Learn what Uberflip's integration with Oracle Eloqua can do, and how it works.
What This Article is About
Uberflip integrates with all the major Marketing Automation Platforms (MAPs), and most of these integrations are fairly straightforward to set up and use. However, the Oracle Eloqua integration is comparatively complex, and the mechanics of how it handles data can be a little difficult to understand at first.
In this article, we'll take a detailed look at the Eloqua integration and explain how it works: both what kind of data Uberflip passes to Eloqua, and how Eloqua works with the data it receives. As part of that, we'll also explore the various options you can configure when setting up an Eloqua integration, and explain what each option does.
Note that this article does not describe how to set up the integration. For setup instructions, see this article.
What the Integration Does
When visitors interact with an Uberflip Hub, they generate all kinds of lead data, both actively (e.g. by submitting Form CTAs) and passively (e.g. which articles they view). As a marketing automation platform (MAP), Eloqua's purpose is to capture exactly this kind of data so that you can act on it. The integration between your Hub and Eloqua makes this possible by letting the two systems to talk to one another, allowing Uberflip to stream that valuable data into your Eloqua database.
We can divide the kinds of lead data that Uberflip passes to Eloqua into two types: data that is captured using a form, and data that is generated or captured by other means.
Form Data
The main way that your Hub generates lead data is through Form CTAs. When a visitor submits a Form CTA that is connected to Eloqua, any information they entered into the Form CTA fields (basic information like email, name, etc.) is passed to Eloqua.
Uberflip also captures data on the form which is not directly entered by the lead. This kind of form data is automatically entered into hidden fields, and includes:
- Lead Source — Original: The name of the first Form CTA that the visitor submitted on the Hub.
- Lead Source — Most Recent: Separately, the name of the lead's most recently submitted CTA.
- Conversion Item: The name and ID of the Item on which the submitted Form CTA was placed (if applicable, i.e. if the Form CTA was placed on/beside an Item).
- Last Viewed Item: The ID of the Item that lead last viewed on your Hub.
Uberflip will always pass form data to Eloqua. This includes hidden field data, unless disabled in the integration options. Note that some hidden field data requires custom fields to be set up in Eloqua to actually be recorded — if the integration is configured to pass this data, Uberflip will do so even if the corresponding fields in Eloqua do not exist.
Non-Form Data
Separate from the data collected through a Form CTA, Uberflip can also pass over various types of "non-form" data. This is simply data relating to the lead that is not part of the form proper, and mainly consists of engagement data about the lead's activity in the Hub. Whether or not this data is passed to Eloqua is controlled by the various options that can be configured for the integration.
Whenever a lead submits a Form CTA, you can configure the integration to also pass over the following kinds of non-form data:
- A record of specific Hub Items viewed (Items only, not Hubs or Streams)
- Counts of content viewed (e.g. number of articles/videos/tweets etc. viewed)
- Flipbook page view counts
Uberflip will also pass this data to Eloqua for Hub visitors who do not submit a Form CTA. This only happens if the visitor was already known to Eloqua, which means that they already existed as a contact in your Eloqua instance and had an Eloqua cookie when entering the Hub. Uberflip will not pass over any data for unknown visitors, i.e. those who did not submit a Form CTA and could not be matched based on a cookie.
Although separate from the data passed by Uberflip, it's worth noting that Eloqua will also track web visits via its tracking script, which includes URLs of pages within your Hub.
How Eloqua Handles Uberflip Data
Form Data
Form CTAs connected to Eloqua must be associated with an Eloqua Form. The Form CTA automatically adopts the fields of the Eloqua Form, and the two forms map to each other one-to-one. When a visitor submits the Form CTA, the information they entered is submitted into the connected Eloqua Form as well.
Because Form CTAs leverage Eloqua Forms, this allows you to use Eloqua Form Processing to trigger automated actions in Eloqua whenever a Form CTA is submitted. The most important such action is to create or update contact records with the data submitted from the Form CTA (i.e. Form CTA > Eloqua Form > Contact Record). For instructions on how to set this up, see this article.
