Program statuses are defined when you create your Marketo Channels. You can use a program status to determine the level of success for each of your marketing tactics (e.g. Number of records in a seminar which attended vs registered). I recommend you don’t edit program statuses once they are set. Marketo doesn’t delete statuses from the “Change Program Status” drop down list and it is easy to choose the incorrect status. It is highly recommended to have as few statuses as possible to reduce confusion and errors.
When determining your statuses remember Marketo will automatically set a record to the first program status when a record fills out a Marketo form on a Marketo landing page or when a record is imported directly into a program. If you have multiple program statuses you have to remember to set success for that program. If you forget to set program status especially success you will not be able to see membership or successes in reports.
Key things to remember about program statuses
- A record may have only one status at a time in a program
- A record which has any status in a program is considered a member of the program. The date a record receives a status is the membership date. There is no way to reset a records membership date to the original date if you change a record’s status to “Not in Program”
- Program status will be automatically be updated if you are integrated with a Marketo webinar partner
- Tracking membership and success is critical for reporting
- Records which have attained a meaningful interaction should be considered a “Success” in the program. You can define success for each Marketo channel differently (e.g. Webinar, Seminar, Gated Content).
- You will have the most “success” creating a success status for non-event channels that is generic. It is best you define the engagement activity which equals success specific enough that you can adequately track your efforts but not so granular that it becomes meaningless or difficult to define or understand.
Tips for determining success
- Ask yourself “What’s the objective of this program?” “How do I know if this program did well or not?” “How do I define being Engaged for a program?”
- Think about whether you would want that Program getting credit in your attribution reporting
- Remember: DON’T Be so strict that you are hardly ever “successful”
- Remember: DO give credit where credit is due for a marketing success
- If multiple things can be success for the same activity (e.g. for some tradeshows, you want people to visit the booth and for others, you want them to schedule a meeting), choose a generic success step and define it more specifically in the individual programs
Success Examples:
- Content success = filled out gated form or clicked link to download
- Email success = click a specific link or any link except social or unsubscribe links
- Online advertising success = filled out gated form
- Webinar success = attended or view on-demand
Continue to Part 2.
Link to Checklist for Attribution Reporting.
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