Knowledgebase

    Overview Add Leads to Static Lists Use Custom Fields Overview Lead records have two primary components – lead attributes and activity logs. Lead attributes are the fields and field values within the lead record. For example, Job Title is a lead attribute. Lead Name is a lead attribute. Activity logs record the actions Marketo or the lead themselves have taken. For example, sending an email to a lead is an activity that would show in the activity log. If the lead opens the email or visits a tracked page, those activities would show in the activity log as well.   Activities in the activity log are only retained for 90 days, 25 months, or 37 if you have purchased the premium data retention option. The official Marketo Data Retention Policy can be found here: Marketo Activities Data Retention Policy   The main way to store activity data beyond the Data Retention Policy timeframe is to use the Bulk Extract API. There are two other ways you can keep a reference of these activities after the end of the Data Retention period, and they can be referenced within the Marketo UI. This article will show you how that can be done.     Add Leads to Static Lists Static lists will retain lead membership even if the activity of adding the lead to the list has been removed. This will let you have lists dedicated to specific criteria that would otherwise be removed after the data retention time period has been passed.   For example, Smart Campaign membership history is not retained after 25 months. If you are searching for members of a Smart Campaign, but a lead first became a member of the Smart Campaign more than 25 months ago, the search results would not include that lead.   An easy way to work around that is to add your leads to a static list as part of the flow of the campaign. When creating your Smart Campaign, create a new static list with the same corresponding name (makes it easier to identify later). When building the flow of your campaign, add the "Add to List" flow step so that all leads going through the campaign will be logged on the list.   Use Custom Fields Lead attributes and their field values are not affected by the Data Retention Policy. Use Smart Campaigns to populate custom fields with values based on activities your leads take. This will allow you to filter leads by these lead attributes that are not affected by the Data Retention Policy. A side benefit to this is that it is faster to search by lead attributes than by searching through lead activity logs.   Example: This approach can work for many different activities, but let’s use form fill outs as an example.   Let’s say you want to be able to identify leads who have been very active and have filled out more than 5 forms over their lifecycle. You could use the filter “Filled Out Form” with the “Min. Number of Times” constraint set to 5. However, if one of those forms filled out occurred more than 25 months ago, the filter would only be able to access 4 form fill activities in the activity log. Therefore, the lead would not pass the filter.   Instead of using the “Filled Out Form” filter, set up a Smart Campaign to write to custom fields that show you how many forms they’ve filled out, and when the first one was. Here’s how to do it:   1. Create two new custom fields in Marketo, one Score Field, and the second a Date Field.   2. Create a new Smart Campaign   3. Add the trigger “Fills Out Form” set to “is any” to the Campaign Smart List 4. Add these two Flow Steps to the Campaign Flow: Flow Step 1: “Change Score” Score Field Name: your score field name Change: +1   Flow Step 2: “Change Data Value” Add Choice to Flow Step Choice 1: If “your score field name”  “is empty” Attribute “your score field name” New Value: {{system.date}} Default Choice: Do Nothing This campaign will listen for any time a lead fills out a form, add +1 to your score field, and if it’s the very first form they’ve ever filled out, it will log the date of when it was done. If the lead has ever filled out a form in the past, there will already be a date value in the date field, so the flow choice would just skip over it and do nothing. Results You’ll See: With the original goal of identifying leads who have filled out more than 5 forms you’ll be able to filter for leads that have filled out at least 5 forms. In addition, this campaign will let you search for leads based on when they had filled out their very first form, regardless of how long ago it was. Since it’s stored in a lead field, it’s a lead attribute that is not affected by the Data Retention Policy at all.

