UPDATED May 25, 2011

LiveBall can easily and reliably share data with Eloqua’s marketing automation platform (e9 or e10). No custom code or developer integration is required. Once integrated, LiveBall’s powerful pages and forms will seamlessly feed behavioral and form-fed data into Eloqua.

Overview

In order for LiveBall to pass data to Eloqua, you need to:

• place Eloqua-supplied javascript at the campaign level within LiveBall (to track visitors)
• place Eloqua-supplied javascript on each form page within LiveBall (to pass form data)
• and post data to your Eloqua form(s) using a LiveBall form-post export (to pass form data).

Eloqua Tracking Scripts

Campaign-Level Script for Visitor Tracking

Eloqua provides user-tracking scripts that must be placed on web pages in order to track visitor behavior within Eloqua. This is no different in LiveBall than it is for any of your other web pages. There are a couple of things you should be aware of:

1. Before you generate your visitor tracking scripts, be sure to add your LiveBall domains (and/or sub-domains) to your list of ‘safe domains’ within Eloqua.
2. Assuming you use Eloqua on your main website, your Eloqua javascripts directory (elqNow) will likely already be hosted on your website. If that is the case, you will just need to reference those existing scripts (assuming that the list of safe domains was up to date when you generated the scripts).

The javascript that Eloqua supplies for use on your website looks something like this:

<SCRIPT TYPE='text/javascript' LANGUAGE='JavaScript' SRC='/elqNow/elqCfg.js'></SCRIPT>

<SCRIPT TYPE='text/javascript' LANGUAGE='JavaScript' SRC='/elqNow/elqImg.js'></SCRIPT>

To use that script on an external site like LiveBall, you need to make sure that the path to the scripts is complete, like this:

<SCRIPT TYPE='text/javascript' LANGUAGE='JavaScript' SRC='http://www.yoursite.com/elqNow/elqCfg.js'></SCRIPT>

<SCRIPT TYPE='text/javascript' LANGUAGE='JavaScript' SRC='http://www.yoursite.com/elqNow/elqImg.js'></SCRIPT>

Your version of the script above should be copied into LiveBall as a global script ( Libraries / Global Scripts / + script ). Name it ‘Eloqua Campaign’ and save the global script into an ‘Eloqua’ category for easy reference. Once you have this script saved into your global script library, you can place it in your LiveBall campaigns:

1. Navigate to a LiveBall campaign by going into a portfolio and click on a campaign title.
2. Edit the campaign by clicking on the pencil next to the campaign title at the top of the campaign page.
3. Choose your ‘Eloqua Campaign’ script using the menus in the ‘campaign-wide library script’ and click ‘save’.

You are now tracking visitors in Eloqua for every page within the campaign. Repeat 1-3 above for each campaign that you would like to report visitor behavior to Eloqua.

Form-Page Script

The script setup above tracks visitor behaviors. In order to pass form and behavioral data, you need one additional script block on any LiveBall page that includes a form from which you would like to pass data into Eloqua. Let’s setup that script:

1. Within LiveBall, navigate to Libraries / Scripts / and click on the ‘Eloqua’ category you created above.
2. Click ‘+ script’ to add a script to the library.
3. Label this script ‘Eloqua Body (LAST) on Form Pages’ or whatever you like to make it easy to reference later on.
4. Paste your Eloqua form-page script into LiveBall and click ‘save’.

TIP: This script is supplied by Eloqua, and like the ones supplied above, you may need to change the relative path to your ‘elqNow’ directory to the full path beginning with ‘http://’. The path should be the same as the path in the other script you setup earlier.

You will also need to change the function initPage to match the code below. This enables seamless, worry-free linking of the user’s Eloqua cookie to their form data (converting them from anonymous to known in Eloqua and mating any previously collected behavioral data to their newly submitted form or click-through data).

The form-page script you’re expecting from Eloqua should look something like this once you’ve made the edits:

<SCRIPT TYPE='text/javascript' LANGUAGE='JavaScript'><!--//

var elqPPS = '70';

//--></SCRIPT>

<SCRIPT TYPE='text/javascript' LANGUAGE='JavaScript' SRC='http://www.yoursite.com/elqNow/elqScr.js'></SCRIPT>

<SCRIPT TYPE='text/javascript' LANGUAGE='JavaScript'><!--//

window.onload = initPage;

function initPage(){

liveballData("elqCustomerGUID", GetElqCustomerGUID());

}

//--></SCRIPT>

Passing Form & Behavioral Data to Eloqua

Once you have visitor tracking enabled using the instructions above, you’re ready to setup data passing to Eloqua. First, let’s make sure your Eloqua instance is ready to accept data.

Within Eloqua

1. Create a form in Eloqua. 


   TIP: Create at least one master form in Eloqua that includes every possible field you may ever want from LiveBall to Eloqua. As long as your fields are optional on the Eloqua side, you can pass as few as you wish — letting you create one master form and form post to handle all submits.
2. Add all the fields you want to pass from LiveBall to your Eloqua form. 
   TIP: LiveBall can pass behavioral data in addition to explicitly entered form data. So you may want to include LiveBall core fields like media vehicle name, traffic source, creative, tags, IP geography, lead grading/engagement data, etc. There are a lot of powerful core fields within LiveBall that can help you target and qualify your leads within nurture.
3. Keep in mind that email address is Eloqua’s only user-entered requirement.
4. Note the ‘HTML name’ of your Eloqua form, you’ll need it in LiveBall in a few minutes.
5. Note also the HTML names of each Eloqua form field to which you would like to pass LiveBall data.

