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Included in this article Overview Data you’ll get from Email Bounces Bounce Categories Hard Bounces Soft Bounces Bounce Details Building the Directory 1. Create 6 custom fields 2. Create a Program to house everything 3. Create a Static List 4. Create two Smart Campaigns Smart Campaign One - Logging Email Bounces with Bounce Details Smart Campaign Two - Remove Leads From the List After Successful Deliveries 5. Create Custom List View Showing Bounce Details Overview Bounce activities carry details for why the email was bounced, but it’s housed within the activity log entry, not in a field on the lead record, so it’s difficult to export that data. This article will show you how to extract that information to create a directory of leads bouncing emails and how to make the list automatically update. This will also create counters for bounces and successful re-deliveries after bounces happen. Data you’ll get from Email Bounces Bounce Categories Email bounces come in different types depending on why the email was bounced; Hard Bounces or Soft Bounces. Hard Bounces Hard Bounces come in two types, Category 1 and Category 2. Category 1 bounces are emails that have been marked as spam by the recipient mail server. Many email servers monitor blacklists or spam traps, so after de-listing with them, leads that have had a Category 1 bounce previously may be able to receive emails again. Category 2 bounces occur due to an email address that is invalid or doesn’t exist. Soft Bounces Soft Bounces come in three different types, Categories 3, 4 or 9. Category 3 bounces are usually temporary, caused by full mailboxes, timeouts, or throttling. Any email with this designation has been retried for up to 24 hours (36 for AOL). Category 4 bounces are caused by technical problems, Transient Failures, Admin Failures, DNS Failures. Any email with this designation has been retried for up to 24 hours (36 for AOL). Category 9 bounces are unknown, undetermined or gibberish details. Any email with this designation has been retried for up to 24 hours (36 for AOL). Bounce Details When an email is bounced, the recipient mail server includes details of why it was bounced. These are created by the admin of the recipient mail server and vary greatly, but most will give some explanation that can give valuable information. Email Bounce Codes Building the Directory 1. Create 6 custom fields You’ll need 6 custom fields, two DateTime fields, two Score fields, and two String fields Name the DateTime fields “Bounce Date” and “Email Delivered After Bounce”. Name the Score fields “Email Bounces” and “Deliveries After Bounces” Name the String fields “Email Bounce Details” and “Email Bounce Category” Directions for creating Custom Fields can be found here: Create a Custom Field in Marketo 2. Create a Program to house everything Use a default program type and name it "Directory of Leads Bouncing Emails". Info on creating programs can be found here: Create a Program 3. Create a Static List This static list will be your actual directory that contains all of the leads that are currently bouncing emails. Name it "Active Bounce List". Info on creating a static list can be found here: Create a Static List 4. Create two Smart Campaigns These two Smart Campaigns are what will be used to add and remove leads from your active bounce list. Info on creating Smart Campaigns can be found here: Create a New Smart Campaign Smart Campaign One - Logging Email Bounces with Bounce Details Your first Smart Campaign will be used to listen for any email bounces that occur. The campaign will populate the “Bounce Date”, “Email Bounce Category” and “Email Bounce Details” fields. It will then add one point to the “Email Bounces” score field which can be used to count how many bounces have occurred per lead. Lastly, the campaign will add the lead to the static list which will be an active directory of leads who are bouncing emails. Campaign Smart List Use the two triggers of “Email Bounces” and “Email Bounces Soft” in the Smart List. Set both triggers to “is any” so that they will fire whenever any email bounces for any reason. Campaign Flow The Flow of the campaign will have 5 flow steps. The flow will use a System Token and some Trigger Tokens, which can be used to pull details out of the action that activated the trigger. In this case, the Trigger Tokens will be pulling out the details on why the emails were bounced. That info is in the bounce message and is logged in the lead's activity log. Normally you'd have to comb through the activity log one at a time to find these details for each individual lead. This method, however, will pull the details out automatically for all leads. Flow Step 1: Change Data Value Attribute: “Bounce Date” New Value: {{system.dateTime}} Flow Step 2: Change Data Value. Attribute: “Email Bounce Category” New Value: {{trigger.category}} Flow Step 3: Change Data Value Attribute: “Email Bounce Details” New Value: {{trigger.details}} Flow Step 4: Change Score Score Name: “Email Bounces” Change: +1 Flow Step 5: Add to List List Name: “Active Bounce List” Smart Campaign Two - Remove Leads From the List After Successful Deliveries Campaign Smart List The Smart List of the campaign will need a trigger for “Email is Delivered” set to “is any” and also a filter of “Member of List” looking just for leads that belong to your Static List. This way, the campaign will only apply to leads who have had an email bounce but have then had an email successfully delivered afterwards. Campaign Flow The Flow of the campaign will have 3 flow steps to do the following; log when the email was delivered, add a point to the "Deliveries After Bounce" Score Field, and remove the lead from the "Active Bounce List". Flow Step 1: Change Data Value Attribute: “Email Delivered After Bounce” New Value: {{system.dateTime}} Flow Step 2: Change Score Score Name: “Deliveries After Bounces” Change: +1 Flow Step 3: Remove from List List Name: Operational.Active Bounce List 5. Create Custom List View Showing Bounce Details The custom fields you’ve created for email bounce information won’t show automatically in the view of your list. You can create a new view of the list to show just this information so that when it is exported it will give you only the email bounce information you need. Once the list has the necessary details, it can be exported with those columns included so that you can work with it. You can identify emerging trends and issues with your deliverability by looking for common themes among the bounce details. Directions for creating Custom Views can be found here

