How can I reduce the number of API calls Vidyard makes to Marketo?
Overview
Marketo sets a limit on the number of API calls that you can receive from third-party systems. If you're using Vidyard to pass video engagement data to lead records in Marketo, it's possible you may find that the number of API calls that Vidyard generates either reaches or exceeds your limit.
This is because the Vidyard for Marketo integration uses the Munchkin tracking cookie on your pages to perform several valuable tasks, each of which requires an API call:
- The Vidyard Player and the Marketo work together to identify your viewers when a player loads.
- As the viewer reaches successive milestones in your video, Vidyard passes engagement data to lead records in Marketo
If your videos are embedded inline on high traffic websites, this can result in a significant number of API calls due to players loading in tandem with a page.
Evaluate which videos are making the most calls
If you're looking to reduce the number of calls that Vidyard makes to Marketo, you'll want to consider the following:
- Which video players are making the most calls?
- What is the purpose of the videos embedded on those pages?
- For example, are viewers watching the video on the careers page of your website likely to become leads of your product or service? For these videos, is it necessary to identify viewers and pass data to lead records?
If you are using inline players on high traffic pages, this will result in Marketo indicating that Vidyard is using a high number of calls, even if you aren't necessary receiving viewing data into the Activity Logs.
For these videos, you can reduce API calls in several ways. Each of these options will prevent the player from communicating with the Munchkin cookie when the page loads.
- Use a lightbox embed
- Use the renderPlayer API method to deliver the inline player on demand.
- Use an iframe embed (to maintain inline playback but stop calls to marketo for those viewers)
- Removing the video from the page
Use a lightbox embed
A lightbox player provides the same functionality as an inline player. The only difference is the presentation of the video on the page.
Learn more about the difference between lightbox and inline embedded player.
Unlike an inline player, a lightbox embed requires the viewer to click on the video thumbnail to load the player on the page. This means that API calls will only be made against visitors to your webpage who actually choose to watch the video.
Use the renderPlayer API method
If you prefer the inline experience, you can use our API to deliver the player on demand. See this CodePen as an example of how to do so.
The caveat here is that in a similar vein to the iframe approach below, the JSON LD video object for SEO will not be crawlable by a search engine when it lands on the page.
Use an iframe embed
An iframe allows you to embed an inline video without the javascript that allows the Vidyard Player to communicate with the Marketo Munchkin cookie. As result, the player will not make any API calls to Marketo.
If you choose the iframe as an option, keep in mind that you'll also lose the following benefits:
- The Vidyard Player will no longer automatically inject SEO metatags (LD+JSON) into the
<head>your webpages. Search engines will not be able to crawl your video content (unless using a separate video sitemap). - You will no longer be able to use the Player API to customize the behavior of the player or leverage our Personalized Video technology.
Remove player & replace with link
You can also choose to remove the player from your website entirely. A good strategy may to be replace the video with a thumbnail image that links to the video sharing page.
Video sharing pages can be branded to look and feel like your website. You can also add your Marketo Munchkin script to your sharing pages. This means that, for anyone who clicks the link to watch, you can continue to identify viewers and share video engagement data with Marketo.