Issue Person record's Activity Log shows repeat Company Name changes without any Data Value Change being logged.  In this example screenshot, we can see that the person had the Company Name set back to the correct value by the CRM sync, but there is no record of the Company Name being changed in the first place. This is a article attached image Environment Person records showing the change are all part of the same Account. One person on that holding Account fills out a form that updates the field "Company Name" to a value that is different from the Account Name CRM sync corrects the Company Name field back to Account Name Solution STEPS TO RESOLVE: 1. Find the lead that change the Company Name field on the account with a Smart List filter:      DATA VALUE CHANGED     Attribute: Company Name     New Value: [Company Name from form fill-out]     Previous Value: [Account Name] This is a article attached image 2. Locate the Data Value Change in the Activity Log 3. Check the date and time of the Data Value Change 4. Check that timeframe on other affected records 5. The timeframe of the Data Value Change back to the Account Name will approximately match the timeframe of the logged Data Value Change, showing that the update to the one person was the cause of the update for all others on that account.   Root Cause Marketo uses Company Name as the identifier for the Account object.  If you have multiple people on the account and one of them changes the Company Name via a form fill-out, the Company Name is changed for all other people on that Account.  This change happens on the back end, so you will not see it until the CRM changes it back to the correct value in the next sync cycle.  

Issue Lead activity log shows "Change segment" or "Add to Segment" for a segmentation (i.e. "Change Title to "Directors") The named segmentation ("Title") does not show up in the segmentation list in Database Environment Marketo instance with the Target Account Management feature Solution Even though the activity log shows a segment activity, the segment is actually a Persona, which is a feature of Target Account Management.

Summary Estimating the external storage requirements for your Marketo Engage Database Issue I want to extract all of my data from Marketo Engage and store it. How much storage space will I need? Environment Marketo Engage and External Systems Solution Summary There is no repeatable method to accurately estimate the amount of storage you will need to extract and store your Marketo Engage database. Standing in the way of good estimation is data availability, field selection, and storage method. Any accurate estimate will take into account the potential sizes of each type of data and their quantities (known to data scientists as "facts and dimensions"). Determining ranges for these values takes a lot of preparation and may require a high level of skill. IMPORTANT NOTE: Estimating Database size is hard so any estimate used to make business decisions should be made in cooperation with a database or application architect or other qualified professional. Scope Some information won't be extracted. Information about anonymous leads, for example, cannot be extracted. Some of the data that can be extracted may not be needed at all. Selecting the right data for your needs is the best practice as it reduces the required storage and leads to a more efficient extraction process. Field Definitions How the fields are defined in the target system will affect how big the stored data is. Depending on your storage format, padding may play a role in the size of your extracted database. As an example, the "Country" field in Marketo is a string of up to 255 characters. You could chose to store 255 characters for every country value. Or you may choose a format that uses a variable amount of space. You might also know that the longest country name is "the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" meaning that 199 of those characters will always be extra so you truncate the value from Marketo storing the first 56 characters only. Each choice will have an impact on the size of your extracted database. Estimating 199 unnecessary characters per lead and making similar decisions for other fields will add up to increased storage requirements and slower extraction time. Format Once the desired data is identified, the next step is to extract, transform and load (ETL) the data from Marketo Engage into your storage system. The data returned by Marketo's API is plain old text which is usually formatted as JSON or CSV. For the information to be useful, you will transform it from JSON into the format necessary for your storage system. That format could be an Excel spreadsheet, Microsoft SQL database or a schema-agnostic database like Azure Cosmos DB. How the data is formatted and encoded will make a big difference in the amount of storage needed. Take this simple example: a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet with "Marketo Engage" in cell A1. I saved that same file in four different formats which resulted in files ranging from 1 KB to 25 KB. The format you store you information in may have a bigger impact on your final storage requirement than the data itself. This is a article attached image   To help illustrate the impact of the storage system, take a look at this guide for Microsoft SQL Database size estimation: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/relational-databases/databases/estimate-the-size-of-a-database  Functionalization Once you've extracted your data, what are you going to do with it? Archiving your data (simply storing it) is easiest and comes with the fewest contraints. A compressed archive (Zip file) will save dramatically on storage space at the cost of functionality and ease of use. Functionalizing your data (using it in an application) requires more: at least better speed and searchability: typically a relational database. An application will often require additional data and that will need to be accounted for too. Facts and Dimensions: Do the Math It's a lot of work to get to this stage. Once you've determined how your extracted data will be stored, you can set upper and lower bounds on the sizes for each object type extracted (lead, email, activity, etc). These are your facts. Then multiply those values by the number of each type of record. These are your dimensions. Add to that the overhead of your target storage system and its functional requirements to generate your final estimates.    

