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

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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 You want to customize the error message shown if a form field is left blank or the wrong type of data is entered. Solution Open the form in Design Studio and select the field you want to update the validation message for. Select "Validation Message" on the right hand side of the screen. In the dropdown menu, select "Custom instead of the default "Standard" and enter your custom error message.

Issue When trying to sync a lead to SFDC, it fails with an error message "_createSObjects failed - AgreementTaskTrigger: execution of BeforeInsert caused by: System.NoAccessException: Script-thrown exception ()" Solution Your Salesforce instance has a custom SFDC trigger that fires when you create a lead in SFDC (in the example, the trigger is named "AgreementTaskTrigger") but the trigger was not able to execute, so the sync failed. To investigate this, you will have to set up a debug log on the Marketo sync user in SFDC and have your SFDC admin look into the details. If you disable the trigger in SFDC, the sync will work without an issue.

Issue You are setting times using natural language inputs, but are wondering: if I set a constraint of "in past 2 days", will that looks at the last 48 hours or will it look at the last two calendar days from Midnight-Midnight based on the timezone specified in my instance? Solution Using a constraint that is looking "in past 2 days" will look at the last 48 hours, if it was set as "in past 3 days" it would look at the last 72 hours, etc.

Issue You receive a Marketo email and an email address in the text is blue and underlined, which does not match your desired styling for the email. Solution When an email address is simply included in the email text, the email client's default behavior may automatically convert it to a link with blue text and an underline. In order to override this default email client behavior, use the following HTML: <a href="mailto:[email address]" style="[custom styling]">[email address]</a> When the email address link is inside the anchor tag <a>, the email client will not override this custom styling that you wish to use. This can be used for tokens as well: <a href="mailto:{{lead.Email Address}}" style="[custom styling]">{{lead.Email Address}}</a>

Issue After moving an asset to a new folder, you are unable to see the asset in the tree, or see duplicates of the asset in both the new and old location. Occasionally, this may occur even when you have not recently moved the asset. Solution Sometimes when an asset is moved from one folder to another, it may not display correctly in the navigation tree. This is generally due to a caching issue. Try refreshing the browser or logging out of your Marketo instance, then logging back in. If this does not clear the issue, contact Marketo support to have us clear the tree cache for your instance.

Issue A lead qualified for a Smart Campaign even though they do not meet the Smart Campaign filter requirements. Solution At the time the campaign ran, the Smart List was configured differently, which made the lead qualify at that time. The Smart List of the campaign was then changed after the campaign ran. Users with admin permission can check this using the Audit trail https://docs.marketo.com/display/public/DOCS/Change+Details+in+Audit+Trail#ChangeDetailsinAuditTrail-AssetAuditTrail

Issue Often times variables are used in emails and guided landing pages for marketers to quickly and easily change a link URL in a CTA button. However these links cannot be made dynamic when used with a variable. Solution The variable needs to be removed and replaced with an editable section or a rich text element. Once this is done the editable section or rich text element can be made dynamic. This will require some prior knowledge of HTML as the code of the asset itself will need to be changed. The links below will guide you through the syntax that needs to be used to modify your HTML. Create a Guided Landing Page Template Email Template Syntax

Issue You have been utilizing the default tracking links to send Emails to leads in Marketo and decide to change the default tracking link to your own branding tracking. When you do so, this breaks the links in emails you have already sent. Solution The branding tracking link should be one of the first steps that the customer(s) need to do when they obtain their instances. If you decided to change the default tracking link to a branded tracking link after utilizing them in emails, you should be prepared in advance that any email sent prior to the change will generate the 404 Error. We recommend not sending any emails within a week or two of the change so that an email sent on Monday is then broken on Tuesday.

Issue Description You sign up for ToutApp and receive a notice that your account is under review or your account is not verified. Issue Resolution If you sign up for ToutApp using a generic email address such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, Outlook or other email providers your account may require verification by Marketo Support. Please contact Marketo Support with the following information. Company Name: Business Address: URL(s) of your primary Web site(s): What is your average weekly and/or monthly email volume? Do you purchase, or have you ever purchased lists of leads? If yes, which providers have you used and when was your last purchase?

Issue Description You have a wait step that is behaving erratically, and holding people for erratic or undefined periods of time Issue Resolution Check to make sure that the unit of time is not misspelled. A wait step with Minute spelled "mintue" or Hour spelled "Huor" won't validate the spelling or logic of the wait step (that squiggly red line), so you'll need to make sure the spelling isn't off. Who This Solution Applies To Wait Steps Is this article helpful ? YesNo

Issue Issue Description You noticed that there are form actions missing from the Form Actions dropdown. The following options should be missing: Approve Draft (If form is in a draft state) Preview Clone Form Embed Code Preview Draft (if form is in a draft state) An example of this dropdown may appear as: Solution Issue Resolution This is due to the form having been created using an outdated version of the Marketo Form Editor. You may want to consider re-creating this form with the current Marketo Form Editor, and archiving the outdated form. Keep in mind that if you archive the form, you will want to reference the new form in smart lists and smart campaigns.

