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Risako
Level 2
April 18, 2025
Solved

Combining Multiple Forms with Marketo’s Visibility Rules

  • April 18, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 1338 views

Hi, I'm planning to consolidate several separate forms (e.g. contact, document download, video download) into a single unified form using visibility rules. Below is the intended setup.

I'd like to ask:

  • Are there any concerns or risks with this kind of setup?

  • If so, what are the possible solutions?

  • Also, if a lead submits the form multiple times, will the data be overwritten?

Form setup idea:
I plan to use visibility rules to show/hide specific fields (other than name and email address) based on the selected category in a "Form Category" dropdown (options: Contact, Document Download, Video Download).

Form field structure (example):
Fields always shown:

  • Full Name (required)

  • Email Address (required)

  • Form Category (required)

Fields shown only when "Contact" is selected as the Form Category:

  • Industry (required)

  • Job Title / Department (required)

  • Requested Materials (optional)

  • Inquiry Details (required)

Thank you.

    Best answer by ReetuDe

    Hi @risako 

     

    This is a solid plan — consolidating forms with visibility rules is a great way to simplify user experience But there are some concerns and risks

     

    - By default Marketo, when a lead submits a form multiple times with the same email, new values overwrite previous ones (except for non-overwriting custom logic).

    - Combining multiple use cases into one form can complicate form performance analytics, especially if you want to track submissions for "Document Download" vs. "Contact Us" separately.

     

    Thanks

    - 

    2 replies

    R
    ReetuDeAccepted solution
    Level 2
    April 18, 2025

    Hi @risako 

     

    This is a solid plan — consolidating forms with visibility rules is a great way to simplify user experience But there are some concerns and risks

     

    - By default Marketo, when a lead submits a form multiple times with the same email, new values overwrite previous ones (except for non-overwriting custom logic).

    - Combining multiple use cases into one form can complicate form performance analytics, especially if you want to track submissions for "Document Download" vs. "Contact Us" separately.

     

    Thanks

    - 

      R
      RisakoAuthor
      Level 2
      April 21, 2025

      Hi, @reetude 

      By default Marketo, when a lead submits a form multiple times with the same email, new values overwrite previous ones (except for non-overwriting custom logic).
      ⇒Would using Program Member Custom Fields (PMCF) solve this issue?
      I understand that even with PMCF, if the same lead submits the form again to the same program, the previous values would still be overwritten. In such cases, would the recommended approach be to use Custom Objects, which are available in the Marketo Engage Enterprise plan?

      Combining multiple use cases into one form can complicate form performance analytics, especially if you want to track submissions for "Document Download" vs. "Contact Us" separately.
      ⇒Do you have any suggestions or best practices to handle this challenge effectively?

      Thank you.

      R
      ReetuDe
      Level 2
      April 21, 2025

      Hi @risako 

       

      - Yes — Program Member Custom Fields (PMCFs) can help solve this issue, depending on your goal but PMCFs are tied to the program membership rather than the lead record

      and again we have limitation with PMCF, A lead can only be a member of a program once — you can’t have multiple PMCF values per lead per program. But you could create separate programs per campaign/form variation/date to retain distinct PMCF values.

      - If you're on Marketo Engage Enterprise, Custom Objects are definitely the way to go for:

      • Tracking multiple form submissions per lead

      • Storing multiple values per person without overwriting

      - Combining multiple use cases into one form can complicate form performance analytics, especially if you want to track submissions for "Document Download" vs. "Contact Us" separately.
      ⇒Do you have any suggestions or best practices to handle this challenge effectively?  - We can use the hidden fields for form purpose , and also need to create the separate program for every use case.

       

      Thanks

      -

        SanfordWhiteman
        SanfordWhiteman
        Level 10
        April 18, 2025

        Seems like a fine plan.

         

        As Reetu mentions, Marketo forms always overwrite flat values on leads unless you’ve blocked updates in Field Management. This is true whether you have multiple forms or one form. Note previously posted values are saved in each Filled Out Form activity detail, even if they’re overwritten at the lead level.

         

        You don’t actually need to present Form Category as a visible field, by the way. You can have it be a hidden field, then set it from a query param or using JS. That way you save the end user a step and pre-set the form variant yourself.

         

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