Inviting Advocates Using Marketing Automation Systems: Tips & Tricks

Overview

If you opt to use a marketing automation system (Marketo, Eloqua, Hubspot, Pardot, etc) to invite advocates into your AdvocateHub, you will need to make use of a Group Invite URL. The invite URL is a generic link which will allow anyone who receives it to join your Hub. It will come in a form which looks like this

https:// yourhubname.influitive.com/join/{join code} 

If you use a custom domain, the  /join/{join code} portion will be appended to the end of your custom domain e.g. http://yourhubname.yourcompany.com/join/{joincode}

Where {joincode}is the group's join code.

Take a look at the Anatomy of a Group article to learn about where to find and configure group join code. This article will also help you to find existing group Invite URLs.

IMPORTANT: This is not a "vanity URL." The Invite URL must be used as is. Do not use the URL which this link redirects to. If modified, advocates may not be able to join.

Pre-populating the Email Address on Sign Up 

Advocates may use any address they wish to when signing up for your Hub. Since your CRM system likely identifies customers based on their work email, this may cause problems when you are trying to  import customer information from Salesforce.

Luckily, AdvocateHub has a solution to  encourage advocates to use a certain email address. Using your Marketing Automation System, you can easily have the email address of the receiving individual be populated when they click on your Invite URL. 

All you need to do is add the following to the end of your Invite URL when you are inserting the link into your invitation email:

?email= {email token}

In the above {email token} represents your marketing automation system's email token. You should add the token which is appropriate for the system you are using. 

What does it look like to the Advocate?

Here's what would happen if I invite an Alice to Influitive VIP and I want her to use alice@advocate.com:

1. Alice clicks on this link: https://vip.influitive.com/join/joinupfast?email=alice@advocate.com

2. Her email is automatically pre-filled (as shown below).

Example: Using Marketo

Add the following to the end of the Invite URL when inserting your link into the email:

?email={{lead.Email Address}}

For example, if I want to invite advocates to my Hub using this URL  https://vip.influitive.com/join/joinupfast, I just need to make sure the URL of my join button or link is this: 

https://vip.influitive.com/join/joinupfast?email={{lead.Email Address}}

Here's how that looks in Marketo's URL editing tool:

Example: Using HubSpot

Add the following to the end of the Invite URL when inserting your link into the email:

?email={{contact.email}}

For example, if I want to invite advocates to my Hub using this URL  https://vip.influitive.com/join/joinupfast, I just need to make sure the URL of my join button or link is this: 

https://vip.influitive.com/join/joinupfast?email={{contact.email}}

Here's how that looks in HubSpot's "Edit link" pop-up:

Please note that if SSO is enabled on your hub there may be some extra things you need to think about regarding Nominees, please read more  here. (https://support.influitive.com/solution/articles/3000052818#invites)