On top of creating/updating contact records, you can also set up any other processing steps you like. However, note that you can not add a processing step that redirects to a website: Form CTAs are not able to redirect to a website, so using this kind of processing step will cause the Form CTA submission to fail.
Non-Form Data (CDO)
As it is not captured as part of the Eloqua Form, some of the non-form data passed by Uberflip is recorded in Eloqua using a Custom Data Object (CDO). Data recorded in the CDO is automatically linked to contact records by matching the email address.
This CDO will track values for the following attributes:
- ID: A unique ID assigned to the lead
- Email: The visitor's email, used for linking to existing Eloqua contacts
- Tweets Viewed: The number of tweets viewed by the lead
- Articles Viewed: The number of articles viewed by the lead
- Posts Viewed: The number of blog posts viewed by the lead
- Videos Viewed: The number of videos viewed by the lead
- Flipbooks Viewed: The number of Flipbooks viewed by the lead
- Presentations Viewed: The number of slide decks viewed by the lead
You can view these values by running a report on the Custom Data Object in Eloqua. For more information, see this article from Eloqua.
Non-Form Data (External Activity)
The rest of the non-form data is captured using Eloqua External Activities. Specifically, External Activities are used to record which Items were viewed by a lead within your Hub, allowing you to easily reference which content a lead interacted with.
External Activities are tied into campaigns in Eloqua, so you can use this data for segmentation and lead scoring, and to trigger Campaign Response Rules for automation. They can also be viewed in Eloqua Profiler, which makes this useful data accessible to Sales staff.
Each Item a lead views is recorded as a separate External Activity. The following types of External Activities will be recorded:
- Read Article
- Read Flipbook
- Viewed Post
- Viewed Presentation
- Viewed Tweet
- Watched Video
Eloqua Integration Options
When you set up an Eloqua integration, you are presented with a variety of options via the Edit and Fields menus. Generally, these options map to the various kinds of data that we looked at above, and allow you to control whether — and, in some cases, how — that data is sent to Eloqua.
Below, you can find descriptions of what each item does, i.e. what kind of data it controls. You can also find specific instructions on how to configure each option in this article.
Fields Menu > Custom Fields
In the Fields menu of the integration, you can choose to add several fields marked as Optional:
These fields capture Conversion Item and Last Viewed Item details (see above). Uberflip will send this data to Eloqua by default, but the fields necessary to capture it do not exist by default. If you choose to create these fields, you will be able to add them to any Eloqua Form that you want to attach to a Form CTA. This in turn will allow you to capture the corresponding data each time a Form CTA is submitted.
Edit Menu > Set Lead Sources
By default, Uberflip will write its own values to the default Lead Source — Original and Lead Source — Most Recent fields on an Eloqua Form. In some cases, you may prefer to populate these form fields with your own values: if so, this option lets you prevent Uberflip from writing to these fields.
Edit Menu > Enable First Party Cookies
This is the sole option not related to the kind of data Uberflip passes to Eloqua. Instead, it allows you to configure an Eloqua option to use first-party cookies rather than the default third-party cookies. Enabling this option can enhance visitor tracking, as third-party cookies are now commonly blocked by default browser settings.
To enable this option, you must enter your Eloqua tracking domain.
Edit Menu > Create External Activities
If you enable this option, Uberflip will create External Activities to track lead engagement with specific Items (see above).
External Activities are associated with campaigns, so to enable this option, you must specify a default campaign ID to be used. This campaign ID will be associated with all External Activities unless overridden.
If you enable this option, you will also be able to associate specific campaign IDs with individual Streams in your Hub. If an External Activity is created for Item, and that Item is in a Stream with its own campaign ID, the Stream's campaign ID will be used instead of the default campaign ID.
Edit Menu > Flipbook Tracking & Content Counters
These related options control the non-form data captured in the CDO, i.e. the counters of various types of content seen by a lead (see above). Enabling or disabling these options determines whether or not data is written to the CDO.
What's Next?
Now that you have an understanding of how Uberflip's integration with Oracle Eloqua works, see this article for detailed instructions on how to set it up in your Hub.