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(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 Description: The Activity Log shows "Fill out a form" without a page visit. How users could fill out a form without visiting the page? Issue Resolution: Google Chrome introduced Incognito. Firefox, Safari, Opera and Internet Explorer implemented Private Browsing. Pages that users visit in Private Browsing/Incognito will not leave traces, like cookies, on users' computers after they close all open windows. A normal visit to any page is not tracked during visits, regardless the navigation path. That includes other pages after the form is filled out. The new Do Not Track feature is a contributing factor for apparently incomplete Activity Logs. When users turn on the Do-not-track feature, the browser tells every website they visit (as well as their advertisers and other content providers) that they do not want their browsing behavior tracked. Honoring this setting is voluntary — individual websites are not required to respect it. Websites that do honor this setting should automatically stop tracking your behavior without any further action from users.

Issue A Change Data Value activity gets recorded on a person record but the Updated At field for the record doesn't get changed to reflect it. Solution The "Updated At" field in Marketo is a system managed field that gets refreshed any time that there is a data value change to a person field, but not when the field is on the company object instead. To confirm what object the field in question is on, search for it in Field Management and check what folder it is located in. The folder Info (or Lead Info) contains person fields while company fields are contained within the Company Info folder.

Issue You would like to use the 'SFDC Oppty Campaign ID' as a constraint for the Smart List filters ' Has Opportunity' and 'Opportunity was Updated', however, it does not appear as an option. Solution By system design, there are some opportunity fields such as 'SFDC Oppty Campaign ID' that are restricted and cannot be made visible in Marketo as a constraint or filter. One workaround is to create a custom field in Salesforce on the Opportunity object that holds the same value as the 'SFDC Optty Campaign ID' field. As a result, this field will appear in Field Management and become visible as a smart list constraint or filter in Marketo. If you would like to implement this, reach out to your SFDC admin.

Issue Issue Description When a lead is created through an API call, the Reason and Source attributes say "Web Service API" with no further detail. Solution Issue Resolution As described in the doc here, https://docs.marketo.com/display/DOCS/Understanding+System+Managed+Fields, "Source" and "Reason" fields are managed by Marketo: Web Service API for Original Source Type means Person was discovered by a web service API. For Registration Source Type, it states that Person was created via SOAP/REST API When a lead is created via API, no additional "Source" or "Reason" is provided to Marketo. A possible workaround is to create a custom field and populate it as needed through the API.

Issue This describes the difference in how filter logic applies to triggers and filters in a Smart Campaign Smart List. Solution Issue Resolution You can view the video on this here. Filter logic in a Smart List only applies to filters (the green criteria) and not triggers (the orange criteria.) If you have multiple triggers in a Smart Campaign, they will always operate on ANY/OR logic, which is to say, only one of the triggers needs to fire in order for the Smart Campaign to run. The filter logic you select, whether it is AND, ANY, or Advanced, will be used to further filter the leads after the trigger has fired.

Issue How to use the Web Page, Referrer URL, or Query String constraints to specify web page when using one form on multiple pages. Solution Use the appropriate constraint to specify which page the form is on when using a "Fills Out Form" trigger or "Filled Out Form" filter in a Smart List. There are three options: Web Page Referrer URL Query String Web Page This constraint is designed for Marketo Landing Pages. If you have one form on multiple pages, and were attempting to specify a Marketo Landing Page, then you would use Web Page. If you use Web Page, your value is the Landing Page asset name, such as "Global Contact Form Page". Or if the page is local to a program, the name format would be [program name].[landing page name] Referrer URL This constraint is designed for external, non-Marketo pages. If the form you have is embedded on an external page, the value you would enter would be the URL of the page.This constraint is very picky about the values entered. Say the form is on http://www.pages.domain.com/contact-us.html. Only the following 2 options would function: Referrer URL - is - http://www.pages.domain.com/contact-us.html Referrer URL - contains - www.pages.domain.com/contact-us By using "is", the exact value must match. When using "contains" a smaller portion of the whole can be used. Even "contains" /contact-us would have worked successfully, but the less specific the value is the more other pages could qualify depending on the use case. Generally, "contains" is advised with a unique portion of the URL because there can often be querystrings on URLs that would then not satisfy the "is" constraint. Querystrings If the form is on a page, and the page has a querystring, such as: http://www.pages.domain.com/contact-us.html?product=new-stuff, then the form submission activity on the Marketo record would have a new field in the Detail called Query Parameters. (Querystring, Query String, Query Parameters are all the same thing.) If you set up direct links to the Page with unique querystrings, then you would be able to use the Querystring constraint and use values from the querystring in the trigger/filter form fillout campaign.

