent, DevOps Enterprise Summit). This also includes any virtual event that we sponsor and/or participate in that we do not own the registration but will generate a list of attendees, engagement.

In a virtual conference, GitLab will pay a sponsorship fee to receive a virtual booth and sometimes a speaking session slot or panel presence. Presence of a virtual booth is a requirement due to success criteria. Read more.

Bizible: This is tracked as an offline channel, because we do not host a registration page, and receive a list of booth visitors post-event.

Member Status Definition Success
No Action default starting position for all records  
Sales Invited Invitation/Information about event sent by Sales/SDR  
Sales Nominated Sales indicated record to receive triggered event email sent by Marketing  
Marketing Invited Marketing geo-targeted email  
Waitlisted Holding state if registration is full will be moved to Registered if space opens  
Registered Registered for event  
Meeting Requested Meeting set to occur at conference  
Meeting No Show Scheduled meeting at conference was cancelled or not attended  
Meeting Attended Scheduled meeting at conference was attended Yes
Attended Attended the event  
Visited Booth Stopped by booth for any reason Yes
Follow Up Requested Requested to be followed up with by sales post event Yes

Content Syndication

White Paper or other content offer that is hosted by a third party.

Bizible: This is tracked as an offline channel.

Member Status Definition Success
No Action default starting position for all records  
Downloaded Downloaded content Yes

Direct Mail

This is when a package or piece of mail is sent out.

Bizible: This is tracked as an offline channel.

Member Status Definition Success
No Action default starting position for all records  
Registered Registered to recieve direct mail via landing page or form  
Queued Shipment is being put together, waiting to be shipped  
Shipped Package has been shipped  
Undeliverable Package was returned or undeliverable to addressee  
Delivered Package was received by the addressee Yes
Responded Recipient took action or CTA (trackable on PURLs Yes

Executive Roundtables

This is used for campaigns that can either be organised through a 3rd party vendor or GitLab, covering both in-person and virtual roundtables. It is a gathering of high level CxO attendees run as an open discussion between the moderator/host, GitLab expert and delegates. There usually aren't any presentations, but instead a discussion where anyone can chime in to speak. The host would prepare questions to lead discussion topics and go around the room asking delegates questions to answer. Read More.

Bizible: This is tracked as an offline channel.

Member Status Definition Success
No Action default starting position for all records  
Waitlist Holding state if registration is full will be moved to Registered if space opens  
Registered Registered for the event  
No Show Registered, but did not attend the event  
Attended Attended the Event Yes

Field Event

This is an event run by Field Marketing that we have paid to participate in (Demand generation events that the field team typically does (Ex. stand alone dinners, ballgames, etc).)

Bizible: This is tracked as an offline channel, because we do not host a registration page, and receive a list of attendees post-event.

Member Status Definition Success
No Action default starting position for all records  
Sales Invited Invitation/Information about event sent by Sales/SDR  
Sales Nominated Sales indicated record to receive triggered event email sent by Marketing  
Marketing Invited Marketing geo-targeted email  
Waitlisted Holding state if registration is full will be moved to Registered if space opens  
Registered Registered for event  
No Show Registered but did not attend event  
Attended Attended event  
Visited Booth Stopped by booth for any reason Yes
Follow Up Requested Requested to be followed up with by sales post event Yes

Gated Content

White Paper or other content offer.

Bizible: This is tracked as an online channel.

Member Status Definition Success
No Action default starting position for all records  
Downloaded Downloaded content Yes

Inbound Request

Any type of inbound request that requires follow up.

Bizible: This is tracked as an online channel.

Member Status Definition Success
No Action default starting position for all records  
Requested Contact Filled out Contact, Professional Services, Demo or Pricing Request Yes

Owned Event

This is an event that we have created, own registration and arrange speaker/venue (example: GitLab Commit or Meetups).

Bizible: This is tracked as an online channel because we manage the registration through our website.

