Tracking Demandbase Ad in Marketo

>  I understand that, in general, query params may not appear in a specific order

Very true!

Query params are technically ordered, but when a query param name is only expected to appear once (e.g. we don’t include utm_campaign more than once, at least not on purpose!) we typically don’t pay attention to the order. Since it then doesn’t matter on the attribution side if utm_campaign came before or after utm_source, you can’t rely on people/things to use a specific order.

However, Marketo doesn’t have a URL parser on the back end (there of course is one for forms on the front end). When working with raw Visit Web Page activities in the UI, you’re restricted to using the [contains] constraint on the entire query param, and you can’t actually write the params to separate fields. This is somewhat fragile, but it’s all you have out of the box.

What we like to do instead is get Visit Web page activities via the API. Then we parse the query string into its individual fields and write them back to Marketo. In real life we use PMCFs or Custom Object fields to keep a history, but the same approach would work for flat lead fields (Last utm_medium, Last utm_source, etc.).

In Marketo, don’t rely on query string order or full URL matching. Instead, capture Demandbase and UTM values explicitly using hidden form fields (or URL parameter capture rules) mapped to dedicated person fields. Marketo parses parameters by name, not order, so extra params won’t break tracking.

If UTMs aren’t appearing in GA4 but the db3id is, double-check that UTMs are actually present on the final landing URL after redirects. Once captured in Marketo, use trigger campaigns (e.g., Fills Out Form with constraints on UTM or Demandbase fields) to attribute and report reliably.