Building a Webinar Source -- BrightTALK

Relevant to: Demand Acceleration Platform | Webinar Connectors

Build a Webinar Source to route leads from your BrightTALK Channel to the Demand Acceleration Platform - before being posted out to your Marketing Automation or CRM system.

This article explains how to create a Source for your BrightTALK webinar. This can be a promotion for an upcoming live or on-demand webcast.

This will be completed by your Webinar Power User(s) in the Demand Acceleration Platform > Campaigns.

For an overview of the entire process, including who your webinar team members are, see Webinars via the Demand Acceleration Platform.

You need to have 1) connected your BrightTALK account to the Demand Acceleration Platform, and 2) have built a Webinar Campaign in the Demand Acceleration Platform - before building your BrightTALK Source.
Connecting Your BrightTALK Channel	Building a Webinar Campaign

Before you begin building

1. Connect your BrightTALK Channel to enable lead flow to the Demand Acceleration Platform.

2. Build a Webinar Campaign in the Demand Acceleration Platform for your leads to be collected from Webinar Sources.

3. Complete the setup of your webinar in your BrightTALK Channel.

4. Collect your Webinar Source details from your BrightTALK Channel to use when building your Webinar Source in the Demand Acceleration Platform.

You can download a template at the end of this article to help with collecting the required data.

Information to collate in the spreadsheet includes:

Sheet	Column	Required?	Description
Setup Details	BrightTALK Connector	Optional	The name of your BrightTALK Channel that is connected with the Demand Acceleration Platform. Only needed if you have multiple BrightTALK Channels with different owners.
	BrightTALK Webinar	Required	List the name of your final webinar(s) exactly as shown within BrightTALK.
	BrightTALK Metadata	Optional	If there is metadata you would like to send to your Marketing Automation or CRM system, note the fields in this column. Read more about Webinar Metadata.
	Additional routing specifics	Optional	If there is additional data that needs to be passed with each lead, either static or mapped values, note those in this column. (eg LeadSource = BrightTALK) Your Ops team could advise here on values that will be important to route leads properly within your Marketing Automation or CRM system.
Fields	BrightTALK Fields	Required	A list of standard BrightTALK fields. Form Fields in BrightTALK are standard and do not change.
List Values	BrightTALK List Values	Optional	If you will be using picklist values to collect data and mappers to transform values, make a note of them in this sheet. Read more about Lists & Mappers.
Metadata Fields	BrightTALK Metadata Fields	Optional	A list of available BrightTALK metadata fields. Read more about Webinar Metadata.

Creating a BrightTALK Source

1. In the Demand Acceleration Platform, navigate to Campaigns > My Campaigns. Click on the Webinar Campaign that you created in the previous step, Building a Webinar Campaign.

This Campaign will house the new Webinar Source that you are building and cannot be relocated.

2. Click Add New Source.

3. In the Add Webinar Source modal, select the corresponding Webinar Connector, Channel and Webcast from the drop-down menus.

Your options here will depend on what Webinar accounts have been connected with the Demand Acceleration Platform. Read more in Connecting Your BrightTALK Channel.

In BrightTALK, name your webinars with a unique identifier to help you locate the live vs. on-demand versions if you plan to promote the same webinar multiple times. Example: 'Fantastic Webinar - Feb 2020'.
If you are having trouble identifying your webinars, you may update the titles within BrightTALK and then revisit this step before proceeding.

Click Add. The Webinar Source has been created and is now housed in your Webinar Campaign.

Name your Source

You can give your Source a nickname - known as the Source Alias - to help you identify it. This is done in the Source Summary tab by clicking on the Source title. Type your new Source Alias and it will save automatically when you click elsewhere.

The Source Alias can be anything you like - we recommend determining a naming convention to use across all your Sources, which will help you to identify them. Typically this includes the BrightTALK webinar title.

Set validations on your webinar form fields

Fields in your selected Webinar are automatically added as Form Fields in the Demand Acceleration Platform.
The fields are dynamically added from BrightTALK and you can configure them in the Fields tab as needed. Additional routing fields and values can also be added to your outbound integration, see Adding outbound integrations.

In the Fields tab you can add validations to fields, which will determine whether incoming leads from BrightTALK are accepted or rejected. To read more about types of field validations available, see Field Types & Validations.

1. In the Source, click on the Fields tab.

2. Click on the Campaign Field where you would like to add validation. This will open the Field Details panel and reveal the available validations for that field type.

3. Add the validations you wish to apply to the Webinar Source, in order to block any unwanted leads.

Rejected leads are not "returned" to BrightTALK.
In the Demand Acceleration Platform, rejected leads are held and not sent to your Marketing Automation or CRM system. To understand what lead data is considered billable by BrightTALK, speak with your BrightTALK Customer Success Manager.

If inbound values come from BrightTALK picklists, you will need to create those lists in the Demand Acceleration Platform List Library.

Confirm Terms and add de-duplication rules

The rules in the Default Terms tab have been carried over from the setup of your Webinar Campaign.

On the Source level, you can apply de-duplication rules to prevent multiple versions of the same lead. De-duplication rules will be available if either an Email or Phone field is present in the Fields tab. Read more in De-Duplication Rules.

Add an outbound integration

You can configure how leads will flow out to your Marketing Automation or CRM system in the Outbound tab. Here you can also add BrightTALK metadata to accompany the user lead data as it is sent into your integrated system.

To learn more about setting up Marketing Automation and CRM integrations, see Integrations & Post-outs.

1. Click on Add Integration.

2. In the pop-up, choose whether to add a new integration or click the Load from Existing button to copy an existing setup.

3. Once you select your integration, it will become visible in the Integrations tab.

Open the integration settings to configure the integration and send a test lead. For more about setting up and testing Marketing Automation and CRM integrations, see Integrations & Post-outs.

To send specific values to your system, you can apply mappers to incoming picklist values; this can be done when configuring the integration and mapping the fields.

Click Save.

Launch your Webinar Source

In the Inbound tab, you can view high-level information about your BrightTALK connection.

Click Launch to complete the setup and initiate lead flow.

Lead flow can now start from BrightTALK into the Demand Acceleration Platform, where they will be validated and any accepted leads will be routed into your Marketing Automation or CRM system. Notice the Source status has changed to Live.

Test your Webinar Source

It is advised to test the BrightTALK connector to confirm lead flow into your Marketing Automation or CRM system prior to beginning webinar promotion.

Confirm your Webinar Source setup is complete, including with webinar tokens and metadata in the Integration tab, click Launch.
Send a test lead from BrightTALK.
Review your test lead data within the Demand Acceleration Platform and your Marketing Automation or CRM system to confirm.

Your Webinar Source is now set up. The next step is to manage the lead flow in the Webinar Source.
Managing Leads in a Webinar Source

If you have a Managed Service package with Integrate, we’ll build and manage your Webinar Campaigns and Sources for you within the Demand Acceleration Platform.
This includes regular reporting to keep you informed. Contact your Customer Success Manager for more details.

Frequently Asked Questions

How often does lead data flow in to the Source from BrightTALK?

Data is retrieved and updated in the Demand Acceleration Platform every hour via the BrightTALK API.
- For a live webinar, lead flow begins at the point of user registration with activity data being sent once the webinar occurs.
- For an on-demand webinar, all lead data will be sent once the user submits their information to access and view the webinar.

BrightTALK Source Template

Webinar Integration -- BrightTALK Fields & Set Up TEMPLATE.xlsx
40 KB Download

In this article:

Before you begin building