Member Status Definition Success
No Action default starting position for all records  
Subscribed to Updates Subcribed to GitLab event updates via form fill  
Sales Invited Invitation/Information about event sent by Sales/SDR  
Sales Nominated Sales indicated record to receive triggered event email sent by Marketing  
Marketing Invited Marketing geo-targeted email  
Waitlisted Holding state if registration is full will be moved to Registered if space opens  
Registered Registered for event  
Cancelled Registered, but cancelled ahead of the event  
No Show Registered but did not attend event  
Attended Attended event live Yes
Attended On-demand Watched/consumed the presentation materials post-event on-demand Yes
Follow Up Requested Requested additional details about GitLab to be sent post event Yes

Self-Service Virtual Event

This is a light weight virtual event that can be hosted on GitLabber's personal zoom.

Bizible: This is tracked as an online channel if registrants come through a marketo form, otherwise it will be an offline channel

Member Status Definition Success
No Action default starting position for all records  
Waitlisted Holding state if registration is full will be moved to Registered if space opens  
Registered Registered for event  
No Show Registered but did not attend event  
Attended Attended event Yes
Attended On-demand Watched/consumed the presentation materials post-event on-demand Yes

Speaking Session

This campaign type can be part of a larger Field/Conference/Owned event but we track engagement interactions independently from the larger event to measure impact. It is something we can drive registration. It is for tracking attendance at our speaking engagements.

Bizible: This is tracked as an offline channel.

Member Status Definition Success
No Action default starting position for all records  
Sales Invited Invitation/Information about event sent by Sales/SDR  
Sales Nominated Sales indicated record to receive triggered event email sent by Marketing  
Marketing Invited Marketing geo-targeted email  
Registered Registered or indicated attendance at the session  
No Show Registered but did not attend event  
Attended Attended speaking session event Yes
Follow Up Requested Had conversation with speaker or requested to be followed up with by sales post event Yes

This is webcast hosted on an external partner/vendor platform. The status of Attended On-demand accounts for GitLab hosted On-Demand and non-GitLab hosted On-demand webcasts. Read more.

Bizible: This is tracked as an online channel if registrants come through a marketo form, otherwise it will be an offline channel

Member Status Definition Success
No Action default starting position for all records  
Registered Registered for webcast  
Attended Attended event Yes
Follow Up Requested Requested to be followed up with from GitLab Yes
Attended On-demand Watched/consumed the presentation materials post-event on-demand Yes

Survey

A survey that we or a 3rd party sends out. Tracks respondents and new leads we receive.

Bizible: This is tracked as an offline Bizible channel.

Member Status Definition Success
Member default starting position for all records  
Invited Was invited, but did not participate in survey  
Filled-out Survey Filled out survey Yes
Follow Up Requested Filled out survey and requested to be contacted by sales Yes

Trial

Track cohort of Trials for each product line (Self-hosted or SaaS) to see their influence.

Bizible: In-product trials are tracked as an offline Bizible touchpoint. Webform Self-hosted trials are an online Bizible touchpoint.

Member Status Definition Success
No Action default starting position for all records  
Target List success, attended scheduled meeting Yes

Vendor Arranged Meetings

Used for campaigns where a third party vendor is organizing one-to-one meetings with prospect or customer accounts. This does not organize meetings set internally by GitLab team members. An example would be a "speed dating" style meeting setup where a vendor organized meetings with prospects of interest to GitLab. Read more.

Bizible: This is tracked as an offline Bizible channel.

Member Status Definition Success
No Action default starting position for all records  
Registered Registered for the event  
No Show Registered, but did not attend the event  
Attended Attended the Event Yes
Follow Up Requested Had conversation with speaker or requested additional details to be sent post event Yes

Webcast

Any webcast that is hosted and held by GitLab.

Bizible: This is tracked as an online Bizible channel.

Member Status Definition Success
No Action default starting position for all records  
Sales Invited Invitation/Information about event sent by Sales/SDR  
Sales Nominated Sales indicated record to receive triggered event email sent by Marketing  
Marketing Invited Marketing geo-targeted email  
Registered Registered through online form  
No Show Registered, but did not attend live webcast  
Attended Attended the live webcast Yes
Follow Up Requested Requested to be followed up with by sales post event Yes
Attended On-demand Watched the recorded webcast Yes

Workshop

An in-person or virtual workshop where the attendees are guided through an agenda of real life use cases within GitLab.

