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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 Emails cannot be delivered from the Marketo instance and the following Soft Bounce code was recorded in the record's activity log. 554 5.4.7 [internal] (last transfail: 435 5.7.8 Authentication credentials invalid) Environment Dedicated IP Address SMTP Relay credential invalid Soft Bounce Code: 554 5.4.7 [internal] (last transfail: 435 5.7.8 Authentication credentials invalid) Cannot send email Email Delivered not recorded in activity log Solution Provide Marketo Support with the updated credentials so Support can create an internal request to get the update the credentials on Marketo's end. The process can take up to three (3) business days to complete. Note: Avoid using special characters in the password such as quotation mark (") as it can alter the configuration. Root Cause The credentials for the SMTP Relay has been changed and no longer match what is stored in Marketo. In most cases it is the password as it need to be change on an annual basis.

Issue When editing the expiration date for a user in Admin by completely removing the expiration date set to null and clicking save. The change is not saved, and the expiration date remain. Environment Expired Date for user Expiration Date Changing the expire date to never in Admin Solution There are two options: 1. Change the expiration date to a date in the future. 2. Delete the user in Admin and recreate the user again and set the expiration to never. *Please note that if option 2 is selected, the history of the user is will be lost and this cannot be retrieved. Root Cause This is a design limitation as it is expected for the user with an expiration date to be deleted from the Marketo Instance after the expiration date has been reached.

Issue Form in Design Studio will not convert the time format upon language selection. English form with date format dd/mm/yyyy This is a article attached image Below is a form using settings with form language selecting German. The date format remains the same "dd/mm/yyyy" when the expected value should be "tt/mm/jjjj" as per language date format This is a article attached image Environment Marketo forms and common web browsers such as Chrome, Opera, Firefox. Root Cause This behaviour is related to the browser language settings. It automatically translates the date in the format of the selected language in the browser. Example of the same form with different browser language selected, the date format is changed by the browser This is a article attached image This is a article attached image

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

Issue When working on an event program, Marketo Engage users are unable to select a webinar provider in the event partner selection. Environment Event program Webinar provider (ON24, Zoom, Cvent) Solution The members need to be removed before setting up the event partner. You can remove members from a program by changing their status to "Not in Program". Root Cause Marketo does not allow selecting an event partner in a Marketo event program with members.

Issue The issue appears when a custom view is created in MSI that contains dependant fields. The error message: "The dependent picklist '<dependant field name>' requires its controlling field '<parent field>' to be present on the page." will be displayed when you are trying to add the dependant field. For example: "The dependent picklist 'Sub-Classification' requires its controlling field 'Classification' to be present on the page." Environment Salesforce MSI Solution Need to omit the dependant field in the custom view. Root Cause We curently do not support creating a view in SFDC MSI with a dependant field.

Issue You may be wondering if it is possible to edit or rename your custom fields in Marketo. Solution Yes, editing or renaming your custom fields in Marketo is possible. You can do so by navigating to "Admin" > "Field Management" > Click on the field on the right-hand side field list > click on the name of the field in the centre canvas (UI) then edit. Your fields would need to be unused by any asset in order for you to edit/rename them.

Issue When looking at Email Insight it is only showing the first email activity (Send, Delivered, Click or Open), even though the email has been sent several times in the past few days/weeks/months. Environment Email Insight Solution Use different Smart Campaign to send the email if you want to track statistics of the email. Root Cause Email insights will only track the first email activity associated with the email if using the same campaign. this is the same as Email Performance report in terms of this note. Multiple sends from the same campaign to the same person are counted only once.

Issue The Source Campaign field in Microsoft Dynamics is not getting updated when the field is updated in Marketo. The sync from Microsoft Dynamics to Marketo will be working fine. Environment Native integration with Microsoft Dynamics Campaign Sync not Enabled Solution To sync Campaign Source from Marketo to Dynamics, the option 'Campaign Sync' needs to be enabled as per this documentation: Enable Campaign Sync | Adobe Marketo Root Cause If the Campaign Sync is not enabled we will not be syncing over the value of the field to Microsoft Dynamics as it is part of the Campaign Sync.