Issue A/B test in Email Program status is still showing “Running test…” and not all email variants were sent as expected. Environment A/B Test Email Program Sample Size Running Test Solution To ensure the sample size qualified at least a minimum of the total variants of the A/B test. For example, if you have a total of 6 records, a sample size of 34% will suffice for 2 records (1 for variant A and 1 for variant B). Root Cause This can occur if the sample size selected is too small. For example, if you have a total of 6 records, a sample size of 1% will not suffice for 1 record.

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.

Issue Issue Description My Tokens not appearing in an email as an option to insert. Solution Issue Resolution It is highly likely that the email is not in the program or campaign folder containing the My Tokens. Examples: The email could be located in Design Studio The email is within a program but the token is not defined in the program it is in, or the campaign folder it is in In all cases, the email must be within the program or campaign folder that contains the My Tokens.

Issue You have created a Nurture Engagement Program and are running an Engagement Stream Report, and a stream is not showing on the report. Solution One likely cause for the stream not showing on the report is that the stream is not sending out content. Once the content in the Engagement Stream is being sent (cast), then the email activity will begin to show on the Report. In order to cast content, the cadence must be set. If the Stream Cadence has been set, and the stream is still not showing on the Report, another likely reason is that there are no leads in the stream. The solution here is to add records to the stream.

Issue Issue Description Importing a program from one subscription to another is failing and is returning the following error sent via email: Marketo encountered an error while importing [Program Name] The token "lead.First Name" is not available in the destination subscription. It is either a custom field that you have to create or need to be synced from your CRM system, if you use one. This is a article attached image Solution Issue Resolution Check if there is any malformed lead.First Name token in email Check if there is any malformed lead.First Name token in email template used by the email(s) in the program Check if there is any malformed lead.First Name token within a program token Check if there is any malformed lead.First Name token within smart campaign flow step(s) This error has been known to occur when the email template had a lead token coded as follows, with a line break between 'First' and 'Name': {{lead. First Name}} Note: In this scenario, the error message received via email is actually referring to the token in the email template that contains a line break between 'First' and 'Name' but is stripped out on the message when HTML is rendered.

Issue The Engagement Program has no engagement score more than 72 hours after the Engagement Program cast. Solution First, make sure that is has been more than 72 hours since the Engagement Program cast, since it takes some time for the engagement score to update. If you are using child programs in the Engagement Program stream, check the individual programs to see if leads have achieved a Success status in those programs. When programs are used as content in streams, the engagement score is based on program membership and success status, not email interaction (clicks, opens, unsubscribes). Also, if there are any campaigns in the child program that contain wait steps, the Engagement Score will not populate until the campaign is complete. https://docs.marketo.com/display/public/DOCS/Understanding+the+Engagement+Score

Issue Email Program Audience count is different than delivered/bounced email count. Solution The Audience number doesn't refresh or update once the Smart List is created, so the number of qualified people can change between then and sending the email. That is normal. If you want to double check the people, you can click the refresh button on the Audience pane of the email program just before sending, or create a separate Smart List with the same filters just before you send the email. Also be aware that the Audience may include duplicate leads, or leads that have reached their communication limit. These leads will not show as blocked, but will not be sent the email