Bizible: This is tracked as an offline Bizible channel.

Member Status Definition Success
No Action default starting position for all records  
Sales Invited Invitation/Information about event sent by Sales/SDR  
Sales Nominated Sales indicated record to receive triggered event email sent by Marketing  
Marketing Invited Marketing geo-targeted email  
Waitlisted Holding state if registration is full will be moved to Registered if space opens  
Registered Registered or indicated attendance at the session  
Cancelled Registered, but cancelled ahead of the event  
No Show Registered, but did not attend event  
Attended Attended workshop event Yes
Follow Up Requested Requested additional details about GitLab to be sent post event Yes

Marketo Program and Salesforce Campaign set-up

Steps to Setup Marketo programs and Salesforce Campaigns

The Marketo programs for the corresponding campaign types have been prebuilt to include all the possible necessary smart campaigns, email programs, reminder emails and tokens that are to be leveraged in the building of the program.

For Linkedin Social Ads follow the instructions documented in the Linkedin section

For all other campaign types, follow Steps 1-5 below. All steps are required.

Important Notes:

  1. The Active checkbox must be checked on the SFDC campaign for Marketo to be able to "see" the campaign. This will happen automatically if you follow the process below, but if there is a time you cannot find a SFDC campaign in Marketo, check to make sure that box is checked in SFDC. Additionally, if this box is unchecked, Marketo cannot send leads or update campaign member status for that SFDC campaign.
  2. We have a trigger in SFDC that stamps the start date, end date, reporting date, and fiscal quarter by taking the first 8 characters of the name of the campaign (if they are numbers) and converting that into a date (example: 20210505 == 5/5/2021, so YYYYMMDD). So, campaigns starting with a number must contain a valid date, otherwise you will receive an error.
Step 1: Clone the Marketo program indicated below
Step 2: Sync to Salesforce

If you are a user of Allocadia, in this step you will also add the Allocadia ID to the Description field. It does not matter if you use the Category, subcategory, or line item ID. To determine which one you should use, you should be thinking "What is the highest level ID that houses all the information I want pushed from Allocadia>Marketo>SFDC."

Instructional Video Sync Results Video

Step 3: Update Marketo tokens
Step 4: Activate Marketo smart campaign(s)
Step 5: Update the Salesforce campaign

If you are utilizing the Allocadia, please see below instructions.

Step 5: Update the Salesforce campaign - Using Allocadia

Using an integration from Allocadia>Marketo, Marketo>SFDC, the information you've given to Allocadia will push to your SFDC campaign. Based on the Step 5. list above, the only thing you will need to manually update in SFDC is the following: - Change the Enable Bizible Touchpoints to Include only "Responded" Campaign Members - Budgeted Cost in SFDC pulls from your plan number, not your forecast number from Allocadia. If you do not have a plan cost in Allocadia then Budgeted Cost in SFDC will remain blank. If this is the case, you will want to add in your Budgeted Cost manually into your SFDC campaign.

You must NOT edit the campaign until the Allocadia connector has time to work. This is normally done near-real time, but if the data does not push immediately, be aware it can take minutes to hours to do so. You'll know the Allocadia connect has completed its work when you see the SFDC campaign owner change from Marketo Integration to the name of the actual person who is running the camapign as well as well as when all details are populated from Allocadia to SFDC. If you edit the campaign before the connector pushes the data over, it will break the build and you will manually have to edit all of the fields listed in Step 5. above.

The Budgeted Cost in the campaign will synch overnight and as actuals come into the system, the Actual Cost in Campaign field will be populated.

The campaign meta data is a one time synch, where as the Actual Cost in Campaign (which is run off of the Campaign Tag to be Created field in Allocadia), synchs every night.

Steps to Setup Content Syndication in Marketo and SFDC

Step 1: Clone this program
Step 2: Sync to Salesforce
Step 3: Update Marketo tokens
Step 4: Activate Marketo smart campaign
Step 5: Update the Salesforce campaign

Steps to Setup SimplyDirect Surveys in Marketo and SFDC

Simply Direct will provide you with an unique Survey Name that they will pass over into Marketo via the API populating the Person Source and the SurveyName fields. This name is unique to each survey that is ran. Person Source will not update if the lead already exists in Marketo.