Featured article

(Article Updated - August 2024) Overview A blocklist is a database of IP addresses or domains that have been associated with the sending of unsolicited commercial email or spam. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and business email networks use information from blocklists to filter out unwanted email. As a result there can be a drop to inbox delivery rates if the IPs or domains involved with sending email are listed on a blocklist. Marketo’s Email Delivery and Compliance team monitors blocklist activity on our IPs and domains daily. When an impactful listing occurs, we reach out to the blocklist, attempt to identify the sender that triggered it, and work with the blocklist organization to get the listing resolved. There are thousands of blocklists, most will not have a significant impact on your delivery rates. Below, we have compiled a list of the blocklists that commonly appear across our sender ecosystem. Each blocklist has been grouped into a top tier (Tier I) by most impactful, to the bottom least impactful tier (Tier III). These may have little to no impact across our sender network. Tier I Blocklist Spamhaus (SBL) Impact: Spamhaus is the only blocklist that we categorize as a Tier I for a reason: it has by far the greatest impact on delivery. It is the most well-respected and widely used blocklist in the world. A listing at Spamhaus will have a negative effect on your ability to deliver emails to your customer’s inbox and can cause bounce rates of over 50%. Evidence suggests that most of the top North American ISPs use Spamhaus to inform blocking decisions. How it works: Unlike many blocklists, Spamhaus lists senders manually. This means they are proactively watching sender activity, collecting data, and base listings on a number of variables. Most commonly senders are listed for mailing to spam trap addresses that Spamhaus owns. Sometimes Spamhaus will list senders based on recipient feedback as well. Next Steps: Please note that every Spamhaus email can be quite different depending on the information provided and the nature of the listing . Because Spamhaus has multiple types of listings, the remediation steps are based on which type of blocklisting has occurred. We have listed the most common types to affect Marketo customers, from most to least impactful. Impact can range from a full block of top severity, to a partial block that is less severe (CSS Data, DBL). If remediation isn’t performed and the problem not addressed, these listings can increase in severity and turn into a full blocklisting. Spamhaus Blocklistings Types SBL (full blocklisting) Considered the most impactful. Remediation steps: Our team monitors closely for Spamhaus listings. Once alerted to the listing, we send an email notifying the customer, and reach out to the Spamhaus contact to start the remediation process. Only a Marketo delivery team member should be in direct correspondence with the Spamhaus contact, to speak on behalf of the customer, and to relay their questions and instructions, ensuring quick resolution and reduced impact. Senders that trigger this listing on a shared IP range will be moved to a more isolated, penalty range (IPB), so as not to impact the other shared senders. Those affected on a Dedicated IP, only impact their own sending and will not be moved. However, depending on the severity of the issue, our team may need to revoke a customer’s ability to send any emails until full resolution. The listing will last until Spamhaus is satisfied that the offending sender has taken the appropriate steps to mitigate the problem. SBL CSS Customers are alerted of the listing with an email containing all the information needed to immediately begin the remediation process. This is part of an automated trigger listing, that allows for a customer to delist directly on the Spamhaus website, after they’ve completed remediation. Remediation steps: Customers will go to the Spamhaus IP lookup website, at https://check.spamhaus.org, where they can check on the status of their IP and continue to monitor it in real time, until it is no longer listed there. Follow the remediation and delisting instructions provided, and check for specific details in the blocklist notification email. DBL (Domain blocklisting) Customers will receive an email notification