How is 'Inferred Country' field set? | Community
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A
Anonymous
August 26, 2015
Question

How is 'Inferred Country' field set?

  • August 26, 2015
  • 4 replies
  • 9624 views

Curious when/how 'inferred' field values (and most specifically inferred country) are set.  Is it determined during the initial visit of a lead to a tracked web property, even if the lead is anonymous (ie it is set in the cookie)?  Or, is it pulled directly via GeoIP and set upon first form fill?

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4 replies

Josh_Hill13
Josh_Hill13
Level 10
August 27, 2015

I believe this is usually set during the anonymous phase via GEOIP or something like that. It may also be set on the form fill or whenever Marketo sees that data for the first time, even if you have already inserted the record.

I haven't seen a definitive answer though. Try a search here as there may be one other thread on this topic.

    Jenn_DiMaria2
    Jenn_DiMaria2
    Level 10
    August 27, 2015

    I believe it's based on IP, as well, which means it's not 100% accurate. Be careful not to use this as a filter for important campaigns unless you plan on actively monitoring the results.

    A
    Anonymous
    August 27, 2015

    It is pretty much via Reverse DNS which does not necessarily equate to the location itself - it has a false positive factor but is still better than no value!  Some companies like Lead Forensics will operating in the same way only that they hold a database of values which they have accrued to increase the accuracy.

    SanfordWhiteman
    SanfordWhiteman
    Level 10
    August 28, 2015

    (Not Reverse DNS, but Geo IP.)

      Neil_Robertson6
      Neil_Robertson6
      Level 4
      August 28, 2015

      ha indeed - which could perhaps have different rates of failure.   Sanford;s idea is nice of browser location but has the same caveats of not being 100% accurate.

      A
      Anonymous
      August 27, 2015

      Thanks for the feedback, folks.  I'm trying to pick apart some location inconsistencies between what Marketo is inferring and location filters in Adwords, but may just have to accept that there is a margin of error with geoIP.

        SanfordWhiteman
        SanfordWhiteman
        Level 10
        August 28, 2015

        Nate, you might think about using the browser's built-in geolocation yourself and saving that data to a different field.  navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition will be more authoritative... if you can get it filled in.  The catch is that checking geolocation requires the user to opt-in (you are probably familiar with the prompt like blahblah.com wants to use your current location: Allow|Always Allow|Deny).

        Neither navigator.geolocation nor GeoIP will be 100% accurate.  As Neil notes, large web apps typically build or subscribe to additional error-correcting databases.  For example, one travel-related website I know of has a team dedicated to their internal geolocation database, even though most of their users do enable GPS/geolocation in their mobile app (so the users are really trying to provide the info, but it doesn't always work).

          SanfordWhiteman
          SanfordWhiteman
          Level 10
          August 28, 2015

          I usually don't wait for approval before working on something, but would you guys (or anyone lurking here) be interested me putting a recipe/demo for how you can use Forms 2.0 w/geolocation?  Or is this something you'd personally never use?  Wondering about the user (as in "Marketo user") acceptance.  There are always UX hurdles when you know you're about to trigger a browser confirmation, but you can get over a lot of them by having the location save (or at least appear to save) time.

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