Eloqua Form Design Editor – The essentials
Eloqua User Group Webinar | March 2024
Photo by Ismael Paramo on Unsplash
Overview
It may surprise you, but we get super-excited about Eloqua forms. They are the entry point for much of your database growth & with the growing excitement around Gen AI & AI more broadly, the key to the high-quality data you will need.
Why this topic?
At the start of 2024, we asked subscribers what they would like to see more of at the Eloqua User Group each month.
The Form Design Editor was the #1 response.
So, that’s what we covered this month. This episode covers the essentials, and later this year, we will host another episode that dives deeper into some of the more advanced uses of forms.
We hinted at some of these more advanced functions this month.
GenAI & AI, more generally, are quickly uncovering a problem for marketers – poor quality data. Bad data in = a bad CX
The data quality discussion is not new and will likely always be a hot topic for marketers.
Your forms play a critical role in capturing data. How you manage that new data will significantly affect how you can use it in future campaigns.
Eloqua users have various tools available to help clean and manipulate data. These tools are helpful, but they’re usually part of a data harmonisation strategy that occurs after the data comes into your various systems.
If we can get the data as clean as possible at the point of entry, i.e. your form, you will be more effective as a marketer and your contribution to the business will be more impactful.
Forms, lead capture & lead nurture
Join us in April as we explore effective ways to use Eloqua’s Campaign Canvas to deliver a more personalised and engaging lead nurture campaign.
Our focus will be the campaign canvas as we present tips, ideas and suggestions to help you deliver the best possible CX.
Let’s get the basics down first. What you need to know about the Eloqua Form Design Editor
In this first part of the webinar, we outlined a few “must know” functional aspects of Eloqua Forms.
Some of the tips covered were:
- Email address is the only field you MUST use on your form
- A form can pre-populate using a Field Merge, just like you do in an email or landing page
- If you have an event where people can choose to register for one event from a list of e.g. ten or more, you only need one form
An Eloqua Form is a stand-alone asset
This is important to understand. An eloqua form must be used in conjunction with a web page of some description.
- Your Eloqua Landing Page is the most common way to present a form.
- Your CMS/website is the second most common way to present an Eloqua form.
What can you do with the data your form captures?
Well, there’s not enough room in this blog post to answer that question.
You have 22 Form Processing Steps. If you add the conditional processing option and multiple variables, you have hundreds of options.
Which are the most common Form Processing Steps?
In my experience, these are amongst the most common processing steps:
- Update Contacts – With Form Data – This is the #1 processing step, it creates or updates a contact with the data submitted
- Send Submitter an Email – You may call this an “auto-responder”. We suggest that it’s best practice to always send a person a confirmation email following a form submission
- Redirect to a Web Page – This can be a personalised Eloqua Landing Page or it could be your CMS home page. This is the page people are presented with following the submission of the form
- Email – Subscribe Contacts Globally – You want a database of people you can email, ensuring they’re globally subscribed is key
- Add to Campaign – e.g. a specific type of enquiry may qualify a person to be added to your nurture campaign
- Add to Program – typically used to send data to the CRM & other systems
Forms generally fall into three categories: General, Marketing & Registration for events
The lists below are not exhaustive. There is no shortage of use for forms. The division into these three groups has more to do with how you process the data following each form.
General
- Enquiry
- Contact us
- Feedback
- Service requests
- Application form
Marketing
- Competition
- Promotion
- Course outline
- White paper
- Thought Leadership
- Prospectus
- NPS & other surveys
- A calculator
- Social lead generation campaigns
Registration
- In-person events
- Webinar
- Conferences
- Roadshow
- Annual Ball
- Internal/Staff events
General Forms: These forms often require immediate action. The use case will generally be to send the data directly to a CRM, where Customer Service will need to act on the information provided. You will likely use the Add to Program function to push the details to a CRM Lead or Contact object or a Case Management or Service Request object.
Marketing Forms: These are the most common forms marketers will work with. They cover campaign-specific forms, lead capture forms and paid advertising campaigns where, for example, LinkedIn or Facebook Lead Generation forms can have data sent directly to Eloqua.
Registration Forms: Our objective is to always deliver an elegant and seamless registration experience. I see some clients asking people to RSVP instead of simply registering. Generally, this is because you want to avoid sending repeat invitations should a person RSVP No.
This requires a specific configuration of the Form Processing Steps with Shared Lists and the Campaign Canvas.
Events may need to include ticketing details, the ability to issue a unique QR Code for admission to an event, SMS reminders, and more.
A data strategy provides direction & helps the team head towards a common goal
For example, you’ve likely sat in a room with the Sales team and attempted to agree on defining an MQL.
Unless the outcome of that discussion is woven into your form design, you will likely be wasting opportunities to gather the data Sales needs and the data you need to deliver MQLs.
The smart solution includes form templates
Create a master form, or perhaps master forms for various types of campaigns.
Include all the Contact fields you’ve agreed with Sales that make up an MQL. Group these in Progressive Profiling and determine how many fields you will present to a person at each interaction.
For example, when they register for a webinar, download content or register for your next in-person event.
Save this form as a template and direct the team to use the “MQL” form template for future campaigns.
Progressive Profiling is a critical component of your data strategy
The most effective way I’ve seen Progressive Profiles implemented in Eloqua is to create a form template, as described above.
If you have any questions, please contact Marketing Cube Support by email.
Meanwhile, take a Progressive Profiles crash course and watch this short Eloqua Help video.
Carré Le Page
VP Marketing, Corporate Division, Flight Centre Travel Group (Canada)
Discover how we helped Flight Centre Travel Group design & build a global lead nurture campaign
The team at Marketing Cube supported Corporate Traveller Canada and USA to develop a detailed and full-scope strategic approach to our automation practices.
I found the approach to be methodical and comprehensive, even when faced with the challenges of workshopping remotely across several (4) international borders.
Once we’d created detailed personas and mapped each customer journey, Marketing Cube then supported our automation strategy to best utilize these outputs strategically.
I found their knowledge and understanding of email strategy, content development and best automation practices to be critically valuable in the development and execution of our lead nurture campaign.
Eloqua Release 24A went live in February
A few highlights for 24A include the release of an updated Oracle ZOOM app by Oracle Labs which now incorporates both Zoom Webinar and Zoom Meetings.
The team at Zoom Video Communications, Inc., has also released a new app for Eloqua users. The key difference is that the Zoom app (built by Zoom Inc.) allows you to integrate Zoom Events with Eloqua, along with Meetings and Webinars.
Additional areas of Eloqua have migrated to the Redwood Design Experience.
Oracle has also updated how Hard Bounce data is received and then presented back to you. The end goal is more accurate reporting, helping you deliver more emails without negatively impacting your sender score or deliverability.
Release Highlights
- Eloqua’s new Redwood Experience: Hyperlink Manager and External Activities Upload now available in Eloqua’s Redwood Experience (open controlled availability). Check out our Redwood Experience in Eloqua yourself! [Learn More]
- Oracle’s Zoom App for Eloqua: Now becomes generally available without needing to request access
- Generative AI Enhancement: Subject Line Recommender for Email Editor (Limited CA for those with the AI Add-on).
- Additional Security Headers: Permissions-Policy Header and Referrer-Policy Header added.
- Webhook App for Eloqua: Becoming generally available for all customers with 24A, push contact data to 3rd parties from Eloqua campaigns or programs (POST requests)
- Updates to Eloqua APIs, SMS Add-on, Email Bounce Processor enhancements and Form Dependency Export.
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