Your Achievements

0% to

Next /

to gain points, level up, and earn exciting badges like the new !

View All Badges

Open Alert Bar

Knowledgebase

Featured article

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 An email using a Velocity Script Token fails to send. Environment Marketing Activities Solution There is a 40 custom field token limit per email. If you have Velocity script tokens present in the email and those tokens more than 40 fields, the email will fail to send. To resolve, ensure that velocity script tokens have less than 40 custom fields referenced. Root Cause The Velocity Script Token in the email exceeds the limit of 40 Custom Fields.

Issue You encounter the error "XSRF Protection Mismatch: User does not have access" when trying to access a Marketo instance, or when using the instance switcher to change from 1 instance to another. Root Cause This error can happen when you have multiple Marketo tabs open or can be due to session cookies, and the resolution is to clear cookies and re-try. If the error persists after clearing cookies, please reach out to Support.

Issue My SFDC production instance is undergoing Instance Refresh Maintenance in SFDC. Will this impact the SFDC and Marketo sync? Salesforce Article: Help And Training Community Solution Provided the org ID of your SFDC environment stays the same, it will remain connected to your Marketo instance. As best practice, double check with your SFDC team that all of your SFDC records will retain their unique IDs after the refresh. After the refresh occurs, double check that the Marketo connection in Marketo (under Admin > Salesforce) is intact.

Issue You encounter a "Couldn't connect to host" SFDC sync error. Environment Salesforce Solution This is a message returned by Salesforce to Marketo indicating that for some time, Salesforce couldn't be accessed because the SFDC servers were temporarily down. This could be caused by transient SFDC Server issues/outages but is most commonly caused due to scheduled Salesforce database maintenance. When these errors occur, Marketo will continue to sync to SFDC where it last left off once the Salesforce servers are back up and running - however, this only applies to records already syncing with SFDC. If any records affected by this sync error were attempting to initially sync (through "Sync person to SFDC" flow steps, for example), then the flow steps need to be run again to push any of those records to SFDC for the first time. The global background sync works on its own and will automatically retry to sync any recently updated records (that were already previously syncing with SFDC) after the Salesforce server outage has been resolved. Root Cause Server outage or scheduled maintenance on SFDC servers

Summary Admin unsubscribe HTML is overriding unsubscribe language hard-coded into an email template Issue You are trying to add unique unsubscribe text to a specific email asset template's code (for example: unsubscribe text in another language), but the Admin Unsubscribe HTML found in Admin > Email > Settings is overriding it. Environment Design Studio/Admin Solution To implement dynamic unsubscribe text by language into an email asset, we recommend using the Segmentations and snippets, placing the {{system.unsubscribeLink}} directly into the email asset via the snippet as the presence of this system token in the email asset should override the Admin unsubscribe HTML. Make Your Unsubscribe Message Dynamic for Languages | Adobe Marketo Engage

Issue You notice that new records in Marketo have the 'Website' and 'Company Name' fields populated with the domain of their email address. Solution This will happened when a new lead is created by a form fill-out. If the new record is imported or created manually then this would not apply. This design decision has been a part of the code for many years where the domain of the email is used for the company name and website fields on the lead record. This feature cannot be disabled.

Issue How page views and form fills are counted in the statistics section of a Marketo Landing Page asset. Solution How they're calculated When viewing the Landing Page asset in either Design Studio or Marketing Activities, the statistics section provides information regarding page views and form fill outs, if the page has a form located on it. The page views are a cumulative total indicating how many times the page was loaded, regardless if the visitor was a known record in the database. This means anonymous people can record a view here, due to Munchkin tracking on the page. This section provides a total number of views, not unique visits. This means that a person can load this page multiple times and each visit will be tallied in this section. The form fills section (x Filled out Form (x%)), indicates how many times a visitor filled the form out on the page, if it has one. This total is also counted in the same way the views section is, meaning it's a total number of submissions. Therefore, if a record in your database fills out the form more than once on a page, it will be counted toward the total. Difference between calculations The difference between these two metrics is that the page views will keep a historical record of visits to the page. This means the total will not change if you happen to delete a bunch of records that visited the page in question - the total persists regardless if the record is no longer in the database. With that said, the forms section does not. This area is tied specifically to the existence of that known record in your database. This means that, once a record who filled the form out is removed from your database, the submissions they performed will be subtracted from the total.