alerting of the company domain being listed. The email will contain specific information to help narrow down and identify which email source likely triggered it within Marketo. It’s important to note that any email sent from outside of Marketo, that contained the company domain, is suspect. This means, if the sender uses multiple IPs and/multiple email platforms, then any of those could be the source. Remediation steps: Follow the detailed instructions in the email, which will also provide a link to the Spamhaus Domain reputation checker webpage, to check the real time listing status of the affected domain. Once the email source is identified and cause addressed, this customer will follow the online instructions to request to be delisted. Tier II Blocklist SpamCop Impact: SpamCop is not used by any of the major North American ISPs to inform blocking decisions, but it makes it to the Tier II list because it can have a significant impact on B2B email campaigns. SpamCop is considered a Tier I one blocklist for B2B marketers but a Tier II for B2C marketers. SpamCop is a dynamic IP blocklist, that can affect a single IP or a subset of IPs Typically, the block will automatically lift within one business day, but can take longer for relisted IPs. To have triggered a SpamCop listing likely means the sender has a list management problem that should be addressed. How it works: SpamCop lists IPs for one of two reasons: Either the email hit SpamCop spam trap addresses OR A SpamCop user has reported the email unwanted. Most of SpamCop’s spam traps are previously valid addresses that have not been active for 12 months or longer. Remediation steps: If you are seeing a significant number of bouncing emails caused by a SpamCop blocked IP but aren’t sure if your email activity triggered the listing, first identify whether you are sending on a shared sender network or not. If sending from a shared IP range when this occurs, you or any other customer sending from the same network may have contributed to the IP block. This IP block will automatically get dropped within a business day. For those on a Dedicated IP that trigger a listing, refer to the above remediation steps and resources, to address the list management issue. Tier III Blocklist (Low/ No impact ) These are considered the lowest tier and therefore cause the least impact across the Marketo sender ecosystem. Some of these blocklists were more impactful at one time, while others are only impactful based on the sender region (Manitu). Others still can suddenly flare up (Lashback). There are also many blocklists that are ignored (0spam), and are not taken seriously because they do not provide any means to delist once on the list (NoSolicitado) or that they charge money to have the listing removed ( UCEPROTECT ). The pay-to-delist model is not well respected in the email industry. When using blocklist tool checkers, such as MXToolBox, many blocklists will appear, but very few are relevant. Here is our selection of Blocklists you may come across that are least impactful: Project Honey Pot SpamAssassin URIBL/SURBL DrMX PSBL 0spam HostKarma Ascams ZapBL Barracuda Trendmicro Inc. Cloudmark Proofpoint Invaluement ISP Blocklists Some ISPs use internal blocklists to make blocking decisions. Examples include AOL, Yahoo, Gmail, Outlook and Hotmail. If your IP is being blocked by one of these networks, and those networks have a large presence in your lists, a block of this kind could have a noticeable negative impact on delivery. Marketo monitors for significant ISP blocks. Those experiencing deliverability issues with emails not making it to the Inbox and bulking in the spam folder may benefit from additional services with our Email Delivery Consultants. Remediation Steps: Email Delivery Compliance Team works to resolve any ISP blocks. ISP blocks are are usually resolved or lifted within less than 24 hours of a delisting request. Customers experiencing significant blocks for Microsoft domains (outlook.com, live.com, microsoft.com), can submit a request to the delivery team to seek mitigation on their behalf. Additional Resources: Blocklist Deep Dive Abuse Report Deep Dive What is a spamtrap, or spam trap, and why does it matter? Blocklist remediation Blocklist resolution flowchart Successful lead reconfirmation What is a blocklist?