Issue Description When we try to drag and drop elements (form, rectangle, etc) into a free-form landing page, nothing happens. Issue Resolution If the free-form template is not mobile compatible, you may experience this issue. Please make the template mobile compatible to fix it. Refer this article to make the existing free-form template mobile compatible: Link - https://docs.marketo.com/display/DOCS/Make+an+Existing+Free-form+Landing+Page+Template+Mobile+Compatible

Issue Description You want to set a field such as "Country" to be required on a list import. Issue Resolution You cannot require a field to be included on a list import. To see any leads imported recently with blank values you can setup a smart list with a subscription Filters -- Lead was created Source Type - Import [Field you are wanting to watch] is Empty You could setup a daily subscription to get the leads who qualify and then correct those leads as needed. Is this article helpful ? YesNo

Issue Description When we delete the static lists from a program after a period of time, will the leads they contain no longer be member of the program? Issue Resolution The individuals should still be a member unless you change their membership status to remove them. Remember lists are simply collections of individuals so you can easily process or associate them, they don't automatically get "membership" unless you had corresponding flow steps that you used when putting them on the list. Is this article helpful ? YesNo

Issue Description Customers based in our Sydney datacenter experienced a service issue which caused an intermittent disruption in email sends beginning 10:30 AM AEST local time on November 12, 2018. This issue was resolved at 1:00 pm AEST and all emails are now sending normally. No customers outside of the Sydney datacenter were impacted. During the impacted time frame, some email sends were lost and will not be delivered. The issue occurred intermittently during the affected time, so some emails were sent successfully, while others were not. This documentation provides details on how to identify the impacted lead records. Identifying Affected Leads Symptoms All lead records that were sent emails during the impacted time will show an "Email Sent" activity (as per normal behavior) Leads that were not impacted and successfully had emails sent will show the corresponding "Email Delivered" or "Email Bounced" activities (as per normal behavior) However, the impacted leads that emails did not send to will NOT have any "Email Delivered" or "Email Bounced" activity. They will show the "Email Sent" activity, but there will not be any corresponding activity to indicate what the result was - Delivered or Bounced. The emails that failed to send will not be retried. Leads impacted by this service issue will not receive the email unless customers choose to re-send it through another Campaign or Email Program send. Using Smart Lists to Identify Leads To identify affected leads create the following Smart List: Filter logic: ALL filters Flow Step #1: Was Sent Email Email is any Date of Activity is ‘2018-11-12’ Flow Step #2: Not Was Delivered Email Email is any Date of Activity is ‘2018-11-12’ Flow Step #3: Not Email Bounced Email is any Date of Activity is ‘2018-11-12’ Flow Step #4: Not Email Bounced Soft Email is any Date of Activity is ‘2018-11-12’ Once complete, your Smart List will look like this: The lead records returned by this Smart List will be the impacted records that did not have emails sent during the affected time frame. *NOTE: In a limited number of circumstances, there is a possibility that a very small number of leads did not have the "Email Sent" activity logged. This will be an uncommon occurrence, if it happens at all. Who This Solution Applies To Customers in the Sydney Datacenter. No customers whose Marketo instances are located in other datacenters are impacted in any way. Where to get additional help If you would like any additional help please contact Marketo Support.

Knowledgebase

Maintaining a Directory of Leads Bouncing Emails

Top Blocklists - What You Need to Know

Customizing the Error Message (Validation Message) on a Form

Marketo - SFDC sync error _createSObjects failed

In Past X Days in Campaign Filters and Steps

Received Mail Has Email Addresses Underlined and Blue

Assets Duplicated or Missing from Navigation Tree

Lead Qualified for the Smart Campaign Unexpectedly

Can Variables in Emails/Guided Landing Pages Be Made Dynamic?

Changing the Default Tracking Links to a Branded Tracking Link

Activity Log Filter Not Shared to Other Users

ToutApp account under review

Wait Step Issues Due to Misspellings

Missing Form Action Options in Older Forms

Unable to drag or drop elements into landing page

Setting a field to be required on list import

Remove a list from a program

Sydney Datacenter Email Send Disruption 11/12/2018

How to exclude my company from the RTP email reports

ToutApp: How to customize call outcomes in Salesforce

We created a new field in Microsoft Dynamics CRM; can I sync that to Marketo?

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