Once you have submitted a case to Marketo support, we provide a simple way of staying connected to your case and the cases submitted from your company through the Marketo Support Portal. You can access the support portal through your Marketo instance by selecting Community in the top right corner: This is a article attached image You can also access the support portal directly at https://support.marketo.com and login with your Marketo credentials (login and password). This will not work for users with SSO.   Once you are in the support portal you can Create a Case for Marketo Support or you can also review any cases that are open and being worked on by support or review your case history. Navigate to My Case management: This is a article attached image From the My Cases navigation you can access the following case views: This is a article attached image My Recent Cases* - Cases that you have opened in the past 30 days All Company Recent Cases* - Cases that any authorized support contact has opened in the past 30 days My Open Cases – Cases created by you that are being triaged by Support and pending Support’s response and are more than 30 days old My Closed Cases – Cases that were created by you and are now closed My Awaiting Fix Cases – Cases that were created by you where Marketo is developing a fix which will be implemented at a later date All Company Closed Cases – Cases that were created by you or your colleagues that are now closed All Company Open Cases - All open cases submitted for the account Company Awaiting Fix Cases – Cases that were created by you or your colleagues where Marketo is developing a fix which will be implemented at a later date Management Escalations - Escalations opened by you or your colleagues  Survey Cases - Surveys that are available for you to fill out after a case is closed *Cases that have been opened for more than 30 days will move from Recent cases to Open cases   To view specific case details, click a case number. This is a article attached image From the Case Details, you can perform the following: Close your Case - Select the "My Case is Resolved" button to close your case Add Comments - Provide additional comments to support or respond to a Support question Add Attachment - Provide any screenshots or documents that will help illustrate the issue you are reporting   If your case has been closed there are two options available to you.   Reopen - You can reopen your case if you are not satisfied with the case resolution by adding a comment in the case. Case Survey - Once your case has closed, please consider offering feedback on the level of Support you received.

Issue Issue Description If a page is not loading in your browser for Marketo, this can sometimes be due to network related issues. We can help troubleshoot by using a HAR file from the browser to see network traffic.   Solution Issue Resolution Instructions to generate a HAR file broken down by browser version: Chrome In Chrome, go to the page within Marketo where you are experiencing trouble. At the top-right of your browser window, click the Chrome menu (⋮). Select Tools > Developer Tools. The Developer Tools window opens as a docked panel at the side or bottom of Chrome. Click the Network tab. Select Preserve log. You will see a red circle at the top left of the Network tab. This means the capture has started. If the circle is black, click the black circle to start recording activity in your browser. Refresh the page and reproduce the problem while the capture is running. After you successfully reproduce the issue, right click on any row of the activity pane in the Network and click Save as HAR with Content. Save the HAR file. Select the Console tab. Right-click anywhere in the console and select "Save as...". Name the log file Chrome-console.log. Send both files as shared links in a reply to your case. Firefox In Firefox, go to the page within Marketo where you are experiencing trouble. Click the Firefox menu (Three horizontal parallel lines) at the top-right of your browser window. Select Web Developer > Network. The Developer Tools window opens as a docked panel at the side or bottom of Firefox. Click the Network tab. Select Persist logs. After you successfully reproduce the issue, right-click any row and select Save all as HAR. Firefox typically takes a few seconds to prepare the download. A slight delay on this step is normal. Select the Console tab. Right-click any row and select Select all. Paste the content in a text file and name it console-log.txt. Send both files as shared links in a reply to your case. Safari In Safari, go to the page within Marketo where you are experiencing trouble. In the menu bar at the top, click Develop and select Show Web Inspector. Click Preserve Log. Click the Console tab and select Preserve Log. Go back to the Network tab. Refresh the page and reproduce the problem while the capture is running. Once you have reproduced the issue, select Export. Save the HAR file. Click the Console tab. Right-click any row and select Select all. Paste the content in a text file and name it console-log.txt. Send both files as shared links in a reply to your case. Internet Explorer 11 (IE 11) In Internet Explorer, go to the page within Marketo where you are experiencing trouble. Click the gear icon in the top right. Select F12 Developer Tools. Click the Network tab Clear the Clear entries on navigate option, which is selected by default. The icon looks like blue arrow with a red X. The green play button (Start Profiling Session), should be selected by default. This means the capture function is running. Refresh the the page and reproduce the problem while the capture function is running. Once you have reproduced the issue, click the Export as HAR icon. The icon looks like a floppy disk. Click the Console tab. Right-click any row and select Copy all. Paste the content in a text file and name it console-log.txt. Send both files as shared links in a reply to your case.

