A sustainable data management plan

[Nurture_Ninja]

I'm working on a long term, sustainable data management plan for our Marketo instance. I thought I saw an article/post here on this topic, but I cannot find it anymore. Perhaps I'm being delusional? Anyway, I'm looking to put something in place, like a quarterly or half-yearly plan that will allow me to keep check on hard bounces and weed them out periodically, remove repeated soft bounces, delete spam, delete anyone not engaged for over last 12 months, check for valid incomplete records and have them completed via Zoominfo Enrich etc.

Please advise if you have any recommendations around this.

Thank you!

[Darshil_Shah1 · Accepted solution]

I published an article on Marketing Nation on Marketo Database Health Check-up & How to Keep it Clean, perhaps you refer to that. Additionally, below are some of my general suggestions for keeping the data in Marketo relevant:

• Identify the unengaged over a significant period of time - this list includes people who haven't taken any actions from their end in spite of continued marketing to them for a while.
• Ensure you have proper data normalization and management setup in place, and it wouldn't hurt to revisit it from time to time (1x a quarter/6 months) to ensure that it's relevant and doesn't need any updates. The last thing you'd want is to have an outdated data management setup that is doing more harm than good.
• Deal with the invalid/blocklisted/repeated bounces records - you can delete them from Marketo and keep them in Salesforce (one thing to note here is that deleted records from Marketo would get recreated as net new records if they get updated in SFDC. Implementing a custom sync filter is a way to go if you don't want that to happen - there are plenty of posts and help articles on the nation on this topic if you search).
• Deal with unwanted duplicate records - Marketo has a Possible Duplicates system smart list to help you identify the duplicate records in the database.
• Review the custom fields - A lot of people overlook this crucial part and over time they end up with a ton of unwanted custom fields. Make sure that all of your custom fields are still relevant and that you are using them effectively. You can hide any unused custom fields.
• Develop and implement a data governance policy: A data governance policy will help you to ensure that your data is accurate, complete, and secure.
• Regularly train your team on data management best practices: Make sure that your team understands how to properly collect, enter, and manage data in Marketo.

I hope you find this helpful. Please let us know if you have questions. 🙂

[Nurture_Ninja]

Thank you very much for these steps. These are great! About data governance policy, is there anything specific to Marketo that was developed or someone has shared insights into? Thanks

[Darshil_Shah1]

@Nurture_Ninja - you're welcome! Well, data governance could vary from company to company, however, it all boils down to having a proper setup in place to ensure consistent and high-quality data across your systems (CRM, Marketo, etc.). You'd likely need data management and normalization campaigns within your Marketo to ensure the data in it is normalized and cleaned, especially if people are getting created/updated from various sources (wherever and whenever need be). Additionally, you might also want to create certain monitoring reports and smart lists (e.g., picklist monitoring smart lists) that look for any data discrepancy you might want to fix. A complete data governance data policy also involves establishing processes, roles, responsibilities, and policies to manage data effectively. You should also consider checking out this Marketing Nation post on Data Management Best Practices – Resources for Managing Bounces; there are some good articles/posts linked in this.