Tag-level exclusion lists

Tag-level exclusion lists

One of the recurring issue in the Community is to exclude some lead population from some content type. e.g. Exclusion List​ and also automating management of subscription center. It's a cumbersome and very error prone process as it entirely relies on user discipline to exclude people who chose to receive only certain type of content. The Community readings on subscription centers is comprehensive, but at the end of the day, no matter how well designed is the subscription center, enforcing visitors choices in smart campaigns is always the weakest part of the process.

This idea is to enable admins or some users with specific roles to link an exclusion smart list or some segments from receiving content with this tag. This would work only for mandatory tags, so all content would be submitted to these exclusion leads.

For instance, when creating a subscription center, we would create smart lists for :

  • people who do not wish to receive newsletters, called "No Newsletter"
  • people  who do not wish to receive event invites, called "No Invite"
  • ...

We would then create a program tag with the following values:

  • Newsletter -> Exclusion list = "No Newsletter"
  • Event Invite -> Exclusion list = "No Invite"
  • Content promotion -> Exclusion list = "No Gated Content"
  • ...

When preparing and sending email in a program, which tag value = newsletter, Marketo would automatically filter out all leads belonging to the "No Newsletter" smart list, exactly as if the lead was suspended.

These tag exclusion lists would apply to program tags and channels.

Additionally, if this idea: ​ is implemented, the Tag Exclusion Lists would also apply to asset tags, so that we could filter not a whole program but a specific email.

The interest of this approach is that it would be very systematic and even if a user forgets to exclude, Marketo would automatically manage it.

[EDIT] When implemented together with workspaces, it should be possible to set the tag-level exclusion lists per workspace. This is because is a  multi-BU organization, each BU may have a different approach of the subscription center.

[EDIT] asset level exclusions would enable to mimic the behavior of operational emails : some emails would be filtered based on their tag, and some would not. If the asset has no tag, the program tag exclusion list would apply. Another possibility would be that operational emails would not be impacted nor filtered by tag exclusion lists.

-Greg

14 Comments
Dan_Stevens_
Level 10 - Champion Alumni

We're currently in the process of building out our email preference center.  It would be so much easier to manage - and "tags" so much more powerful - if this capability existed (and if we could select more than one tag value in our programs - but that's another idea)!

Evan_Chung
Level 1

We're setting up our Workspace and BU specific email pref center, and this feature would be incredible helpful!!! 

Any update on where this is in Marketo's roadmap?

Grégoire_Miche2
Level 10

And BtW, this is a feature Eloqua has, under the name of "email groups". It's very powerful and convenient. You create email groups and attach to each email group some exclusion criteria. Then, when you create an email, you need to tell to which group the email belongs. Then Eloqua enforces the exclusions automatically.

In Marketo, this could be attached to programs and assets through tags, that would provide the same capability but with much more flexibility.

kh-lschutte
Community Manager
Status changed to: Open Ideas