Issue If a record which is in a Marketo Campaign Wait Step and is merged into another record, does the winner of the merge continue through the flow?    Solution Winner of the merge will continue through the Campaign flow and complete the remaining steps. To prevent this behavior, remove the record from Campaign using the 'Remove From Flow' step. Environment Records merged in Marketo  Records merged in SFDC

Issue Single Flow Step to send an email to x number of leads failed  Solution Create a smart campaign and override the person restriction to send an email to a number of people that is greater than the campaign restriction Root Cause The number of people selected to send an email from a single flow action exceeds the campaign person restriction/limit. The campaign restrictions apply to the single flow action because a background campaign is generally created to process the single flow action. Environment Single Flow Action Send Email Campaign Restrictions Smart List

Issue The activity log is not recording the Open Email activity for an email send. Solution Issue Resolution Email opens are linked to an individual asset. If a record is sent the same email more than once, only the first open activity will be recorded. If you are not seeing opens record for a record, search the activity history to confirm whether or not the asset has been opened previously.  Also, Text-Only emails lack the tracking pixel used to determine whether an email is opened, so Text-Only emails will never show opens in the activity log.  In Email Performance Reports, Opens will be backfilled by the report's internal logic if the customer clicks a link in the Text-Only email.  Otherwise, opens will not be recorded.    

Summary duplicate records with the same email across lead partitions can be affected by uploaded custom object activity Issue System not separating lead partitions for custom object imports Uploading custom object activity affects duplicate records across partitions Custom Object activity import writing to the most recently updated record regardless of partition Solution Use the following workaround:  Run an update on the records that should be affected by the custom object activities import. This will make sure they are the most recently updated records among the duplicates Root Cause Normally when you do a list import, it would import into the one partition, whatever partition the list is located in and only impact the record in that one instance.  But when you import a Custom Object, it's able the see ALL the records across ALL the partitions.  If there are duplicate records, it just looks to see which one was updated most recently and grabs that one for the list import. So if you have lead record in A with Add to Custom Object already completed and you re-import again but the lead record in B has been updated more recently and has NOT had the custom object added to it, you get the duplicate "Add to Custom Object" activity. Environment Multiple lead partitions with duplicate records across them Custom Object activity import

Issue Leads recently imported cannot be found Solution Check if the example leads exist in the partition the workspace has access to. It is possible that the leads cannot be found because the workspace being checked does not have access to the partition the leads exist in. Check if any of the example leads have been deleted: by using the Campaign Inspector to review all of the smart campaigns that contain a Delete Lead flow action. Then check the run history of each smart campaign to see which recently ran and how many people qualified. If there is a significant amount of smart campaigns that contain a delete lead flow action, contact Marketo Support for additional assistance. by checking the delete lead activities via API Check if the example leads' information was changed. For example, if a lead was imported with email address "john@gmail.com" then create a smart list using "Data Value Changed" filter where "previous value" was "john@gmail.com" Root Cause Leads could exist in a partition that has not been searched, the details could have changed, or the leads could have been deleted. Environment Lead Database List Import Workspaces and Partitions Smart Campaign Campaign Inspector