Issue If your Smart Lists are processing slowly, you may be able to speed them up using Segmentations for exclusion lists. Solution Many companies maintain email exclusion lists based on a number of criteria. In Marketo, these are often set up using Smart Lists that are then referenced in "Member of Smart List" filters. However, Smart Lists that reference other Smart Lists can be slow to resolve. Using a Segmentation for your exclusion lists instead of Smart Lists can help your campaigns and programs run more efficiently. Instructions for setting up Segmentations can be found here: Create a Segmentatio. You can then use the Segmentation filters in your Smart List rather than the "Member of Smart List" filters: Use Segment Filters in a Smart List.

Issue You are trying to identify your most active leads and set up a Smart List with an "Opened Email" or "Clicked Email" filter using "Email 'Is Any'" and a "Min number of Times" constraint, but are not sure if results are based on individual emails or 'all' emails in the 'Date of Activity' range. Solution These filters read from the Activity log so the min number of times constraint is based on all emails for a given record For instance, consider a record that has received Email 1 twice and Email 2 once. To meet the minimum qualifying threshold of three, the record qualifies since it has a total of three email send activities (two from Email 1 and one from Email 2). The same criterion applies to click activities. Note: An open activity is recorded only once per email per record. For further details, you can read more here .

Issue You want to measure who clicks a specific link that uses a query string from a landing page, but when you try to use this logic in a smart campaign or smart list, it tells you the URL can’t be found, even though you can see the URL embedded on the landing page. Solution If you are using the link "marketo.com/company/contact/?firstname=test", then you need to seperate the url into the link and the query string. The root domain (Link in the filter/trigger) will be marketo.com/company/contact/ and the query string (from Add Constraint dropdown) will be firstname=test. This will allow you to correctly track the links you are wanting. Make sure that you have the correct Web Page associated as a constraint as well. This is a article attached image This is a article attached image For a better understanding of what query strings are, they are the parameters that are preceded by the "?" in the url. Detailed Doc :- on UTMs and Query string parameters :- Tracking Lead Sources Using UTM Parameters

Issue You have been sending live emails (non-samples) to yourself or colleagues to test functionality of an upcoming email blast, and even though you may be opening the email, you are not seeing the open email activity on the Lead Activity Log. Solution Note that there may be a slight delay between opening the email, and the activity displaying on the Log. Marketo considers an "open" to be when the images in the email are downloaded, specifically a single-pixel tracking image. The recipient may be receiving the emails and viewing them, but not downloading the images. This would not count as an "open." Please note that since text-only emails have no images, so they will never log an Open activity. If the images are being downloaded, and you are still not seeing the activity after about 5 minutes, check to make sure there are no duplicate leads that are logging the activity instead. If you need further assistance, please contact Marketo Support.

Issue You would like to have a list of leads who will get blocked from receiving emails when you send email via campaign or program due to Communication Limits. Your Communication Limit setup can be found in the Admin Panel and looks something like this. This is a article attached image Solution You can create a Smart List with the below setup and this list will show you the list of the people who will hit communication limit when you try to send an email. This is a article attached image To learn more about Communication Limits and how they work, you can review this article.

Issue You would like to pull a report of all the non-marketable records that you have in Marketo. Solution You can do this via a Smart List: Use the Any filter in the Smart List. Filters: Block Listed = true Unsubscribed = true Marketing Suspended = true Email Invalid = true Email Address is empty This Smart List will pull all the people that fall into the blocked leads list. You can also add a view in which you can add above mentioned columns to the smart list which will give a view if a record is block listed /unsubscribed etc. Reference Doc :- Create and Change Views for Lists and Smart List

Issue There are several special characters that are rejected by the Marketo system on the backend and which can cause errors or strange behavior when attempting to use them in asset or field names. These characters are: [ ' " < > { } ; ] This is a article attached image Solution These characters should not be used because they are often used in code and scripting languages. Generally, Marketo will give an error if this is attempted. However, in the event that the name is accepted there is a good chance that you will see some strange behavior when attempting to use the asset or field. There is a large range of different behaviors that can result and they are all very unpredictable, so the best choice of action is to not use these characters with asset or field names at all.

