Knowledgebase

  In offering a premium email delivery platform to our customers we carefully monitor our IPs for listings on blocklists (Top Blocklists – What You Need to Know.) The Marketo Privacy team maintains relationships with the major blocklists to better assist our customers in resolving these issues. When we find that one of our customers was responsible for a blocklisting we contact that customer and request some actions be taken to remediate the issue. In many cases we find that sending an email to a spamtrap address (What Is a Spamtrap and Why Do They Matter?) caused the blocklisting.  Spamtraps are email addresses that have either never been used or have not been used for a long time and are now owned by anti-spam organizations. They are considered by these organizations as a sign of poorly maintained or inappropriately acquired addresses. Based on this assessment they conclude that the marketer is sending spam and consequently blocklist the sender.  To prevent future blocklistings you'll need to review your recent activity to remove the spamtrap from your mailing. Finding the spam trap address can be difficult; they are closely guarded secrets of the blocklisting organizations and they do not share these addresses. We describe several strategies below. The best approach for you depends on the make-up of your database and the amount of behavioral history in your Marketo system.The goal is to isolate potential spamtrap addresses and remove them. The group of addresses you select should be broad enough to capture those potentially bad addresses but small enough not to suppress a huge portion of your database. Blocklists are not all the same - some provide Marketo with more information, some with less. If at all possible we will provide you with a date and a subject line to help you isolate potential traps.  Step 1         To narrow the list of potential traps you should consider the following: Have you recently added any new leads or new lead sources? What is the source of these leads? Any purchased or appended email addresses should be removed because these data sources are often the source of newlyintroduced spamtraps. In addition lead sources like this can violate Marketo's Email Use and Anti-Spam Policy Have you recently added any older leads from another database that have not received email in the past year?  Some email providers will turn an address into a spamtrap after a year of inactivity.  If you have a list of addresses that had not received email for a year or more before recent email campaigns this list should be removed. Does your system use any custom fields to indicate customer status, event attendance, recent contact with your sales team, or other forms of engagement?  Take advantage of this and isolate the inactive or nonresponsive segments of your database using all activity data you have available. Is there anything different about this specific mailing that makes it different compared to your previous email campaigns? Did you send any other mail on the same day?  You could compare the recipient lists. Step 2   If you were able to identify newly introduced email addresses to your email program that are likely the source of the spamtrap suppress or remove those from your database so they will not receive email in future email campaigns.    If you have not identified a specific data source than you should target the inactive or nonresponsive segments of your database for potential spamtraps.  Because an individual does not manage spamtrap addresses, they are generally part or a larger spamtrap network; they will generally not show any form of activity. If you have behavioral history, the best approach to take is to identify the people who are not interacting with your company - not opening or clicking emails, not visiting the web page, not attending events, etc.   Build an inactive Smart List using ALL filters: Was sent email the day of and day before the spam trap hit (please contact support@marketo.com for the date of the trap hit if you do not have this information already.) Lead “was created” date is at least 6 months ago Inactivity Filters Not visited web page is “any”; constraint date of activity “in past 3 months” Not filled out form is “any”, constraint date of activity “in past 6 months” Not clicked link in email is “any”, constraint date of activity “in past 6 months” Not opened email is “any”, constraint date of activity “in past 6 months” If you have custom database fields that would show other forms of activity feel free to add this into your inactive Smart List to exclude active leads.   Step 3   Once you have created a smart list to identify these suspect leads you have several options. [Leads Tab > Lead Actions > Flow Actions] Remove leads from database Why waste your time on inactive leads?   Set leads to Marketing Suspended = true to suppress from future mailings Marketing suspended is functionally equivalent to unsubscribe. These leads will still be available for other flow actions, tracking, or operational emails. To avoid suppressing an active lead’s email address you can create a daily recurring batch campaign to take any marketing suspended lead who "wakes up" and engages and set them back to marketing suspended is false.    The daily batch campaign would be set to change Marketing Suspended back to false if the lead performed any specific activity in the last 24 hours like if they visit a web page, open or click a link in an email, fills out a form or has a lead status change. Here's how to set up the campaign:   Smart List (using the "ANY" filter, not "AND"): "Visits Web Page" "Clicks Link in Email" "Fills Out Form" "Opened Email"           All selectors for these filters should be set to 'any'.   Flow: "Change Data Value" flow step Attribute: "Marketing Suspended. New Value: "False".     Opt-In reconfirmation pass Create and release an email to inactive list with the following sample copy: "We have not heard from you in a while. Click this link to continue to receive messages." Anyone who does not click the link within 2 weeks should be set to Marketing Suspended. For recommendations on successful reconfirmation messages search our help articles on Successful Reconfirmation.   Some mix of the above Many of our customers take a tiered approach to blocklist remediation. If they can identify inactive, low-priority leads they may choose to immediately delete or Marketing Suspend these while reserving a reconfirmation pass for higher priority leads. If your list includes extremely high value sales targets you might consider having your sales team reach out individually. If considering this approach we recommend that you export the list and try various sorting techniques to get a feel for the leads you're looking at before deciding on the best way to segment them for different tiers of attention.     Step 4 You’re Done! Don't forget to fill out the delisting form      

