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 After running a Smart Campaign to delete some records, you don't see any deletion activities in the Results tab. It appears the campaign did not run. Solution If you ran a Smart Campaign to delete records and the only flow action is to 'Delete Person', you will not see any activities in the campaign results as these activities would be associated to the deleted records. This would lead to the impression that the campaign did not run, even when it did. In order to check the status of the campaign or if the records were deleted, you can check the 'Run History' of the campaign to see if it has one of the following statuses: "Completed (number of people qualified)" "Running campaign - executing flow" If the campaign is still running, you can also check the Campaign Queue to see if the campaign is still in the queue.

Issue Emails with valid email address get soft bounced with this error: Local address contains control or whitespace. Solution This error means that the email has a space somewhere in the the From email address or there was a comma or extra character in the From line. If you do not see a space inside the email address, check the end of the address to see if a space somehow got added at the end. The email send did not occur due to the error with the address. The emails will need to be resent once after the associated address is corrected with white spaces or extra characters. Also, there is the possibility that email address "text" contains Paragraph marks or hidden formatting symbols (https://www.computerhope.com/jargon/f/formmark.htm) and instance users will required to have it reviewed and changed.

Issue Is it possible to add code from a content management system (CMS) into a Web Campaign in RTP? Solution Marketo Web Personalization does not integrate with any content management system's (CMS) content to draw or pull content campaigns into the Web Campaign. Personalized campaigns need to be created within the Web Campaign editor. So what does this mean? When you are using HTML tags within the Web Campaign Editor in RTP, Marketo only supports the use of RTP HTML tags. On your own website you could have HTML tags and codes from other systems but within the Web Campaign Editor in RTP we only support RTP HTML tags. Note: The RTP Javascript tags works on all types of CMS platforms (Drupal, wordpress, sitecore, HTML pages, etc...) to identify visitors, segment them and show them personalized web campaigns. The above relates to the code used to render a personalized Web Campaign.

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

Article Text Using URL parameters are an important way to organize your web analytics and tracking. With Marketo Web Personalization, when a web visitor clicks on a personalized Web Campaign we add a parameter to the URL. This parameter is "?iesrc=ctr". Having this parameter allows you to report on your web analytics to see and compare all the clicks on Web Personalization campaigns and overall performance of your personalization strategy. The Marketo Predictive Content application also includes a URL parameter every time a visitor clicks on predictive content (from the bar, rich media or email). The URL parameter used here is "?iesrc=rcmd". You can also add your own UTM parameters to the URL link you have in your Web Personalization Campaign or your Predictive Content piece. The most common URL parameter tools we see customers using is the Google Analytics tool. In their words "This tool allows you to easily add campaign parameters to URLs so you can track Custom Campaigns in Google Analytics. See: Campaign URL Builder — Google Analytics Demos & Tools". Make sure to follow the best practices: Best Practices for creating Custom Campaigns - Analytics Help

Issue Description 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. Issue Resolution This can be re-mediated 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. Who This Solution Applies To Outlook Plug-In users Is this article helpful ? YesNo

Issue Issue Description Getting 'Communication Failure' error popup repeatedly when doing normal operations within the application. Solution Issue Resolution: - Disable all browser extensions especially any dealing with ad blockers as they seem to be the primary cause of this issue ("Ghostery" is an example of extension known for blocking multiple Marketo operations/ tasks). - Try to repeat same operations after you have cleaned cache and cookies - (If above option does not work) Try to repeat same operations while using a incognito browser window.

Issue A landing page is taking a significant time to load. Solution The load time of a landing page is generally due to resources that have a large file size or due to third-party scripts. This can be identified by using tools like https://tools.pingdom.com/ that breaks down the loading time of individual resources and scripts within a landing page. Another way to inspect the loading time of resources and scripts within a landing page is using the network feature of the developer tools in Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari or any other web browser: https://developers.google.com/web/tools/chrome-devtools/network-performance/reference https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Network_Monitor https://developer.apple.com/safari/tools/

Issue Email Link Performance report on the same email shows more clicks compared to clicks in the Email Performance Report. Solution Email Performance Report clicks shows the total number of leads who has clicked any link in that email. This count is independent of any links and how many times a lead has clicked any link on that email. Email Link Performance shows the number of unique people who clicked each link. It shows the number of leads who clicked that particular link. The same lead could’ve clicked another link. So in the total it would be counted as 2 leads in the report but in reality both are same leads. This is the reason why you see Email Link Performance report shows more clicks compared to clicks in the Email Performance Report

Issue Issue Description Get the error 'Cannot get email content- Customer does not belong to any POD' when the URL from the 'view as webpage' link is forwarded for review Solution Issue Resolution This is expected behavior as of the 2019Q1 release. After clicking on the view as webpage link, the mkt_tok value will be removed. Attempts at sharing the URL after this point will fail. The mkt_tok value should not be shared. It uniquely identifies the recipient. This is a security enhancement. The preferred method is to use Send Sample to send the email to teammates, or forward the email.