  Overview Add Leads to Static Lists Use Custom Fields Overview Lead records have two primary components – lead attributes and activity logs. Lead attributes are the fields and field values within the lead record. For example, Job Title is a lead attribute. Lead Name is a lead attribute. Activity logs record the actions Marketo or the lead themselves have taken. For example, sending an email to a lead is an activity that would show in the activity log. If the lead opens the email or visits a tracked page, those activities would show in the activity log as well.   Activities in the activity log are only retained for 25 months, or 37 if you have purchased the premium data retention option. The main way to store activity data beyond the Data Retention Policy timeframe is to use the Bulk Extract API. There are two other ways you can keep a reference of these activities after the end of the Data Retention period, and they can be referenced within the Marketo UI. This article will show you how that can be done.     Add Leads to Static Lists Static lists will retain lead membership even if the activity of adding the lead to the list has been removed. This will let you have lists dedicated to specific criteria that would otherwise be removed after the data retention time period has been passed.   For example, Smart Campaign membership history is not retained after 25 months. If you are searching for members of a Smart Campaign, but a lead first became a member of the Smart Campaign more than 25 months ago, the search results would not include that lead.   An easy way to work around that is to add your leads to a static list as part of the flow of the campaign. When creating your Smart Campaign, create a new static list with the same corresponding name (makes it easier to identify later). When building the flow of your campaign, add the "Add to List" flow step so that all leads going through the campaign will be logged on the list.         Use Custom Fields Lead attributes and their field values are not affected by the Data Retention Policy. Use Smart Campaigns to populate custom fields with values based on activities your leads take. This will allow you to filter leads by these lead attributes that are not affected by the Data Retention Policy. A side benefit to this is that it is faster to search by lead attributes than by searching through lead activity logs.   Example: This approach can work for many different activities, but let’s use form fill outs as an example.   Let’s say you want to be able to identify leads who have been very active and have filled out more than 5 forms over their lifecycle. You could use the filter “Filled Out Form” with the “Min. Number of Times” constraint set to 5. However, if one of those forms filled out occurred more than 25 months ago, the filter would only be able to access 4 form fill activities in the activity log. Therefore, the lead would not pass the filter.   Instead of using the “Filled Out Form” filter, set up a Smart Campaign to write to custom fields that show you how many forms they’ve filled out, and when the first one was. Here’s how to do it:   1. Create two new custom fields in Marketo, one Score Field, and the second a Date Field.   2. Create a new Smart Campaign   3. Add the trigger “Fills Out Form” set to “is any” to the Campaign Smart List     4. Add these two Flow Steps to the Campaign Flow: Flow Step 1: “Change Score” Score Field Name: your score field name Change: +1   Flow Step 2: “Change Data Value” Add Choice to Flow Step Choice 1: If “your score field name”  “is empty” Attribute “your score field name” New Value: {{system.date}} Default Choice: Do Nothing       This campaign will listen for any time a lead fills out a form, add +1 to your score field, and if it’s the very first form they’ve ever filled out, it will log the date of when it was done. If the lead has ever filled out a form in the past, there will already be a date value in the date field, so the flow choice would just skip over it and do nothing.       Results You’ll See: With the original goal of identifying leads who have filled out more than 5 forms you’ll be able to filter for leads that have filled out at least 5 forms. In addition, this campaign will let you search for leads based on when they had filled out their very first form, regardless of how long ago it was. Since it’s stored in a lead field, it’s a lead attribute that is not affected by the Data Retention Policy at all.      

Summary Unable to update Person Source as expected for records created with the LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms and Facebook Lead Ads integrations. Issue New records created through LinkedIn Lead Gen forms as well as Facebook Lead Ads results in the records not updating the Person Source field as expected.  Solution Person Source may be set to block updates to the field as noted in the example for Block Updates to a Field - Marketo Docs - Product Documentation.  To resolve the issue ensure the field is not set to block updates for the desired update method.  Alternatively the Person Source values populated by the integrations can be kept and expected values can be updated to include these sources.  Root Cause The LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms and Facebook Lead Ads integrations automatically update the Person Source to preset values when a new record is created in Marketo through the integrations. Blocking field updates to the field may prevent the value from changing to pre-configured values as a value already exist for the integration created records.  Environment LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms Facebook Lead Ads