This is a article attached image Marketo offers a number of ways to contact Marketo Support directly for assistance from our different support regions.   Support Portal (https://support.marketo.com)   The Marketo Support Portal features a web form submission to submit support cases to Marketo Support.  The form gives authorized support contacts the ability to provide details on the support issue that allows Marketo Support to efficiently and effectively assign your case to the best suited available support engineer. This is a article attached image   Email to Case Submission Authorized Support Contacts can email their cases to: support@marketo.com Reminder: Cases submitted by email are all submitted with a P3 Priority   Regional Phone Contact Information Marketo does feature the tried and true means of contact support, by the phone.  Authorized Support contacts with any support entitlement of Business level or higher can contact Marketo Support by calling one of the regional phone numbers listed below.   Region Contact Details Observed Holidays North America Hours: M-F, 6am to 6pm Pacific Toll Free US: +1 877 270 6586 Languages Supported: English New Year's Eve and Day Independence Day Thanksgiving Day and the Day After Christmas Eve and Day Europe, Middle East, Africa Hours: M-F, 8am to 5pm GMT Europe: +353 (0)1 511 9556   Languages Supported: English New Year's Eve and Day Easter Monday Christmas Eve and Day St. Stephen's Day Asia Pacific Hours: M-F, 9am to 6pm AET ANZ: +61 2 8031 8188 Language Supported: English New Year's Day Good Friday Easter (following Monday) ANZAC Day Christmas Day Boxing Day Japan Hours: M-F, 9am to 6pm JST JPN: +81 3 6478 6080 Language Supported: Japanese New Year's Day Coming of Age Day National Foundation Day Emperor's Birthday Spring Equinox Showa Day Constitution Memorial Day Greenery Day Children's Day Marine Day Health and Sports Day Respect for the Aged day Fall Equinox Labor Thanksgiving Day

Marketo Support's Mission is: To provide fast and friendly world-class support through creative, flexible solutions to empower Marketo Automation Software success.   Areas of Responsibility: Technical Support Engineers (TSEs) are your initial point of contact for any technical questions or concerns. TSEs are responsible for troubleshooting issues within your Marketo instance and common include:   My Marketo Marketing Activities Design Studio Lead Database Analytics Revenue Explorer (RCA/RCE) Calendar Deliverability Tools Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Web Personalization (RTP) Admin Community   Our TSEs are not web developers and as a result they are unable to troubleshoot most types of custom coding (ie. HTML, JavaScript, XML, etc.). Our support team is able to help with the following types of non-custom code:    Simple Munchkin Code Asynchronous Munchkin Code Asynchronous jQuery Munchkin Code SOAP API REST API   Our TSEs are here to assist you and our support commitment to our customers is to always work towards providing an above and beyond support experience.   Note: Our team is not against looking at custom code and, based on the subject matter expertise, our TSEs might be able to offer suggestions and recommendations, but we do want to make it clear that they are not responsible for fixing or updating any custom code that has been implemented.   Response Time   Our TSEs are bound to responding to your cases and issues within the Service Level Agreements from your account's level of support services.  We track response milestones to ensure that your cases are being handled in a timely manner as dictated by our agreed to Service Level Targets.