List imports can fail for a number of different reasons, so finding what that reason was is the first step to fixing what went wrong. When a list import fails to import leads, the Import Status dialog box will give you an error to tell you that some of the leads failed to import. The “Failed: X Leads” showing in the Import Status dialog box is a hyperlink. This is a article attached image When you click on the hyperlink, it will download an Excel file that carries the details of what caused the failure. The details for the import failure will change depending on the different types of issues, so watch for the explanations in the far right column for each lead on the list. Invalid data for the field type: This is a article attached image Invalid Email Address Warning: This is a article attached image Lead belongs to a different Lead Partition: This is a article attached image

Issue Description What is meant by the socially acquired member of a program such as a webinar program? Issue Resolution Leads acquired by the following Social Apps are part of the "Socially Acquired" count - Social Button Youtube video Poll Referrals Sweepstakes If you want to track the number of registrations through social shares, you should consider using the referrals or sweeps app. These apps allow the users to share and also help you track how many registrations each of your referrers bring in.

Issue You need to move a Smart Campaign from one Workspace to another but are unable to do so. Solution Make sure the Smart Campaign is not currently active. (If it is a trigger campaign, go to the Schedule tab and click Deactivate.) Create a folder in the Workspace that currently holds the Smart Campaign. Move the Smart Campaign into the folder you created. Drag and drop the folder containing the Smart Campaign into the new Workspace. Note: When you try to move the folder, the assets in the folder should not be used by other assets. If you try to do so, you get an error "Not allowed: The "XYZ" assets are in use or used by other assets." Check the "Used By" tab to see where that asset is in use. Who This Solution Applies To Customers with multiple Workspaces

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 Universal ID is working on some instances but not others. The user gets the login invite but then when they try to sign in, they end up back in another instance without access to the new instance. Solution Issue Resolution All Marketo subscriptions have Universal ID enabled, so this issue may be a difference in password restrictions. If an instance has different password security requirements than the other instances and the password doesn't meet those restrictions, you can end up in this situation. Verify if the password settings match the other instances, and if not, then change the settings and send an invite again. For more information on Password Settings: Change your Password Security Settings - Marketo Docs - Product Docs

Included in this article Overview Testing Overview One of the most important steps in setting up new segments in RTP is testing it to make sure that it's working properly. This article will show how you can test known lead targeting in RTP. Testing 1. Fill out a Marketo form on your webiste using a brand new email address that doesn't exist in this Marketo instance yet. 2. Go to the Lead Database and locate the new lead 3. Create a segment in RTP that targets known leads with the new email address: 4. Wait 5-10 minutes and refresh the webpage 5. Check if you matched the segment. You can check this by finding the lead under "Leads" and then select the lead to see what Segments it matches on the right:

Knowledgebase

Maintaining a Directory of Leads Bouncing Emails

Top Blocklists - What You Need to Know

Smart Campaign to Delete Records Does Not Appear to Run

Soft Bounce: Local Address Contains Control or Whitespace

Adding CMS Code to RTP Web Campaign Editor

Record has Opportunity in Marketo but not in Salesforce

Contact Showing Opportunity Role But No Opportunity

URL Parameters with Web Personalization and Predictive Content

Email filtering blocking Sales Insight Outlook Plug-in Invitations

Getting Repeated 'Communication Failure' Errors

SFDC Error Unable to process due to no XML response from Salesforce

Landing Page Loading Time Too Long

Email Performance Report and Email Link Performance Report Showing Different Click Counts

Getting error 'Cannot get email content- Customer does not belong to any POD' when forwarding 'View as webpage' link

TROUBLESHOOTING List Import Failure Reasons

Socially acquired member of a program

How to Move a Smart Campaign to Another Workspace

Engagement Program Stream Not Showing On Report

Smart list subscription "Download report"

Cannot set up Universal ID for one instance but other instances work

SSL Setup with Reverse-Proxy, Wild-Card, or Self-Signed Certificates

How to test known lead targeting in Web Personalization (RTP)