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Spam spam spam eggs spam spam spam

Robb_Barrett
Marketo Employee
Marketo Employee

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What it is...

Spam email is a form of commercial advertising which is economically viable because email is a very cost-effective medium for the sender. If just a fraction of the recipients of a spam message purchase the advertised product, the spammers are making money and the spam problem is perpetuated.

https://runbox.com/email-school/what-is-spam-and-how-to-avoid-it/

Why is it called SPAM?

Literally, because of this Monty Python bit.

Monty Python - Spam - YouTube

How it affects You

When we send out unsolicited emails, the IP address used is monitored by Spam Listers, like SpamCop, Baracuda, etc.

Marketo assigns our IP addresses. If they don’t catch things in time, all emails sent from that IP will be blocked

Actual real lead that’s now blocked because we’re listed as spammers

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How to protect your reputation in Marketo

  • Do not email to people who have not filled out emails asking to be contacted
  • Monitor who is calling us a spammer
  • Watch for Spam Traps
  • Create a suppression list and institutionalize it
  • Do not delete these leads from Marketo
  • Don’t mail to personal email addresses

Do not email to people who have not filled out emails asking to be contacted

  • Don’t purchase or rent lists
  • Use lists from tradeshows CAUTIOUSLY
    • Most often, tradeshows give us a list for one time use
    • Send an email to the list with a Call-To-Action to fill out a form
    • Set a “Self Destruct” workflow 10 days after the email that DELETES any lead that has not filled out a form

Monitor who is calling you a spammer

  • Create an operational program for Email Analysis
  • Create this  Smart List:
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Watch for Spam Traps

  • Spam Traps are email addresses that look, smell, taste and feel like real email addresses
  • They are created by companies and put onto lists that are imported into Marketo – tradeshows, third party lists, etc
  • They have never filled out a form
  • They monitor how often they get email from us and then report us to SPAM agencies that put us on the list of spammers

Tell Tale Signs of a Spam Trap:

  • Never filled out a form or came from a CRM
  • Often clicks emails before emails is delivered
  • Often times a flurry of clicks
  • Clicks links but doesn't visit web pages

Smart List to find Spam Traps:

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Creating a Suppression List

This is a list that you'll want to hold onto, monitor and perfect.  This is a list that you'll want institutionalized on all of your email campaigns.  Suppress these people!!!

Smart Campaign 1 - Spammy Accounts

Create a smart list where email address starts with "info@"

Add them to your Suppression list

Smart Campaign 2 - Bounces

Email Bounces Soft, email is any, minimum number of times = 3

Email Bounces - email is any, reason contains: spam, invalid, spamcop, blocked

Add to your suppression list

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Smart Campaign 3 - Potential Spam Traps

  • Clicks Link In Email - Email is Any
    • Date of Activity: In past 2 minutes
    • Min Number of Times: 3
  • Lead Source Is Not salesforce.com (or your CRM)
  • Not Opened Email
    • Email Is Any
    • In Past 2 minutes
  • Not Filled Out Form - Is Any

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You'll eventually find leads like this, where there's a flurry of clicks but no web pages visited.  This is due to the spam scanner clicking the link to prove to itself it's a redirect, then abandoning the click so it never trips Munchkin

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There are a lot of other things you have to watch out for with Spam Traps.  I'll update this blog as I find them.  If you have some, feel free to contribute!

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22 Comments
Tom_Kerlin2
Level 8

I checked with Marketo on this and it seems that the 'number of times' and 'in past' constraints won't have any affect on triggers.

Please up-vote this idea in the community to remove Date of Activity constraints from triggers:


https://nation.marketo.com/ideas/1754

Eric_Salamon1
Level 6

Very well stated and organized. I would like to add one note to why it was called spam. The skit is correct, but if you look at the script and highlight the word spam you will see that it starts with a little then progressively grows till it consumes almost everything. Of course it is still a funny skit.

Robb_Barrett
Marketo Employee

FYI, some results to share with you on this pilot that we've run.

It was recently applied to a nurture program, which saw deliverability jump from 86.5% to 98.4% as a result of suppressing bad accounts! That's almost 12% that happened quickly and easily.  If you build this correctly you should easily get deliverability in the upper 90's each time.

We also added in a batch campaign that runs every night looking for all of the conditions listed in triggers, plus Invalid, Unsubscribe, etc.

Stacey_Thornber
Level 1

Has anyone seen instances of bogus web activity? We're seeing a lot of people "active" on our site from the same company - and they lead nowhere. For example, visiting the Contact Us page 2-3 times in a row.

SanfordWhiteman
Level 10 - Community Moderator

Is there a link to the Contact Us page in your email?

Stacey_Thornber
Level 1

Yes - there was

*Stacey Thornberry | Director, Enterprise Demand Generation | O: (650)

486-9503*

<https://www.coupa.com/software/whats-new/>

*Connect with Coupa on Twitter <http://www.twitter.com/coupa>, LinkedIn

<https://www.linkedin.com/company/coupa-software>, and Facebook

<https://www.facebook.com/coupasoftware/>*

On Tue, Dec 12, 2017 at 5:40 PM, Sanford Whiteman <

SanfordWhiteman
Level 10 - Community Moderator

Then I'd assume this was a deep mail scanner (essentially a headless browser). There's nothing you can do to prevent these visits.

Stacey_Thornber
Level 1

Is there a way to figure out how to filter them out from a Company Web

Activity Report?

*Stacey Thornberry | Director, Enterprise Demand Generation | O: (650)

486-9503*

<https://www.coupa.com/software/whats-new/>

*Connect with Coupa on Twitter <http://www.twitter.com/coupa>, LinkedIn

<https://www.linkedin.com/company/coupa-software>, and Facebook

<https://www.facebook.com/coupasoftware/>*

On Wed, Dec 13, 2017 at 12:16 PM, Sanford Whiteman <

SanfordWhiteman
Level 10 - Community Moderator

Not if they're indistinguishable from human visits under the same company (which is the goal of a mail scanner, to be indistinguishable so it can detect malicious intent).

Stacey_Thornber
Level 1

So if we provide these reports to sales - we may be providing false

positives

*Stacey Thornberry | Director, Enterprise Demand Generation | O: (650)

486-9503*

<https://www.coupa.com/software/whats-new/>

*Connect with Coupa on Twitter <http://www.twitter.com/coupa>, LinkedIn

<https://www.linkedin.com/company/coupa-software>, and Facebook

<https://www.facebook.com/coupasoftware/>*

On Wed, Dec 13, 2017 at 1:09 PM, Sanford Whiteman <