The Google Apps antispam system uses a unique means of allowlisting. Customers on shared IPs should allowlist Marketo's entire sending ranges, because we sometimes need to move customers between IPs for technical reasons. The way to allowlist a range in Google Apps is to configure a manual IP block with a pass through.   G Suite enables you to specify an IP address or range of addresses within a domain, and allow messages from those addresses only. This feature is sometimes referred to as IP lock. In G Suite, you set up this feature in the Content compliance setting. IP lock is a method that readily enables an administrator to simultaneously whitelist all incoming traffic from a particular domain while equally preventing spoofing by manually defining the allowed IP ranges. The following instructions are particularly useful with domains that do not have an SPF record and/or use third party applications to legitimately spoof their address. Setting up IP lock with the Content compliance setting includes three separate procedures: Adding the domain, defining the allowed IP range, and setting the correct disposition and NDR.   See this page of Google documentation for more information: Enforce 'IP lock' in G Suite - G Suite Administrator Help Instead of using a CIDR range, this interface asks for the first and last IPs in the given range. Here are ours:   199.15.212.0 - 199.15.212.255 199.15.213.0 - 199.15.213.255 199.15.214.0 - 199.15.214.255 199.15.215.0 - 199.15.215.255 192.28.146.0 - 192.28.146.255 192.28.147.0 - 192.28.147.255 94.236.119.0 - 94.236.119.63 185.28.196.0 - 185.28.196.255 103.237.104.0 - 103.237.104.255 103.237.105.0 - 103.237.105.255 130.248.172.0 - 130.248.172.255 130.248.173.0 - 130.248.173.255   Is this article helpful ? YesNo

Leads can be auto unsubscribed due to default Feedback Loop setup with the ISPs listed on this page. You can use the following filters to find leads that have clicked the SPAM button in your emails:   Filter 1: Data Value Changed Attribute: Unsubscribe New Value: True Reason: Contains, Customer Complaint Received from ISP.   (Optional to Specify what Email Domain) Filter 2: Email Address Email Address: Contains, @domain.    

  What is a Blocklist? Can I Still Send My Emails, or Are You Blocking Me from Sending? What Is a Spamtrap and Why Do They Matter? Can You Give Me the Spam Trap Address That Triggered the Blocklist So I Can Remove It from My Database? Can You Give Me More Information regarding the Blocklist Issue? What Is the Quarantined IP Range? I Sent This Email Campaign a While Ago. Why Am I Only Getting Notification of the Blocklist Issue Now, and Am I Still Blocklisted? The Blocklist Notification Went to the Wrong Email Address. Why Was It Sent to That Address? Which blocklists should I be concerned about? - Top Blocklists – What You Need to Know How do blocklist issues get resolved? What steps do I need to take to resolve the blacklist issue? - Blocklist Remediation      

A blocklist is a database that uses certain pieces of information to determine if an IP or domain is sending messages that could be considered spam. There are hundreds of blocklists out there, though only a handful of them are used widely enough to have a major impact on your email delivery rates. Blocklists are tools that are used by ISPs to inform decisions on whether or not to place a message in the end user’s inbox. If an IP or domain is on a blocklist, ISPs that use that blocklist to inform inbox decisions will not accept mail from that IP. Most blocklists are dynamic, meaning that they will delist automatically after a given period of time or when the sender’s email statistics improve. An IP will be included on a blocklist if certain criteria are met, and these criteria vary from blocklist to blocklist. Spamhaus, the world’s most well repudiated and widely used blocklist, has a great graphic that explains how their blocklist feeds information to ISPs and what happens from there. While blocklists use a number of methods to determine whether or not an IP is sending messages that could be considered spam, two of the most common are spamtraps addresses and user feedback. Spamtraps are email addresses that are not meant to receive email. Some spamtraps were created by anti-spam professionals and were never meant to receive email, while others are simply old invalid addresses that have been repurposed. You can read more about spam traps here: What Is a Spamtrap and Why Do They Matter?. Blocklists also rely heavily on feedback from users that tell them that a particular IP or sender is sending spam. We have to be strict about our Email Use and Anti-Spam Policy because in the rare event that one of our customers triggers a blocklist, any customer on the same IP range will be affected. To check if an IP is blocklisted, use this tool. If you have found that you are listed on a blocklist, please see this article, Blocklist Remediation, for a path to resolution. To learn more about specific blocklists, please visit our guide to the top blocklists, Top Blocklists – What You Need to Know.