Issue Lead conversion/qualification through workflows in Microsoft Dynamics CRM resulting to duplicates (i.e. Lead and Contact) in Marketo Environment Microsoft Dynamics CRM Lead conversion Sync Solution While lead qualification through workflows is currently not supported, one approach that we saw implemented by a customer that did not result in duplicates is by redeveloping the lead qualification workflow using the msdyncrmWorkflowTools (1.0.54.0): QualifyLead step. Dynamics-365-Workflow-Tools/Qualify Lead.md at master · demianrasko/Dynamics-365-Workflow-Tools This was verified to result in no duplicates as the workflow writes the "Create [Qualify Lead]' operation type to the Marketo Log which is like the standard qualify button. Should there be any further assistance needed in developing the lead conversion workflow, it's recommended to engage with our Professional Services / Consulting team Root Cause Marketo's integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM currently does not support custom qualify workflows.

Summary You have set up a campaign or campaigns in the Email Deliverability Tool (250ok), but there is no engagement metric showing Total opens and Unique opens, which should be available in the ‘Engagement Overview’ in the Email Deliverability tool. You would need to ensure that you have configured the necessary setup for the tracking to work in the Email Deliverability tool. Issue Campaigns created in the Email Deliverability tool (250ok) doesn’t show any engagement overview metric such as total opens and unique opens. Environment Email Deliverability tool (Production/Sandbox) Solution You would need to implement the necessary setup for the metric to show in the Engagement Overview in the Email Deliverability tool (250ok) Follow the steps below to ensure you have configured the setup for campaign tracking. 1. Ensure your DNS CNAME is configured. (All that is required is creating a CNAME DNS entry on this domain that points to 250analytics.com) For more information, you can refer to this external documentation: https://www.validity.com/knowledge-base/what-are-custom-domains-in-250ok-analytics/ 2. Insert the correct tracking pixel code retrieved from the Email Deliverability tool. 3. Always utilizing the ‘c=‘ tag in your tracking code for your campaigns to ensure the tracking is measured correctly in the Email Deliverability tool. (Obviously, the CNAME above is essential to have it set up correctly). You can follow a guide on how to implement the ‘c=‘ tag and retrieve the tracking pixel is here: help.returnpath.com/hc/en-us/articles/360046308092-How-Do-I-Add-My-250ok-Tracking-Pixel- Once you have all these configuration settings, you can start tracking your campaigns which are sent via Marketo in the Email Deliverability > Engagement Overview. Root Cause Mis-configuration or no configuration made causing the campaign tracking does not work.

Issue Per our developer page: https://developers.marketo.com/rest-api/assets/programs/#update, it is possible to update tags on your existing program When updating a program tag within an existing program, you may encounter an error below given the tag and its values are correct. {"code": "709","message": "Required tags are mandatory"}]} Environment Any API clients when performing the Web Service API Solution The workaround is to have the tag updated via the UI. Root Cause "Updating tags is a destructive operation." Any attempt to update the tags of a program must include valid values for all of the required tags for a program. Unless the 'specific' tag type you are working on is the only required tag type in the instance, then that is possible to update it using the API. Otherwise, you'll encounter the error above as it is a system behaviour.