Issue Clearing cache and cookies in your browser will fix a number of different problems related to page display, browser errors, and login issues. Solution Here are links to the support articles on how to clear cache and cookies for the most commonly used browsers. Chrome Clear cache and cookies - Computer - Google Account Help FireFox How to clear the Firefox cache | Firefox Help Internet Explorer https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/278835/how-to-delete-cookie-files-in-internet-explorer Microsoft Edge Microsoft Edge, browsing data, and privacy – Microsoft privacy

Issue Program member custom fields are not syncing data to Salesforce campaign member fields even though they are mapped. In this setup, the sync for Campaign Members is being performed by 'Add to SFDC Campaign' or 'Change Status in SFDC' flow-steps, but the Program itself is not set to sync with an SFDC Campaign. Environment SFDC Integration Solution This is the expected behavior, as the program member custom fields will only sync data to campaign member fields when the Salesforce Campaign Sync is setup for the Instance/Program in question. Using flow steps to sync SFDC Campaign Members will not carry over data for Program Member Custom Fields. Root Cause SFDC Campaign Sync is not enabled. Enable/Disable Campaign Sync Enable/Disable Campaign Sync | Adobe Marketo Engage Program Member Custom Field Sync Program Member Custom Field Sync | Adobe Marketo Engage

Summary Customers may face errors referencing Segmentations when importing programs between instances. Issue Program import fails giving an error message like the example below: "Marketo encountered an error while importing Nurture Program: EXAMPLE - Acquisition NUR B2B [SMB] FY24 - TEST Why: The Segmentation_Type_1003 field exists in the following objects: Person What to do now: Create a field named Segmentation_Type_1003 in the Person object." Environment Marketing Activities Import Program Solution The simplest solution would be to temporarily remove the Segmentation references from the child assets (Smart Campaigns, Smart Lists, etc.) that currently exist in the importing Program within the source instance. Once the import succeeds, references to the Segmentations can be re-added to the source (as well as the destination, if needed) instance's Program's assets.

Issue When trying to clone a Form or Landing page from Design Studio to a specific Program under Marketing Activities, there is no list of programs that appear. Solution This is expected behavior. When you don't see a program listed, this is because the number of programs in Marketing Activities actually exceeds what we're able to display at one time. If you start typing into the Program field in the pop-up window, you should start to see programs listed in the drop-down. For example, you enter the name of the particular program, you will get a result.

Issue You receive the error message of "exceeded limit" for Program Member Custom Fields (the documented limit is 20), but you don't see 20 fields listed in the Admin > Field Management > Program Program Member Info area. Root Cause There may be Program Member Custom Fields in your Marketo instance that are hidden. These hidden fields still count toward your limit of 20. As next steps, in Admin > Field Management, review the Hidden Fields area to find the hidden Program Member Custom Fields, and un-hide them. After un-hiding them, they will appear under Admin > Field Management > Program Program Member Info. To resolve the "exceeded limit" error, unused fields should be deleted. Reach out to Marketo Support to delete Program Member Custom Fields.

Issue Leads are stuck in a smart campaign's Wait Step and have not moved onto next steps, even though the Wait Step has been updated/shortened and the lead should move onto the next step. Solution When a lead enters a Wait Step, it remains in the Wait Step as defined at the moment they entered it. For example, if the lead enters a 1 week Wait Step, it will remain in the step for 1 week. If the Wait Step is updated to be longer or shorter (for example, shortened to 3 days or extended to 2 weeks), the lead that already entered the Wait Step (when it was 1 week) will remain in the Wait Step for the original duration. New leads entering the Wait Step will abide by the new duration.

Issue When cloning an asset from Design Studio into Marketing Activities, there is a box that asks you to select which program to clone the asset into. When clicking into this box, you may see No Results, even though there are programs within Marketing Activities. This is a article attached image Solution Expected Behavior: This happens when there are too many programs in the Marketing Activities tree. To select your desired Marketing Program, begin typing the Program Name, and results will begin to appear in the Program drop-down. This was designed to increase UI performance when cloning assets into Marketing Activities from Design Studio.