Issue The subject line for an email sent out to leads did not match what was set for an approved email. Solution The email may have Dynamic Subject Lines enabled. Dynamic Subject Lines allow you to set dynamic content for the subject line based on the Segmentation of your leads. Visit our Documentation for further information about segments and dynamic content. Segments: Create a segmentation Dynamic Content: Using Dynamic Content in an email The issue can be resolved by converting the subject line to a Static Subject Line. A Static Subject Line is a single line of content that will send out to any recipient of your email, regardless of their segmentation. You can do so by doing the following: Click on the Subject Line to bring up the Subject Line edit buttons. Click the Make Static button

Issue You may notice that there may be a block in SFDC that stops syncing unsubscribes from Marketo to SFDC. After fixing the block in SFDC the new unsubscribes will sync as expected. Here is how to get all the unsubscribes that happened before this fix to sync into SFDC. Solution You would need to set up a campaign to reset the field value. Smart list: Unsubscribed = true Flow: Change data value "unsubscribed" -> False Change data value "unsubscribed" -> True That would take everyone who is currently unsubscribed, switch to false and then back to true. That should cause the true value to sync up to SFDC for all of those records. However, make sure you do this at a time when you are absolutely positive there are no email campaigns going out.

Issue Leads are members of a Marketo Program that is synced with a SFDC campaign, but there are some leads that have not synced to SFDC. Solution 1.) First check to see if this was caused by a Salesforce Sync Error. This can be checked in the Admin area under Admin > Salesforce > Sync Errors. Additionally, errors will appear under Notifications, check for the subject 'Salesforce Sync Error: Unable to Add Leads to Campaigns'. This will list the details of the SFDC Error and a list of sample leads along with the Salesforce campaign that they failed to sync to Example error: INSUFFICIENT_ACCESS_ON_CROSS_REFERENCE_ENTITY: insufficient access rights on cross-reference id Sample Leads: Salesforce Campaign lead1@mail.com Campaign name lead2@mail.com Campaign name 2.) This can also be caused by mismatched statuses between the Marketo Program and the SFDC Campaign. If the status doesn't exist on both sides, leads with the problem status can fail to sync. 3.) This can also be caused by a backlog for the program/campaign sync. Check with Marketo Support to see if a backlog is present. Who This Solution Applies To Customers using Marketo with Salesforce integrated

Issue You need to mass update Salesforce records to get them to sync into Marketo. Solution Use the Salesforce provided Data Loader! This is a tool Salesforce provides for such occasions. Here's an article from Salesforce with more information. For any questions regarding this tool, please seek your Salesforce Admin or Salesforce Support as they will be the best resource to answer those questions! https://developer.salesforce.com/tools/data-loader

Issue Why does the record in Marketo have an Opportunity when its matching synced Contact in Salesforce does not have an Opportunity? Solution The Contact in Salesforce has an Opportunity Contact Role associated with an Opportunity that belongs to other Contacts. Since "Marketo associates Opportunities and contacts using Opportunity Contact Roles.", Marketo syncs down the Opportunity for the record has it has an Opportunity Contact Role associated with it.https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/marketo/using/product-docs/crm-sync/salesforce-sync/sfdc-sync-details/sfdc-sync-opportunity-sync.html?lang=en If the Opportunity is needed to be removed from the record in Marketo, then: The Opportunity will first need to be deleted in SFDC. The visibility of the role value that is not the primary owner of the Opportunities will need to be removed from the Marketo Sync User. Re-create the Opportunity so that it can be associated to the primary owner. Who This Solution Applies To Customers who has Salesforce integrated to Marketo

Question: Is it possible to assign a lead owner during a list import? Answer: No. The reason for this is because lead ownership is a Salesforce functionality and should be first done from within Salesforce. If you are not able to do the assignment in Salesforce, here is one option that is available to you within Marketo: 1) Upload your leads into Marketo's Lead Database without lead owner information. i.e. your import CSV will not have any lead owner column in it. More information on importing leads can be found here: Import a List of Leads from a Spreadsheet into Marketo (Import List). 2) Once the list import is successfully completed and your leads are in Marketo, you can use the "Sync Person to SFDC" flow action to assign lead ownership. More information on the "Sync Person to SFDC" flow action at Sync Person to SFDC.