One of the biggest gains to productivity you can employ with Executable Campaigns is the ability to pass the token context of the parent campaign to child campaigns. This allows you to template your campaigns to use contextual data from the parent and then put it into practice within reusable executable campaigns. It also allows you to set up My Token values as defaults, and then override them by setting them in the calling campaign. Let’s take a look at an example: Evaluating activity scores Evaluate Activity Score Most Marketo subscriptions use activity or behavioral scoring to some extent, and executable campaigns make it easier than ever to create an effective activity scoring model. By using the same My Token keys in the parent and child campaigns we can craft an activity scoring campaign that can be used by any triggered activity in a single workspace. This is what a basic templated scoring flow looks like. The interesting moment is configured to stamp that activity log with the parent campaign name and ID for debugging purposes, and should be omitted for performance reasons in production. Note how the Change Score step has a Change value of {{My.Activity Score}}. This is defined as +0 in the Evaluate Activity Score program, so if executed with overriding the token context, or if the value is not defined in a calling campaign, then that will be the value used: Calling the Campaign Suppose you want to score when someone fills out a particular form, but you also want to apply a score when they are created by filling out that same form. In this case you would need two campaigns, each with their own parent program. Our New Lead campaign needs to listen to the “Person is Created” activity, needs to execute the Evaluate Activity Score campaign, and needs {{My.Activity Score}} to be defined: Configured this way, our New Lead campaign will call the child campaign with the parent campaign’s context and increment the score by +15 and then move on to the rest of the flow. For our campaign that’s listening for a form fill, but not creation, we only need to configure the trigger and My Tokens differently: When a lead qualifies for a run through our Evaluate Activity Score campaign, we see that the Person Score is correctly incremented by +15 when it goes through our campaign: Working with this pattern This pattern can be applied and modified to work with many different scoring and lead lifecycles. There are a few things to keep in mind, though: If you are nesting executable campaigns, I.e., using the Execute Campaign step within an executable campaign, you need to set Use Parent Token Context to true through each layer where you need to use token context in the child campaign. Using folder-based My Token inheritance can help ensure a value is set in all of your relevant folders. For example, if all of your scoring listener programs and campaigns live in a single folder tree, you can set a {{My.Activity Score}} at the top level folder, which can then be overridden at the local program level. My Tokens that you want to override in an executable campaign should be set in both the child and the calling campaign, as well as any campaigns between the initial caller and the ultimate child. As designed, each campaign that wants to call the Evaluate Activity Score campaign, needs to be in its own program (or Campaign Folder) in order to have its own specific {{My.Activity Score}} token. More than one score per program needs either multiple “Change Score” steps in your evaluator campaign, each with a distinct score token, e.g. {{My.New Lead Score}} = +15 vs. {{My.Form Fill Score}} = +5 vs {{My.Unsubscribe Score}} = -10, or a distinct campaign for each score-activity pair that you want to score distinctly Pair this with the suggested categorization model for Executable Campaigns for best results.

Executable campaigns are a powerful new feature designed to allow you to make your campaign logic modular, reusable and maintainable. However, staying within the limit of three nested executables can be difficult when your campaign trees get complicated. This article describes a simple method of classifying your executables into three categories to help you stay within the nesting limits while also remaining productive. Three Categories for Executable Campaigns This classification system has three categories with simple definitions: Tier 1: These campaigns may not be executed by other executable campaigns Tier 2: These campaigns may not execute other Tier 2 campaigns Tier 3: These campaigns may not execute any other campaigns By classifying your campaigns in this way, and abiding by their restrictions, you can avoid bumping up against the nesting limit. Now we have a way to avoid the nesting limit, but how should you map your existing campaign logic and lifecycles into these categories? Let’s look at Tier 3 first, as it is the foundation of this model Tier 3 – Task/Unit - May Not Execute Any Other Campaigns Tier 3 cannot execute any other campaigns, and this is where individual tasks should be implemented. Your organization can define what a task is in this context, but I think that it is useful to borrow the definition of unit from software development: A unit is the smallest testable part of any software. In the context of Marketo, a unit is the smallest testable part of any campaign. Let’s look at a common example for lead lifecycles: Taking a country input and outputting a country code to a different field. The above is an abbreviated example using flow-step choices to match the value of Country to a particular country code. Supposing we wrote a test for this, we would expect a lead who enters the flow with an empty value of “United States of America” to receive a Country Code value of “US”. This or similar steps could be a unit for your business, but you do not need to limit your units to single steps. Your Tier 3 task campaigns should tend to be short sequences of work which are used in multiple contexts Tier 2 – Orchestration – May Not Execute Other Tier 2 Campaigns Tier 2 (as well as Tier 1) are more flexible than Tier 3 campaigns as they can execute other campaigns themselves. These executables can be used to string sequences of other campaigns together alongside standalone flow steps. An example would be a Standard Data Enrichment campaign. Where normalizing a country code is a unit or task, this is a sequence of one or more data enrichment tasks that can be maintained and modified separately from the logic of the individual tasks themselves Tier 1 – Last-Mile – May Not Be Executed by Other Executable Campaigns You may find that your business does not need to use Tier 1 campaigns, and that you can satisfy your organizational needs with just Tier 2 & 3 campaigns. However, Tier 1 campaigns allow an additional layer of flexibility for you to manage your campaigns. Typically, one of these campaigns will call a mix of individual flow steps, and Tier 2 & 3 campaigns to assemble a flow for a typical lifecycle event, like a Standard New Lead Flow. These typically include data enrichment, normalization, scoring, and routing flows, which can be created as tier 2 or 3 campaigns.