SimplyDirect is also passing over the survey Q&A through the Comment Capture field. This will populate via a URL on the Interesting Moment and the Web Form field, so that the SDR following up will have full access to all of the survey questions and answers.

Step 1: Clone this program
Step 2: Sync to Salesforce
Step 3: Update SurveyName across Smart Lists and Flows
Step 4: Update the Salesforce campaign
Step 5: Troubleshooting:
  1. Look at the Results tab of the smart campaign, if there are errors, you will clearly see them there.
  2. If the lead is not pushing to SFDC? Make sure that the Person Source is not SurveyName
  3. If existing leads are not being pulled into the program, it is likely the SurveyName field is capturing the wrong name.
  4. If net-new leads are not being pulled into the program, it is likely the Person Source SurveyName was not updated correctly.

Steps to Setup Direct Mail Campaigns

Step 1: Create the Salesforce campaign
Step 2: Update the Salesforce campaign

Steps to Use HopIn Connector

Follow all of the set up steps above. You will also need to do go into the Hopin Integration folder in the Owned Event Template and you will see several smart campaigns and a form.

YOU MUST CONNECT HOPIN TO MARKETO BEFORE YOU TURN ON REGISTRATION IN HOPIN (STEP 1 BELOW)

  1. 01a Registration from Hopin is used if you are using HopIn registration pages. This smart campaign triggers off of a custom activity Registers for HopIn Event and will add the registrant to the proper campaign. THIS WILL ONLY PASS First Name, Last Name, Email, and the name of the event. In order to capture any of the custom fields (like company name), you'll need to set up the next step to capture registrants from Marketo. Otherwise, a dataload will be required
    • To use, make sure you update the program token {{my.hopin event name}} with your HopIn event name. Use starts with as the operator to make sure you catch all registrants. You can pull the Event Name from the HopIn platform.
    • When token is updated, you can turn on. No changes are necessary for the Flow.
    • Do not turn on if you are not utilizing HopIn registration pages
  2. 01b. Push Registrants to HopIn from Marketo is used if you are utilizng a Marketo landing page to capture registration for the HopIn Event. Do not turn on if you are only utilizing HopIn registration pages
    • Before you start with the smart campaign, you need to make sure you update the copy for the registration confirmation email named Hopin - Confirm. First, update all tokens on the program and then fill in the missing pieces of the email itself. The button needs to contain the Magic Link, do not change this.
    • Next, you need to update the program token of Ticket Integration Code this field is already on the form, but must be updated to match the specific code in HopIn.
      • Find your Ticket Integration Code in Hopin by selecting an event, and going to the Tickets page of your event dashboard. There will be a code for each of the ticket types you have. Keep this handy for the next step.
    • If you are only registering for a single ticket, all you need to do is update the token, but if you have multiple ticket options, you will need to create a select dropdown in the form that holds the Integration Codes as stored values - (ask Mops to do this for you).
    • No changes are necessary for the campaign flow. The flow will request a Webhook, which will push the registrant into HopIn, as well as send registrant a registration confirmation email.
    • The landing page template is already set up to have this form.
    • Before you turn on, make sure you have updated tokens in the email Hopin - Confirm, as this will automatically send the Magic Link for the registrant to confirm their registration.
      • The magic link is automatically created by the webhook, do not update that field.
    • Turn on 01b. Push Registrants to HopIn from Marketo. Then test by registering on that landing page. After 2 minutes, you will recieve an email asking to confirm your registration, click the link and follow prompts on the HopIn page. Once confirmed, you will receive an email from HopIn saying it was successful. You can also look into the attendees section in HopIn and make sure your test is there too - once you see it, you can remove your test lead from the list and go live with the landing page.
    • Check Registration error smartlist periodically to catch anyone being created incorrectly (see sectioin below)
  3. 02 Attended Hopin is used to track attendees of the event - it will not track individual sessions, only overall attendance.
    • To use, make sure you update the program token {{my.hopin event name}} with your HopIn event name. In the Smartlist, Use starts with as the operator to make sure you catch all registrants. You can pull the Event Name from the HopIn platform.
    • When token is updated, you can turn on. No changes are necessary for the Flow.
  4. Registration Troubleshooting There is a list called Registration Errors that will populate if the Magic Link is not properly populated. If this is the case, you will need to send a magic link via the HopIn platform. Follow these directions:
    • Log into HopIn and navigate to your event
    • On left side nav, look for Magic Link and click the Manage Invitations tab. There you'll see who has registered (confirmed clicked) and those who haven't. You can send emails to these people who are not registered to ensure they are confirmed before the event starts.