Issue You want to edit a campaign flow after initiating the run, but there are already members running through the flow in the wait steps. Solution Generally speaking, it is best to not edit the flow of a campaign after activating/initiating. Example: Let's say that a particular campaign has 3 flow steps: Change program status Wait 2 days Send email And you would like to add a new step in between 1&2, so the new flow would be Change program status Change score Wait 2 days Send email If you add a new Flow step above a wait step, the wait step shifts down. However, currently there are leads waiting the designated 2 days (Flow step #2). (It's helpful to think about wait steps like buckets. Once a lead enters the flow step, the wait duration is calculated, and the lead waits there in that flow step bucket for that amount of time.) If the campaign was initiated, and a lead entered Flow step #2 and began waiting 2 days, and then you add an additional step above, the Wait 2 days becomes Flow step #3. Now when the leads are done waiting 2 days in Flow Step #2 bucket, then they exit and progress to #3. Even though the actual wait step shifts from #2 to #3, the lead records are still in Step #2 bucket, and they do not shift from #2 to #3, meaning they are now waiting an additional 2 days. Solution: The solution here is to create a new campaign with the desired flow steps for the same membership (same Smart List), and then run a "Remove from Flow" single action by clicking the following in the old campaign (the one you wanted to edit): View Campaign Members > Select All > Person Actions > Special > Remove from Flow. In the Run Action dialog box, click on "is" and change to "this campaign". Click "Run Now". After removing these members, they will not progress further into the old campaign flow, and now the new campaign is ready to be activated/initiated.

Issue There is a noticeable delay between when campaign is run and affected person records are updated and activity records are written to. Solution Check the Campaign Queue. If the affected campaign is backlogged in the queue, the only resolution is to wait for higher priority jobs to clear. To check the Campaign Queue go into the Marketing Activities tile and click on the Campaign Queue Tab. Campaign queue is read only and cannot be reordered. Plan accordingly with very large campaigns to give time to process during off hours or slow times.

Issue Issue Description Smart Campaign within a default program has members but these are not displaying under the results for total program members or in Program Performance reports. Solution Issue Resolution Default programs do not add members to the program automatically. An "Add to Program" or "Change Program Status" flow step must be included in the Smart Campaigns that exist within the default program to make the leads members of the program.

Issue Sometimes there can be a circumstance where a text token should hold null value. Since the token must contain a value, you need to insert a value that will display as empty when the token is rendered. Solution Adding a HTML comment to the on the Text {{my.token}} side would work.  If you're just plopping the token into your HTML, this will be fine. If you're embedding it in Javascript then you can still check for that specific value, it just won't be "magic": if ( "{{my.token}}" != "" ) { // it's not empty }

Knowledgebase

Maintaining a Directory of Leads Bouncing Emails

Top Blocklists - What You Need to Know

Activity Log Shows Form Submission without a Page Visit

“Updated At” System Field Not Updating

“Opportunity Campaign ID” Field Not Available in Smart List Filter Constraint Options

"Reason" and "Source" Attributes for a Lead's Activity Simply Say "Web Service API"

How Filter Logic Applies to Triggers and Filters in a Smart Campaign

Specifying Web Page on Form Fillout Filters or Triggers

Status: “Running test…” A/B Test

Storing Activity Data Beyond Retention Policy

My Tokens Not Inheriting Values from Top-Level Folder

My Tokens in Not Working Choice Steps

My Tokens Not Appearing in an Email as an Option to Insert

Engagement Program Stream Not Showing On Report

Error Importing Program -Token Is Not Available in the Destination Subscription

Engagement Program Has No Engagement Score

Engagement Program Failed to Send Email in Stream

Email Program Audience Is Different than Delivered Emails

Editing Campaign Flow with Members in Wait Steps

Delay in Updating Person Records Activity Log After Campaign Runs

Default Programs Not Assigning Program Statuses Automatically

Creating a MyToken with a Null Value