Quick points: *Spamtraps are addresses owned by antispam organizations *Emailing a spamtrap (usually) gets your IP or domain blocklisted *Maintain current, direct opt-in with an active lead database to avoid this What is a spam trap or spamtrap?   A spam trap, or spamtrap is an email address secretly owned by an antispam organization that is used to detect spam. Antispam organizations do not sign up for mailing lists, so they consider any email sent to these addresses to be spam. Once email is sent to the spamtrap, the antispam organization that owns this address will blocklist the IP that sent the email (or, less often, domains that are linked in the message).   Email administrators purchase subscriptions to various blacklists, and use the lists to block all incoming email from listed IPs or containing listed domains. From the marketer’s perspective, this can mean a high number of bounced emails leading to low lead engagement, and ultimately to weak revenue performance.   There are two types of spamtraps – pristine traps, and repurposed/recycled traps. A pristine trap is an email address that was never used by a person. A repurposed trap is an email address that once belonged to someone but is no longer a valid address; these addresses will bounce as bad addresses for at least six months before an antispam organization will turn them into live traps.   How can a spamtrap get into my Marketo lead database? Purchased data   Purchased data is unreliable. The antispam world does not like the use of purchased data so antispam administrators have made a concerted effort to get spamtrap addresses into the databases of data vendors. While data vendors may say they provide opt-in data in reality consent should be direct to your company. Sending unsolicited email is prohibited by the Marketo Terms of Use because this practice has a high risk of causing blocklist issues that can destroy deliverability for multiple Marketo customers. To avoid spam traps get direct opt-in before sending email. If you have purchased data in the past we recommend setting any inactive purchased leads to marketing suspended or simply removing them from your database. Old data Repurposed traps are email addresses that were once valid but are now owned by an antispam organization. This can happen when a company goes out of business; expired domains are often purchased by antispam organizations. Sometimes a company that has a direct partnership with an antispam organization will allow email addresses of former employees or users to become spamtraps. Because antispam organizations will generally make sure future spam traps return a bounce as bad addresses for at least six months before they become spam traps you can prevent repurposed traps in your database by emailing remaining engaged with everyone in your database at least once every six months. Avoid “wake the dead” campaigns to addresses you have not contacted in more than six months. Unconfirmed form entries People can unintentionally enter spamtrap addresses into forms either by making a typo or by intentionally using a fake email address that happens to be a spamtrap. If you use single opt-in, you may add spamtraps to your mailing list. This is more likely to happen if you are a B2C company or if someone thinks they can get whitepapers or free trials simply by filling out a form with made-up information.   How can I identify spamtrap addresses?   Spamtrap addresses are considered trade secrets by the antispam organizations. They do not share these addresses because their goal is for senders to change their mailing practices rather than to simply remove spamtraps from their mailing lists.   That said, one thing we do know about spamtraps is that they tend to be automated processes and do not engage. Spamtraps do not click links. You can use smart list filters to identify inactive leads in Marketo.   How can I prevent spamtraps in my database? Maintain active, direct opt-in for all leads. Don’t purchase data (to grow your list, sponsor events, use list rental services that send the first message for you, or use co-branded content that sends you only good leads) Email everyone you want to email at least once every six months Don’t add old data directly to your mailing list (if you need to, add in small batches and send a welcome email with a slightly different subject to each batch) Regularly clean your database of inactive leads Grant access to assets such as free trials and whitepapers as email links to discourage intentional use of fake email addresses on forms Use scripting on your forms to identify potential typos Is this article helpful ? YesNo  

  Welcome to Marketo Support This guide provides individual links that covers the following topics: Marketo Support Policies Service Level Agreement How to Contact Marketo Support How to Submit a Case Tips on Effective Case Submission Managing Authorized Support Contacts (Support Admins) Managing Your Cases How to Escalate