Steps to Setup Linkedin Lead Gen Form *Gated Content Only

We have listeners set up in Marketo listening certain parameters. Please check the Marketo Listener column below to see if a program is already set up in Marketo. If it is, you do not need to create a new listener. Otherwise, please follow the process outlined below to ensure leads are being captured.

Campaign Campaign Parameter for Tracking Marketo Listener?
CI Use Case singleappci Yes
GItOps Use Case iacgitops Yes
Version Control & Collaboration Use Case vccusecase Yes
Simplify DevOps simplifydevops Yes
Jenkins cicdcmp2 Yes
Increase Operational Efficiencies operationalefficiences  
Deliver Better Products Faster betterproductsfaster  
Reduce Security and Compliance Risk reducesecurityrisk  
CI Build & Test Auto cicdcmp3  
OctoCat octocat  
DevSecOps Use Case devsecopsusecase  
AWS awspartner  
PubSec amer-pubsec Yes
Step 1: Clone this Program

e.g.: 2020_Social_GitOps_iacgitops_LinkedIn Lead Gen

Step 2: Sync to Salesforce
Step 3: Update the Salesforce campaign
Step 4: Go back into Marketo Template
Step 5: Update this Handbook page

Removing Registrations from Marketo Programs

Once a landing page has been set up for a campaign, it is good practice to have multiple people test the registration to make sure everything is integrated and running properly. As a result, there are often various test registrations in the Marketo program. To remove these test registrations, follow the below instructions.

  1. Log into Marketo and click into the appropriate program for your campaign
  2. Click on the Members tab at the top of the page
  3. Click on the line item for the member you wish to remove and make sure that line item is highlighted
  4. Select Change Status at the top of the screen
  5. Select Not in Program in the drop down
  6. Marketo will take a few moments to adjust the status and then the name will be removed from the Members list

Pushing DemandBase Lists to Marketo

Couple things to note:

Instructions: (some lists and campaigns may already exist, we are in the process of updating templates to speed up this process)

  1. Navigate to the Marketo Program that you would like to add your DB1 list to.
  2. Under Lists folder, create a static list with the name DB_List Push.
  3. Under Smart Campaigns folder, create a new smart campaign (or if built already, click into the DB1 List Push smart campaign) The campaign name should be easily identifiable to you, as you will be searching for it in DB1. Please use DB prefix so it's purpose is easily identifiable in Marketo.
    1. Update Smart List in the campaign
      1. Smart List in the campaign should have the trigger filter Campaign is Requested
      2. Update the source to Web Service API
      3. You can add other filters here as necessary. Since your list will be made in DB1, you likely won't need any additional filters here.
    2. Update Flow
      1. Add to List and find the list you created in the step above
      2. If you need this group to have a specific member status, you can add that step as well: Change Program Status and update the new status
    3. Turn program on in the schedule tab. People should only pass through Once.
  4. Log into DB1 platform and navigate to your list in the Database section of DB1 Must be a person list
  5. Select the people you want to push to Marketo, and click the Take Action button
    1. A sidebar on the right will pop up. Select Add to Marketo Campaign under Partner Actions section.
    2. Select the campaign that you created a few steps ago. If you do not see your campaign, click the wheel next to the drop down to re-load the campaigns from Marketo. If it still does not show up, make sure that you turned the Marketo Smart Campaign on.
    3. Click Confirm.
    4. Leads will momentarily populate your Marketo static list. In the sidebar, there will be a link to check the status of the push. You can also view this in Settings>History>Action History in DB1.

Once your list is passed over, you will need to reference that static list in your email programs or target lists (will be adding this to templates). You still need to have the proper email compliance filters on any of your email programs.

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