3 Consecutive Hard Bounces

[Anonymous]

I have a smart campaign running to capture any lead that hard bounces 3 consecutive times. My initial thought is to set up a flow that automatically deletes these hardbounces from our Marketo instance (no point in having them sit there counting against our license limits).

However, I understand that once we delete the lead, we lose all data that came in with it (e.g., acquisition program, etc).

Is there a best practice for dealing with leads/emails that you know are hard bouncing? Does it make sense just to black list them, or would deleting them be the better way to go? If you choose not to delete them, but black list them instead, will the lead still count against your license?

Thanks,

Steve

[Josh_Hill13]

Yes, it is better to set Email Invalid=TRUE or blacklist because if you delete them, you lose the data.

I would only delete records later on (say semi-annually, or before your license renewal) that are Marketo Only or SFDC Leads. And by "Delete", I mean download in Excel and delete from Marketo+SFDC. Yes, these will count against your license, but this is only done once a year.

Depending on the record keeping requirements in your jurisdiction, you will most likely want to avoid deleting any SFDC Contacts who may be with past or current Customers.

[Anonymous]

Hey Steve, any action other than deleting them will count against your total number of records in your database. That said, I think it's rare that people choose to delete records instead of keep them so that they can retain the infromation that they have about them like you mentioned.

We mark them as unmailable (first through a series of marketing suspended campaigns, and then blacklisting) so taht we keep their information but obviously don't harm our/Marketo's reputation by continuing to mail them.