Issue Interesting Moments for a specific Marketo record are not showing up in SFDC Sales Insight for the record with the same email. Solution The most common cause for this is that the record in SFDC is not the same record as the one in Marketo. This can happen if there are duplicate records in Salesforce with the same email address. To check if the record in Salesforce matches the record in Marketo, compare the SFDC ID. On the Marketo side, this can be found in a field on the Lead Database record. The SFDC ID for a record in Salesforce can be obtained from the URL. It is generally the the 15 alphanumerical characters near the end of the URL (e.g. 012300000012BYN) - here is an article in Salesforce for more information: https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=000004383&type=1

Issue Email filtering can prevent the delivery of the invitation email to the Sales Insight Outlook Plug-in, preventing end users from being able to activate the plug-in. Solution This can be remediated by white-listing the trusted IP range from the following document: https://docs.marketo.com/display/public/DOCS/Setup+Steps#SetupSteps-AskITtoConfigureProtocols The email invitation return path is determined by the Marketo user who is inviting in the instance. So if there is a restriction on the domain that the email can be sent from you can adjust this by creating a dummy user with a username with the a domain that would qualify for IT restrictions. Then log in as the dummy user and send the invitation. It will have the dummy address in the From line.

Issue In Salesforce on the Account level for Marketo Sales Insight, it does not show all the activities of the associated contacts. Solution Marketo Sales Insight only shows certain activities depending on how recently they occurred on the account level. Interesting moments: last 60 days Web Visit: last 3 days Score Change: last 30 days Email: Everything If you wanted to check activities past these dates you would need to go to the contact level and check the history there. The reason behind this is because at scale if there were 100s of contacts under one account and all contacts are active and creating activities it would be difficult to sift through the activities and may cause performance issues due to the sheer amount of data being displayed which is why this limitation is in place.

Issue Issue Description When syncing records between Marketo and Dynamics, an error is received of "Marketo is unable to update the following records in Microsoft Dynamics" due to "A record was not created or updated because a duplicate of the current record already exists". Solution Issue Resolution The reason for that error is due to custom de-duplication rules set up in Dynamics, specifically when Marketo inserts a lead record or updates lead and contact records. There are a couple ways this issue can be addressed: 1) Your team can review the custom de-dupe rules in Dynamics and open them up so Marketo can insert/update records. We recommend this step first! 2) There is a Support tool that will allow suppression of the de-duplication rules set up in Dynamics for the sync user. With this tool, the sync user will be able to insert leads for the first time or updating a lead or contact. This process isn't typically recommended as a first step because it can lead to duplicate records being created, but if you'd like the suppression enabled, please reach out to Marketo support with the details of your request. Who This Solution Applies To Dynamics Users

Issue Running a Revenue Cycle Explorer report on Opportunities shows programs from long ago are being credited for those Opportunities through Multi-Touch (MT) Attribution measures. Solution When using Multi-Touch measures, past programs will also be credited if a contact on the Opportunity achieved success in the program. A possible workaround could be to utilize Filters in the RCE report to try to narrow the results.

Knowledgebase

Maintaining a Directory of Leads Bouncing Emails

Top Blocklists - What You Need to Know

Custom Field Limit for Velocity Tokens

XSRF Protection Mismatch: User does not have access

SFDC Production Instance Refresh

Error single id enabled users cannot have their passwords reset

SFDC sync error: "couldn't connect to host"

Admin Unsubscribe HTML is Overriding Unsubscribe Language Hard-Coded into an Email Template

'Website' Field Same as Email Address Domain

Statistics section on a Marketo Landing Page asset

Subject Line for Sent Emails Different than What Was Approved

Sync past Unsubscribes into SFDC

Leads Not Syncing from Marketo Program to SFDC Campaign

Mass Update Salesforce Records

Record has Opportunity in Marketo but not in Salesforce

Is It Possible to Assign a Lead Owner during a List Import?

DMARC Policy Bounce in ToutApp

Interesting Moments Not Showing in SFDC Sales Insight

Email Filtering Blocking Sales Insight Outlook Plug-In Invitations

Marketo Sales Insight - Account Level Limits

Dynamics Sync Error - "A record was not created or updated because a duplicate of the current record already exists"

Past Programs Credited With Current Opportunities