One-Time Pre-Requisites within LiveBall

Eloqua requires four specialized, data fields to be passed into the system. The values in these fields identify your Eloqua instance and provide other critical data. These fields will be included in all of your data exports.

1. Within LiveBall, navigate to Integration / Data Collection
2. Add a data field category for ‘Eloqua Data Fields’ by clicking ‘+ category’, naming it and clicking ‘save’.
3. Within your newly-created ‘Eloqua Data Fields’ category, click ‘+ data field’ to add a field.
4. You need to create four different Eloqua data fields:
   Title: ‘Eloqua Cookie Write’; Date Name: ‘elqCookieWrite’
   Title: ‘Eloqua Customer GUID’; Date Name: ‘elqCustomerGUID’
   Title: ‘Eloqua Form Name’; Date Name: ‘elqFormName’
   Title: ‘Eloqua Site ID’; Date Name: ‘elqSiteID’
5.  Each of these fields should have a maximum length of ‘100’. (This isn’t very important, as you’re going to pass shorter values, but 100 is fine.) Click ‘save’ for each one.

One-Time Export Format Setup within LiveBall

1. Within LiveBall, navigate to Integration / Data Exports
2. Click ‘+ export format’ to add a new export format.
3. Name your export format ‘Eloqua Basics’ (or whatever you like) and select the type ‘Post to web form’ and click ‘save’.
4. Within your newly-created export format, click ‘+ format field’ to add a field to your export format.
5. Choose the data or core LiveBall field you would like to export, specify if it is required or not; if it has a default value; and the HTML name to which you would like it to post in Eloqua. 


   TIP: The HTML name is very specific, so you may want to cut and paste it from Eloqua into LiveBall to avoid any chance of error. TIP: Try not to unnecessarily require fields at the export level. Eloqua only truly requires email address. There’s less chance of error if you require fields within LiveBall at the form level and simply allow the export to send whatever it has.
6. Click ‘save’.
7. Repeat steps 4-6 for each field you would like to pass into Eloqua.

Special Fields to Add to Your Export Format

Once you’ve added all of your data and core fields to your export format, you have four more special ones to add. These get added the same way — using steps 4-6 immediately above — but you have some special defaults to set (for three of them):

1. Eloqua Cookie Write: Set the default value in the export to ‘0’.
2. Eloqua Customer GUID: Leave the default value blank.
3. Eloqua Form Name: Set the default value to the ‘HTML name’ of the Eloqua form to which you want to post.
4. Eloqua Site ID: Set the default value to your specific, four-digit site ID (supplied by Eloqua).

Your LiveBall export format is now ready. Now we can create the actual form post.

One-Time Export Setup within LiveBall

1. Within LiveBall, navigate to Integration / Data Exports
2. Scroll down to the ‘exports’ section of the page and click ‘+ export’.
3. Label your export ‘Eloqua Form Post’ or whatever you’d like to name it.
4. Export scope: [ Converted respondents ]
5. Export format: [ Eloqua Basics ] (or whatever you named it above)
6. Form URL: http://now.YourSuppliedEloqua.aspx address of the form you’re posting to
7. ‘Peek’ email address: Your email address for monitoring the form post during testing (remove once testing is complete.)
8. Click ‘save’.

Posting Form Data

Now that all the setup is complete, in order to pass form data into Eloqua, you need to do a couple of things to each form page within LiveBall. Within the ‘page editor’ of the form page in LiveBall:

1. Click the ‘script’ button at the top of the page editor.
2. Scroll down to ‘</body>’ script and select the [ Eloqua ] [ Eloqua Body (LAST) on Form Pages ] script you added earlier to the global library of centralized scripts. Click ‘save’.
3. Next, click on the form you have already included in the page, then click the ‘+ advanced rules’ button.
4. Add a new rule by clicking ‘+ rule’; name it ‘Eloqua’ and set [ No Conditions Required ] as the condition. 

IMPORTANT: When you have multiple rules, the Eloqua rule should be last in your list. If you have rules that affect your data, and those rules run after the export is triggered, those rules will not impact the data that’s sent to Eloqua. Rule of thumb: Eloqua export should be last.
5. OPTIONAL: Select the action: [ Save into database ] [ elqFormName ] = [ (your Eloqua HTML form name, if different than the default value you specified in the export) ]


   TIP: You may create as many forms in Eloqua as you want to discretely track. They may all be identical (or not), but by having them separated, you can track and report on submission efficiency in Eloqua (in addition to within LiveBall). The only time you need to use this step 5 is when you have multiple Eloqua forms and you want to pass data into an Eloqua form other than the one you specified as the default in your Eloqua export.
6. Select the action: [ Export Immediately ] [ Eloqua Form Post ] (or whatever you named your export). Click ‘save’.
7. Repeat 1-5 for all form pages that you want to pass data to Eloqua.

Congratulations, LiveBall and Eloqua should be integrated!

Each time you submit a form, the Eloqua export will happen automatically. During testing, if you entered an email address for the ‘peek’ during export setup (see above), you’ll get a text email showing you the data fields and values LiveBall sent and the status of the Eloqua acceptance of that data. You may leave that ‘peek’ address in place as long as you like.

When everything is properly configured, LiveBall will surface the Eloqua GUID (unique user cookie identifier) in the ‘view collected data’ function within LiveBall ‘preview’. If you don’t see a long number in the elqCustomerGUID field, you’re not receiving the cookie and should review your integration step by step to find the problem.