Using Multiple Branding Domains in Marketo

Michael_Tucker1
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Using Multiple Branding Domains in Marketo

With a really important summer 2020 product update release happening to Marketo tomorrow, today's Throwback Thursday takes us back to the Summer 2016 release. There are so many features that we take for granted today, but one of the features that we've been talking about lately has been Multiple Branding Domains.

Multiple Branding Domains.png

Multiple branding domains allow you to change the links in your outbound emails

 

It's not the sexiest product feature, but if you're an enterprise that has more than one brand it's likely you'll want to send an email from those different domain names. More specifically, when you create an email in Marketo the software automatically goes through all of the links, adds the subdomain name that you originally pointed to MktoMail.com when you configured your primary domain name. to work with Marketo, along with a ?mkto=***** query string parameter. This is what allows the software to track which audience members are clicking on links for your Email Performance Reports or Link Performance Reports.

 

A Real World Example: General Mills

Not following? Let's use a real world fictitious example with a well known consumer brand. General Mills  is in the food manufacturing business and owns some of the world's most beloved brands that you'll instantly recognize when you walk down your grocery store aisle. One of those brands is Cheerios breakfast cereal .

 

The company needs two different domain names here. One for General Mills itself for it's B2B interactions with suppliers, employees, shareholders, and media relations at www.GeneralMills.com,

General Mills homepage at www.GeneralMills.comGeneral Mills homepage at www.GeneralMills.com

General Mills' homepage at www.GeneralMills.com 

 

The second domain name is for Cheerios to interact with it's B2C consumer base and it's different target audience personas at www.Cheerios.com. These personas may be health-conscious middle aged adults looking to lower their cholesterol looking for Original Cheerios or families with young children who like the playful bee on the cover of a box of Honey Nut Cheerios. In addition to setting up a different domain name, we would create separate segmentations for each of these personas to personalize their email and website experience with Dynamic Content and Real Time Personalization.

 

Cheerios homepage at www.Cheerios.comCheerios homepage at www.Cheerios.comCheerios homepage at www.Cheerios.com 

 

In Marketo each of these domain names would be configured to point to the software and have its own subdomain name specifically for outbound email. Once those names are set up and verified in Marketo you can build marketing campaigns for both the parent company and all of its products in their own unique branding. To go a step further, you can set up a unique workspace for each business and create users for the marketing departments responsible for each brand. But, alas, that's a separate conversation.

 

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Connecting multiple domain names to Marketo workspaces

 

Michael Tucker runs The Conversion Store, a Marketing Technology Consultancy based in Charlotte, North Carolina that specializes in helping firms migrate and deploy marketing automation software. He is the Global Leader of the Marketo Manufacturing Virtual User Group, and a Marketo Certified Expert.

 

Michael Tucker