This is working as expected. The Parent Company Name field gets its value set from a different process and not via the SFDC Synch. SFDC and Marketo Engage both have a Parent Account ID field in the Account Object (Company Object in Marketo). If there is a parent account ID in that field, then the value of that field is automatically populated via a reference to the other Account Record. Since Company in Marketo is mapped to Name (SFDC Account) whenever that value is updated it will be reflected in Marketo. Example: Account ID 1 has a Parent Account ID of 2. They both have records in the same Account table. If the Name is changed of the Parent Account it is automatically reflected in any child accounts as the Parent Account Name is just a reference.

Issue Smart campaign email tab's count for soft bounced and delivered activities does not match the number of soft bounced and delivered activities in smart campaign results tab Example: Email tab shows 5 soft bounces, whereas, results show 6 soft bounce activities Email tab shows 10 delivered, whereas, results show 13 delivered activities Solution The email tab on a smart campaign is an Email Performance Report so it is calculated based on documented rules at Email Performance Report | Adobe Marketo Root Cause There was one lead that opened the email, so the lead was not counted as soft bounced on the email performance report and was counted as email opened based on email performance report rule #4 "If the email is Opened, bounces are ignored." There were three leads that had soft bounce activity also had a delivered email activity. Based on email performance report rule #1 "Each email activity record is set to one, and only one, of the following: Delivered, Hard Bounced, Soft Bounced, or Pending." - in this case, soft bounce takes precedence over delivered email activity so the three leads were not counted as delivered on the report but were counted as soft bounce. Environment Smart campaign Email tab Smart campaign results Email performance report

Issue When adding new IP Address to the IP Restrictions list on Admin > Login Settings > IP Restrictions, you receive this error message: "Your current IP address (XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX) cannot be blocked." Environment Admin IP Restrictions Login Solution Ensure that you have Admin Access to the Marketo instance and that you have logged into the Marketo instance via one of the IP Addresses listed on the IP Restrictions list. Root Cause User logging into the instance with an IP Address not on the IP Restrictions list.

Issue Email Performance Report shows different results than same audience as a smart list Solution Create a filter for the report for field Email address is not empty. Root Cause An email performance report includes activities for all people, including those that have been deleted since the email was sent. Sometimes, you want to see activities only for active people. In that case, you need to filter deleted people out of your report. Use the Smart List tab to create a smart list for the report. If you aren't filtering on any specific field, set the Email Address filter to: is not empty.

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

Knowledgebase

Maintaining a Directory of Leads Bouncing Emails

Top Blocklists - What You Need to Know

Soft Bounce Details: 435 5.7.8 Authentication credentials invalid.

Changing the expiration for a user to never

Translation of date format in Marketo form

Blocklists: Frequently Asked Questions

Unable to select a webinar provider in an event program

Unable to create custom view in SFDC MSI with dependant field

Modify 'Friendly name' (label) on custom fields

Why are emails sent from the same campaign to the same person only showing up once in Email Insight?

Source Campaign field is not updating in Dynamics from Marketo

Duplicate leads after lead conversion in Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Email Deliverability Tool - Campaigns Not Being Tracked

API Error 709 When Updating Tags of an Existing Marketo Program

Executable Campaigns - Overriding Token Context

Executable Campaigns - A Method for Organizing Nested Executable Campaigns

Parent Company Name display SFDC data when not mapped

Smart Campaign Email Tab discrepancy with smart campaign results

Restrict Marketo Logins Based on IP Error

Email Performance Report shows different number of leads from Smart List

What Happens to Merged Leads in Campaign Wait Steps?

Send Email Flow Step Failed