Adobe Marketo offers a number of ways to contact Marketo Support directly for assistance from our different support regions. Further details about your Adobe Success Plan can be found HERE. Note: If your Marketo Instance and Users have been migrated to Admin Console, refer to this Admin Console Overview page for managing the Adobe entitlements across your organization and to engage Marketo Support. Marketo Support Portal (https://support.marketo.com) The Marketo Support Portal features a web form to submit support cases to Marketo Support. The form provides 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. We encourage you to leverage our Best Practices when submitting your case to Marketo Support. Support Services – Regions, Hours, and Languages Authorized Support contacts can engage Marketo Support by calling one of our Adobe Enterprise Phone Numbers for your region. Live Telephone and Online Technical Support Priority 1 incidents: 24x7x365 via phone or online support case Priority 2-4 incidents: Support available during regional business hours via chat or online support case. Regional Business Hours Applicable regional business hours are based on the billing address in the Sales Order or purchasing documents. If Adobe is contacted for support by someone other than the designated Named Support Contacts, Adobe may request that that the support case be resubmitted by a Named Support Contact. Languages Japanese language support is available during Japanese regional business hours, excluding holidays or Adobe days off. Japanese support is not available for Adobe Commerce. With the above exception, all Support will only be provided in English. Support Access Customer will grant Adobe Support access to applicable customer systems via remote support tools controlled by Adobe for the purpose of troubleshooting and support services. Regional Business Hours for Support Applicable regional business hours are based on the billing address in the Sales Order or purchasing documents. Americas Europe, Middle East & Africa Asia Pacific Japan 6 am – 5:30 pm 9 am – 5 pm 9 am – 5 pm 9 am – 5 pm

Issue Issue Description Velocity scripted tokens are not displaying the default value in the asset if the information required for the token is not in the database. Solution Issue Resolution Email Script tokens are not designed to work with the {{my.token:default=Some Value}} syntax, which is for simple tokens. Rather, you must output the default value within the code (using #if/#else, $display.alt or any other conditions) then include just {{my.token}} in the email. Examples can be found here: https://developers.marketo.com/email-scripting/

Issue A lead skips the send email flow step, but processes through the other flow steps. In the results tab and in the lead activity log there is no mention of the email step. Example: Solution If your lead record is blocked from receiving emails, Marketo will not send an email to that lead. If an email is not sent, there will not be a record in the activity log for the lead record or in the results tab of the smart campaign, but the lead will still go through the other steps as normal.

Issue You've been using Marketo for a while and have started noticing that Smart Lists take longer to process than before. There are multiple filters in your Smart List ranging from really specific attributes about a person to really broad geographical information. Solution The best performance will come when you order the smart list filters from most restrictive to least restrictive. Since your entire database is checked against the first filter, if we can narrow down the number of leads which move on to the next, there are fewer and fewer leads who qualify for each of the subsequent filters. Many times, the processing difference will be minimal. However, as your database grows, the penalty on efficiency can grow over time. If you haven't checked it out already, take a peek over at our product documentation for smart list best practices: https://docs.marketo.com/display/public/DOCS/Best+Practices+for+Smart+Lists

Knowledgebase

Maintaining a Directory of Leads Bouncing Emails

Top Blocklists - What You Need to Know

Using Segmentations for Exclusion Lists

Using "Opened/Clicked Email - Email is Any" with a "Min Number of Times" Constraint

URL Not Appearing on Filter for Smart Campaign or Smart List

Unable to Create Subscription for Static List

Marketo Does Not See an "Opened Email" Activity

Identify Leads That Have Reached Their Communication Limit

How to Pull a Report of All Non-Marketable Records

Asset or Field Names Not Accepting Special Characters

How to Clear Cache and Cookies

Program Member Custom Field Data Not Syncing To SFDC Campaign Members

Error During Program Import

Unable to Clone form from Design Studio into Marketing Activities

Error exceeded limit for Program Member Custom Fields

MyToken used in Email not reflecting correctly

Leads stuck in Wait Step after Wait Step Change

No Programs To Select When Cloning Assets From Design Studio To Marketing Activities

Contact Adobe Marketo Engage Support

Email Script (Velocity) My.Tokens Not Displaying Default Values

Lead Skips the Send Email Flow Step But Runs Through the Other Flow Steps

Does the Order of Smart List Filters Matter?