We're in the process of connecting Salesforce Data Cloud to our WordPress marketing site to track web engagement — page activity, CTA clicks, and form fills. We want to capture behavioral data and properly identify visitors when they submit a form, so we can stitch browsing activity to an identified record. (All tied to our Marketing Cloud Next/Advanced platform analytics) We're evaluating two paths and would love input from anyone who has been through this decision, particularly in a B2B context.
Path 1 — GA4 Connector
Path 2 — Manual Web SDK with Sitemap
Questions
1. For a B2B site focused purely on page engagement and form fills, does the GA4 connector capture an equivalent level of behavioral data compared to a manually configured sitemap? Or are there meaningful gaps?
2. Identity resolution is our biggest concern with the GA4 path. When a visitor submits a form, will the GA4 connector properly stitch that known identity (email) back to their anonymous browsing history?
3. Are there any known data quality issues with the GA4 path — such as bot traffic inflating profiles?
4. For those who've implemented the manual SDK: how complex was the sitemap build for a non-ecommerce site? We'd need to cover page type definitions, button/CTA clicks, and form submission events (for our MCA forms)
#Data Cloud
Hi @Chris Mauro
,
Hidden fields are a valid approach and probably the cleanest one in your setup.
Here is what I would use:
- Read the Web SDK’s anonymous device ID on the main site and pass it into the MC Next form, either as a URL parameter on the CTA link or written into a hidden field. The form submission then carries both the email and the device ID, and identity resolution in Data Cloud can link the anonymous browsing to the known individual. You don’t need the SDK to fire an identity event on the subdomain.
- Also check the SDK’s cookie domain setting. If the cookie is set on the root domain (yourdomain.com) and not the www host, the subdomain can read the same device ID. If you’re allowed to load the SDK on the form subdomain too, that closes the gap completely.
- For the Pardot-style activity view on Lead/Contact, Data Cloud won’t surface it the way Pardot did. Use a Related List enrichment on the engagement DMO to show page views in sequence, and a Copy Field enrichment for single values like first referrer.
Test it with one form first. Verify that the device ID lands on the submission record and that the unified profile actually merges before rolling out.
