Any tips on changing channels / tags / general cleanup

[Matt_Lyman]

After attempting to get some basic info from support, I am hoping to get some advice from all of you!

We are revamping our Marketo instance. We want to change all of our program attribution parameters (they were not set up well a few years ago) - including tags, channels, and success steps. We will also be doing a lot of folder clean up.

Do any of you have any high-level tips? Here are some specific questions:
1. If we move folders, do we need to worry about anything? Folders are just folders, correct, and should not trigger anything.

2. We were planning on just hiding all outdated current channel tags (and creating new ones to fill gaps) so they are not useable, but prior to that, we will need to change some of the success steps on a few that will remain in production. What might this do? Our webinars are synched with SFDC (not many other programs are - see the problem) and will be one that we leave - and hide existing statuses we don't need. Have any of you seen issues with this?
3. What other pitfalls could we see?

Thanks in advance for your help!!

Matt

[Grégoire_Miche2 · Accepted solution]

Hi Matt,

1. Folders may have tokens and these tokens may be used in program assets in these folders. In this case, moving a sub folder in another parent one or moving a program may bring to empty tokens. In this case recreate the same tokens in the target parent
2. The way I would to this is to edit the channels and just change the name of the 4 key steps that you will not be able to remove anyhow for a Event with Webinar type of channel. And hide the rest. And also archive all the programs that are based on the old channels, at least to make sure that no one will ever try to clone them.
3. There are probably some more pitfalls, but none that I can think of right now

-Greg

[Matt_Lyman]

Thanks for the response, Gregoire. Seems like it isn't going to be that "difficult" to do. Now I just have to spend the time cleaning it all up - especially those that similar groups that have different tags.

[Robb_Barrett]

1. DO this in Sandbox First.

2. Repeat Step 1 to all members of your team.

[Anonymous]

Hi we are looking to do the exact same as Matt mapped out above. I have a few quick questions:

1.) We have our programs syncing to SFDC campaigns based on actions that took place within the program. These only sync correctly if the SFDC campaigns have the exact same statuses that match the program steps in marketo. If we update our current channels, with new statuses and hide old ones, what are some best practices with this?

2.) For some reason we have like 5 different email channels. If we want to consolidate them, and five of them are being used in various programs, how do we ensure that we don't loose the reporting on those? Is there a way to import a new email channel program, on ones that we want to delete?

3.) Above you state that we should hide older programs so they are not cloned, but also we still have older program that have gated content out on the site and various social media channels. We still want those programs associated with the original program. If we are revising these channels, how do we make sure we keep reporting for them?

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Allison,

As a matter of fact, changing the steps in channels that are in use for programs that are sync'ed with SFDC is NOT a good idea. You will be creating some serious issues, plus the fact that you will have to revisit all these programs, update the smart campaigns as well as the statuses of all their members.

-Greg

[Raj_Jain]

Grégoire Michel what can be done then if you must change the channel tags of existing programs that are synched to SFDC? What are the types of issues are you referring to above that will be created?

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Raj,

you will end up with a list of member statuses that are not the same in Marketo and SFDC. As a result, the sync of members between the programs and campaigns will fail.

to fix this, you will have to to each SFDC campaign that is based on the same channel (selected through the campaign type in SFDC) and edit the values for the member status field (in campaign advanced setup) and make sure the member status are exactly the same as in Marketo channels (down to punctuation and case).

Greg

[Raj_Jain]

amazing thank you!